Tribal Football

McKenna: How we changed Ipswich for the better back in League One

Paul Vegas
McKenna: How we changed Ipswich for the better back in League One
McKenna: How we changed Ipswich for the better back in League OneAction Plus
Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna has explained how he was able to turn the club around.

Back-to-back promotions now has McKenna with Ipswich preparing to face former club Manchester United on Sunday.

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McKenna said: “I don’t think I can speak universally for every big club. I know how I did it here.

“It was League One but I think we still had 30-plus senior players, we’d signed 19 players the summer before, there had been a lot of upheaval, there were a lot of unhappy players in terms of their position in the squad, and the team wasn’t anywhere near where it wanted to be or where it should be, really. I think United would probably say some similar things at the moment.

“Everyone will have their own approach to it. My approach was one day at a time, developing the culture at the training ground first and foremost, that’s everything from how we trained, how we live, how we interact with each other, the buildings, the infrastructure, the flow of our working day.

“Developing a playing style, developing an identity, both from a tactical perspective but also from a mental perspective of how we wanted to be as a group and as a team.

“And then taking it one game and one step at a time and fighting to be better in the next training session, trying to be better in the next game, focus on doing the right things in our performances daily and weekly in the games and step-by-step you’ll start moving in a positive direction.

“That’s probably been a pretty short summary of the journey here and I’m pretty sure the manager there will work in the way that he believes in to get United back to a better position than they are now.”