“Hugely talented” and “highly respected” were two of the phrases used by Manchester United, external and Ipswich Town to describe Kieran McKenna on the day he left Old Trafford to become manager at Portman Road.
Similar words have been used about many other coaches going into senior club management for the first time — but very few have lived up to them in such a spectacular way as McKenna.
After leaving his role as Manchester United first-team coach to take over at Ipswich with the club 12th in League One, he has guided them to back-to-back promotions, with the team earning more than 90 points in each campaign, and scoring 193 goals in the process.
And now the 37-year-old has the chance to test himself and his players in what former Ipswich captain Mick Mills has called “the promised land” — the Premier League — for the first time since 2002.
Last summer, following promotion from the third tier after winning 28 of their 46 games and losing only four, Mills said that if they could improve the squad “by about 20 per cent” they could compete for a top-six place in the Championship.
But such has been the quality of McKenna’s coaching and the success of Town’s recruitment, they have not been outside the top six for the entire season — and in the top two for the majority of it.
It is even more remarkable as Ipswich only spent a reported £4m on signings last summer, while Leicester, Leeds and Southampton — who were to become their closest rivals — were still benefiting from the Premier League’s parachute payments largesse.
Champions Leicester’s recruits included England internationals Harry Winks and Conor Coady for combined reported fees of about £17.5m, while Leeds, who finished third, reportedly spent a little more than that on two of their summer arrivals Joel Piroe, from Swansea, and Wales international Ethan Ampadu.
There are a number of illustrious names among the list of Ipswich’s former managers, World Cup winner Sir Alf Ramsey, Jackie Milburn, Bill McGarry, John Lyall, George Burley, Mick McCarthy among them — and the man rated by most as the best of them all, Sir Bobby Robson.
But none of them came anywhere close to McKenna’s win percentage of 57 per cent — and it is no surprise therefore that the Northern Irishman was last month named as Championship manager of the season.
