McKenna would be an absolutely crazy punt. The guy has what? Two years of management under his belt, in league 1 and the championship. On face value it’d be utterly mental. But I’d be quite excited about it. Everyone would expect him to fail, but he could come in under a really good structure with tons of experience and leadership around him, and just get on with coaching. He plays a really exciting brand of football and if you are looking for a true three to five year project, he could be terrific for the club.
Normally I’d say that he’d get eaten alive in this job, but I am very optimistic about the leadership and environment Berrada, Brailsford, Ashworth and Wilcox will create and so I think he’d have the right set up to flourish. He’s also a proper coach in that he is used to getting the job done with the players he has. He’s not a chequebook manager.
All that said, if it was your club, with your money on the line…..what would you do? It’s easy to gamble with someone else’s resources. And when I ask myself that question, I can only come up with one answer. I’d take Tuchel as a likely short term appointment (2 years approx) and see how McKenna, Ireola, Frank, De Zerbi and others fair over a larger sample size of seasons. I don’t think it would surprise anyone if Ipswich came up and were exposed as incredibly naive and conceded scores of goals and went right back down.
