IPSWICH, England — Manager Kieran McKenna could walk on the River Orwell which flows past the Ipswich Town ground tonight, and no one would blink twice. Miracle man McKenna has guided the club to back-to-back promotions, with their 2-0 win (stream a replay on ESPN+, U.S. only) over Huddersfield Town on Saturday securing second in the Championship and their place back in the Premier League after a 22-year absence.
A couple of hours after full time, McKenna was reflecting on the last week. «We've all lived a monk-like existence,» he said. They'd left nothing to chance, not even booking a restaurant for a potential celebratory dinner just in case it'd tempt fate.
They headed in Saturday's lunchtime kick-off needing a point to secure a return to the top flight, but this group weren't ever going to be timid. It's not the approach McKenna has instilled at Portman Road, and not the DNA that's guided them from midtable League One obscurity when he took over in December 2021, back to the promised land in just 30 months.
As afternoon's go, few could have dreamt this. It was as perfect a performance and occasion an Ipswich fan could have wished for. Whenever you have these types of matches, with a finishing line in sight but still the gut-wrenching uncertainty and scars of previous heartbreak tempering optimism, there's a tendency to expect the worst-case scenario.
Huddersfield still had an unlikely chance of avoiding relegation — they required a 15-goal swing on Plymouth Argyle — while Ipswich, given a 98% chance of promotion, needed not to concede to secure the runners-up spot behind champions Leicester City.
But the team played without nerves, attacking from the off and camping in and around Huddersfield's penalty area. When
Read more on espn.com
espn.com
