Kieran McKenna on Ipswich exit: 'I wanted to depart in the best way possible'
Kieran McKenna said he realised the moment to leave Ipswich came on the Portman Road pitch in bright early May after his side swept aside QPR and a return to the Premier League was assured. He told an interviewer the occasion — “Another big victory, a full stadium, in front of my family and the fans. It was an amazing way to go out on a high.” — convinced him and his decision was finalised in June.
McKenna, 40, left after overseeing three promotions in five years and a rise from League One to the top flight during four-and-a-half seasons in charge. He described the 2025-26 campaign as the hardest of his spell at Ipswich, having taken two different teams to the top amid the pressure of relegation and a drifting core of players. After two decades coaching, he said family reasons were central to the break, pointing to a golf bag outside his garage, his son’s new interest in the sport and a summer spent travelling the East Anglian coast in a camper van.
Since early September McKenna has begun re-engaging with the game by watching and assessing matches and visiting other clubs, including Bayern Munich, Wigan Warriors and Colorado Rapids, who are managed by his friend Matt Wells. He has been working on foreign languages, “topping up an already competent level of Spanish,” and is visiting clubs in Spain this week. Next Wednesday he will begin work as a technical observer for Uefa when Shakhtar Donetsk play AEK Athens at Stamford Bridge, saying: “I wanted to give myself the best possibility to learn before taking on the next challenge.”
He said offers arrived soon after he left but deemed them premature, adding that the approaches came “too soon, especially given the way I left Ipswich.” Leaving “through the front door” made him proud and he insisted he was not desperate to return to management: “I’m certainly in no rush.”
On the field McKenna said 2025-26 could have gone in different directions and compared the internal threat to other clubs’ post-promotion struggles. “You can see how it could really have gone in two distinct directions,” he said, adding: “We had the feeling internally that if we didn’t work really hard to pull everyone together then it could have gone in a negative way.” He also recalled having multiple opportunities to depart earlier but insisted: “I was always aware I wanted to depart in the best way possible, with the club on a high, back in the Premier League and with a great chance to build for what will hopefully be a really successful period.”
McKenna described the emotional difficulty of his final day, notably a five-minute speech to supporters, and listed farewells to coaching staff and colleagues as touching and joyful. He laughed off the notion he would have relished control of the £200m summer transfer spend and the new training ground whose design he influenced, which he said appears to have given his successor, Gary O’Neil, a better shot at survival. He rejected the idea his exit was motivated by fear of reputational damage from a second relegation: “It wasn’t about the thought of a worst-case scenario or what could go wrong.”
The manager and his wife decided to remain living in Ipswich where their two children attend school, becoming part of the local community; he noted Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson also kept homes nearby after their own moves. He described daily life since leaving as markedly different — “You’re not setting the alarm for 5.30am and driving there in the dark. You’re getting up with the kids and having breakfast with them, and you’re around when they go to bed.” — and said the experience had left him feeling older yet unchanged in character: “I probably feel about 20 years older,” and friends told him he “hasn’t changed since I was 10.”
McKenna confirmed he has been linked with potential vacancies at Celtic and his former employers Spurs and noted Ipswich would be owed a sizeable fee for any role he takes this year. He set out the kind of job he wants next: “I’m always going to want to be somewhere where I can improve players, play attacking football and win games. But beyond that I’m a manager who wants to enjoy having that connection with a club, a community, trying to build something memorable.” He added that a new role would need short-term success, and the article observed that “it does not take a giant leap to imagine McKenna in a Champions League dugout in the next few years if the stars align.”
McKenna said he will continue personal development and remain close to Portman Road, where his brother and children are regulars, and did not plan an immediate return to management. “I think that’ll be some way down the line,” he said, adding: “They’re cracking on with the season. There’s nothing that can lessen my pride and love for everything we’ve been through. Hopefully I’ll be back in the stadium as an old hand, and some of the people will remember the times we had.” He concluded with the aim that, by then, at least one other set of supporters will have experienced what his Ipswich followers did.