Brighton are keen on Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna as they look to make a quick appointment to replace Roberto De Zerbi.
It was announced on Saturday that De Zerbi is leaving Brighton and i has been told that news did not come as a surprise to many inside the club, the Italian having clashed with owner Tony Bloom over the club’s recruitment policy.
De Zerbi wanted to move the dial in the summer to more established players while Bloom is committed to the model that has turned Brighton from a Championship club into a regular in the upper echelons of the Premier League.
In retrospect there was only ever going to be one winner and it has been an open secret in football circles that De Zerbi was open to new opportunities, having been heavily linked with the Bayern Munich vacancy and also a consideration for Liverpool – who have opted to appoint Arne Slot as Jurgen Klopp’s successor.
Brighton are now set to step up their interest in McKenna, who has developed a stellar reputation after back-to-back promotions in his first managerial role.
The Seagulls carry out regular, rolling checks on possible managerial appointments and McKenna is understood to figure highly on the metrics they track. He achieved promotion to the Premier League on a budget outside the top 10 in the division.
While Ipswich will no doubt be desperate to keep hold of the 37-year-old, the job will surely appeal to McKenna given Brighton’s reputation in the game for stability and being a platform for managers onto bigger things. The club are also one of the few able to invest heavily in the summer transfer window if they wish, having sold Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo for big money last summer.
He is a superb, methodical coach and an expert man manager and Brighton are not the only club in the Premier League who believe he has the potential to step into a top job. McKenna has also been linked with Manchester United, where he was part of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s backroom team.
Solskjaer described McKenna as the “most thorough, process-driven coach” he had ever worked with.
