Ipswich Town vs Man Utd: Kieran McKenna and Blues side looking to embrace ‘the extra noise’ and ready for what Ruben Amorim will bring in first match
Kieran McKenna says his Ipswich Town side lining up against Manchester United – under new head coach Rúben Amorim – at Portman Road today (4.30pm, Sky Sports) will be a special occasion, not just for himself but for the club and its recent journey.
The Blues go into the match – set to be played in high winds amid the effects of Storm Bert – having grabbed a famous first win of the season, the 2-1 victory at Tottenham Hotspur a fortnight ago, which saw them move out of the relegation zone up to 17th (dropping to 19th and one point from safety after Saturday’s results).
At the Suffolk club’s first Fans’ Forum in more than a year, McKenna described their upcoming return to action as ‘the biggest in the world anywhere this weekend’ and, at his press conference 48 hours before kick-off, he was asked how he was feeling.
“Really excited,” he replied, “I think having Man United come to your stadium is always a massive game. And with the position that we're in, it's one of the games that you're looking forward to most in the season.
“And when you're Man United or in the situation they are with the change of manager, it's always going to be big news on a global scale.
“So, it's a great game to look forward to for us, first and foremost, trying to go and test ourselves against another very, very good side and a massive club, and build on recent performances and try and pick up another result and pick up some more points along the way.”
Quizzed on what the game means to him given his history with United – he was an Under-18s and then first-team coach at Old Trafford prior to taking charge at Town in December 2021 – McKenna laughed having been down memory lane ahead of the Spurs match a fortnight ago, having been a player and coach in north London before his move to United in 2016.
“I feel like I've done all the reminiscing before the Tottenham game. I can't handle another interview of reminiscing about the good old days!” He joked.
“It’s not necessarily about my association with Man United this one, to be honest, not for me. It's more about Ipswich Town and our journey; 22 years without being in the Premier League, climbing from League One to the Premier League and now hosting maybe the biggest football club in the world at home in the live Super Sunday (Sky Sportrs) match in front of a worldwide audience, and coming off the back of a really good game and a really good victory; I think that's absolutely massive.
“So that's really, really special to be part of; one of the reasons why I wanted to be here this season is for days like this that are really, really special and are going to be fantastic to be part of.
“So, I have to say, any sort of emotion behind this one is more about being Ipswich Town manager, the journey that we've been on and having Man United come into our stadium. I think that's massive for all the supporters, all the players and all the staff.”
Reflecting on his move from the Old Trafford staff to Town, which many may have seen as a risk given the Blues’ struggles in League One, he added: “Leaving Man United at the time, where Man United were, where Ipswich were, was a big disparity. And some people saw that as a gamble in some way, but I was pretty clear in my mind.
“I wanted to take the opportunity to be a manager and I wanted to find a project that I believed in to do it. And in a relatively short amount of time, to now be leading Ipswich Town out against Man United in the Premier League is going to be something to be really, really proud of and a fantastic moment for me.
“But it's not really about me. This is going to be a fantastic game to look forward to for everyone associated with Ipswich Town. A lot of people who will be at the game have been associated with it for longer than me, so it'll be a great moment.
“It's another nice little landmark in our journey, in my journey. But again, my focus is going to be on the game and trying to help the players as much as we can.”
Blues to embrace ‘extra noise’ around fixture
McKenna was asked whether it’s difficult to maintain a focus on the team’s performance and objectives with all the noise surrounding the game.
“It's a good point,” he said. “It's something that you always have. The last couple of seasons we've had lots of big games, so you always have some version of that.
“Whether that's a League One promotion race and games are on TV or a Championship promotion race or now, this season, from the first game of the season, it was live on TV (TNT Sports) against Liverpool.
“So you know that there's an extra little bit around it in terms of media and in terms of the buzz around the town, and that's something to enjoy.
“I think that's something to embrace. Of course, it's something to not focus on. The focus has to be on the performance, the details and the execution. But the extra noise, the extra interest around the game, I think that's something that is a nice buzz around it.
“And I think it just adds to the excitement for all of us. But I'm sure it won't distract us too much from trying to execute a performance.”
McKenna admits facing a team under new management, Amorim having taken charge during the international break after leaving Liga Portugal champions Sporting Lisbon, presents different problems.
“It always creates a challenge,” he continued. “It's not the first time I've had that challenge now as a manager. But always when a team changes manager before you play them, it always creates a different sort of challenge.
“Having the two-week international break has probably helped because we've got a little bit more preparation time. The process is that you usually watch quite a lot of the manager’s previous teams and identify the trends that you think are going to be very, very likely to travel across.
“And it's a mixture between that and studying the current players at the club and the things that have been doing well and any weaknesses we think we can exploit, so the process hasn't been that unusual. We've prepped the game as well as we possibly could.
“Of course, we've been limited, as they will have been, by having lots of players away on international duty, so we haven't had the whole group together until the last few days.
“But I think wherever we are now, 48 hours before kick-off, I think we're in a pretty good place. And I've still got a session tomorrow, so I'm sure come Sunday, we'll be well prepared, and players are really excited to go out and put on a performance.”
Town will be ready for a United formation change
It’s anticipated that Amorim will switch the United side to the 3-4-3 he utilised with Sporting, but McKenna says his team is familiar with similar systems.
“You take all these things into consideration,” he said. “But I've said many times that formations in football, I think get played up a lot, lot more in the media actually than the difference in our preparation.
“Of course, the manager has been successful in playing what would be termed maybe a more standardised 3-4-3 at Sporting Lisbon. But our last home game Leicester played a 3-2-5 in possession.
“In the game before that, they played it with [Ricardo] Pereira coming into the double pivot.
“The game before that, we played Brentford. They played a version of a 3-2-5 with [Sepp] van den Berg inverting from left-back into a backline of three.
“The home game against Aston Villa they played 3-2-5 with Lucas Digne high on the left-hand side.
“So, especially in possession, there are so many teams now that build up with a back three and with a double pivot and a frontline of five.
“Very often [Erik] ten Hag has done similar things as well at United in recent games, so we can still use them as a reference as well.
“So there are certain things that won't be very unfamiliar, to be honest, and that attacking structure is pretty common across the league.
“Of course, the manager will put his own slant and his own perspective on that, and I'm sure we'll be working on certain things on the training ground, and some of them we can probably speculate on from looking at his previous team. And some of them we won't be able to speculate on.
“That's why predominantly we need to prepare to put in our best performance and focus on our principles, our structures, our intensity and our spirit, and know that we'll have to adapt to some situations in the game.
“Some we can predict, some we can't, but we’ll make sure that we stick really clearly to our identity and our principles and trust that, especially at home, if we do that with maximum intensity, then we can give anyone a really difficult game.”
McKenna feels United’s league position is irrelevant
United are currently 12th in the Premier League, seven points ahead of Town and will go back to only four behind Arsenal in the final Champions League spot if they were to get Amorin’s reign off to a winning start.
Prior to the international break, they beat Leicester City 3-0 at Old Trafford in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s last game in interim charge, having drawn 1-1 at Chelsea the previous week, following a 2-1 loss at West Ham, .
Away from home this season, the Red Devils have won one – 3-0 at Southampton in September – drawn two and lost two.
Given the strength of the squad, McKenna was asked whether United’s current position baffled him.
“They've got a really, really talented group,” he said. “There's no doubt about that. And we know the calibre of individual players we're going to face on Sunday is going to be really, really high, but it's a really tough league.
“To be honest, I've not followed their games with any particular attention this year other than how we do for all the teams that we prepare for. And obviously, we haven't played against Man United, so I can't comment in particular on this season, on too many other games in particular.
“I think they've got very, very good players; it's a fantastic club, but it's also the toughest division in world football, so you don't need to get too many things wrong to lose a football match. And that doesn't change much whether you're at Ipswich Town or Manchester United.
“So, I've got no real thoughts on their position in the league. We just know and are expecting to face a really, really good United side on Sunday and everything that that entails.
“And we're going to try and make sure that they face a really, really strong Ipswich Town side at Portman Road and everything that we believe that that entails as well.”
Having worked with some of the Manchester United current players in similar situations in the past, does he know how they react to a managerial change?
“I think you have to say, first and foremost, there are a lot of new players, so without looking at their predicted line-up for Sunday, I would have thought there'd be quite a fair few who I didn't work with,” he said.
“Even without the insight from inside the club, I think you can look at the record when new managers take over, or record whenever interim-managers take over, and see that it's a club that, within the normal new manager reaction and new manager bounce, it seems to be evident.
“In football they are a team and a club that have certainly shown examples of that over quite a few years now, probably even if you went back as far as Ryan Giggs, but long before my time, so it's not just in my time at the club.
“I think it's pretty clear to imagine that we're going to face a Man United group and team that are full of motivation, that are full of energy, that are going to play at a really high intensity and they're going to want to do really well for themselves and they're going to want to make an impression on the new manager.
“So I think it's fair to say that it doesn't make the game any easier and their record in these types of situations would suggest that.
“But at the same time, we're going to back ourselves and we think, coming to Portman Road for a game like this, if we can bring our very best performance, it isn't going to be an easy game for any team in any scenario. So we're expecting to face a really motivated, really energetic, really intense Man United side.
“But our focus is on the things that we can control and that's trying to make sure that Man United face is the same version of ourselves.”
‘The crowd has a massive part to play’
McKenna says be believes his side can compete with anyone at Portman Road.
“We feel like if we impose our game, especially at home and with our intensity, then we can be a really tough opponent for anyone,” he said.
“We have to match that with a level of humility that we know that Man United can hurt us. There's no doubt about that.
“They have the individual quality of player that if we don't execute our details just right, if our intensity comes off at any point, then they've got the quality to hurt us or hurt any other team in the league.
“So, we'll hopefully go into the game with the right mix of humility, but also the right mix of confidence and belief. And really with the feeling that we worked so hard, as I said so many times, to get a game like this, we certainly don't intend to go into it and play with a whole lot of fear and restraint.
“We earned these games and we earned our right to be here. We want to go out and try to showcase the best of ourselves in the game while respecting the opponent and the challenges we're going to have, trying to make it as difficult as possible for the opponent.
“Of course, that's our preparation, that's the players and we know the crowd has a massive part in that as well, and I'm sure everyone's going to show up on Sunday and try and play their part.”
And McKenna hopes the Portman Road crowd will prove to play their part, as they did in the opening home game of the 2000/01 Premier League season when the Blues drew 1-1 with the Red Devils, whose manager Sir Alex Ferguson said afterwards that the then-capacity 22,00 crowd sounded like 40,000.
“It's very important,” he said. “I think we've had five home games, across the five the atmosphere’s been really, really good.
“I think probably Everton was the one game when we weren't delighted with our performance, but also things in the game went against us with decisions and us not taking our chances, and the opposition taking their chances.
“But I think certainly in the other four, I think all the other teams would have went away and really felt the crowd, really felt the atmosphere, really felt the intensity off the pitch, the intensity on the pitch and would have felt our identity as a team.
“And that has to be the goal going into Sunday. I'd say everyone's got a part to play with that. Of course, the manager and the staff in terms of preparing the game plan with players in terms of what they put into the game and what they're bringing.
“And the supporters as well, we want to really make ourselves felt on Sunday and the supporters want to make themselves heard.
“And we know that over a good period of time now, it gives our players a better chance to perform and win games and makes it tougher for the opposition, which is why we've been traditionally pretty hard to beat at home.
