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Kieran McKenna has resigned as Ipswich Town manager, just weeks after clinching a return to the Premier League.<\/b><\/p>\n
The 40-year-old took charge of the Tractor Boys in 2021 and guided them to three promotions in the past four seasons, two of which have taken the club into the top flight.<\/p>\n
They will play among the elite in 2026-27 after finishing runners-up<\/a> in the Championship in May.<\/p>\n McKenna has been linked with the Fulham<\/a> job, after Marco Silva’s departure, but said his departure from Portman Road is because of his desire to take a break from the game and spend more time with his family.<\/p>\n “I feel this is the right time for me to step aside,” McKenna said.<\/p>\n “I do so with great pride at the incredible progress we have made and with huge hope and optimism for the future of the club.<\/p>\n “After giving so much to the role over the previous five seasons, I now look forward to taking a break from management and dedicating some time to my family, who have been with me every step of my career so far.”<\/p>\n McKenna left a first-team coaching position at Manchester United<\/a> to take over at Ipswich, who were labouring in League One when he was appointed in December 2021.<\/p>\n He led them back into the second tier of English football at the end of his first full season in charge.<\/p>\n He then beat Manchester City<\/a>‘s Pep Guardiola and Arsenal<\/a>‘s Mikel Arteta to the League Managers Association’s manager of the year award<\/a> in 2024 after back-to-back promotions took the club back into the Premier League after a 22-year absence.<\/p>\n McKenna who was born in London and raised in Northern Ireland, had two years remaining on his contract at Ipswich after signing a four-year deal in 2024.<\/p>\n He won 105 of his 222 games in charge, and chairman Mark Ashton said: “Achieving three promotions in four seasons, in what is your first role as a manager, is an achievement which means Kieran is now rightly discussed in the same breath as the legends of this club.<\/p>\n “The mark he, his staff and his players have made on Ipswich Town and its community will live forever. It has captured a generation.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kieran McKenna has resigned as Ipswich Town manager, just weeks after clinching a return to the Premier League. The 40-year-old…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}