FROM the edge of his seat in the North Stand, Kieran McKenna cheered on Keano and Giggsy, Scholesy and Becks when him and his dad Liam made trips to Old Trafford during the 1990s.
The starry-eyed boy in the replica shirt was a grown man with a deep reservoir of experience and knowhow behind him when he returned to the club in 2016 and now – as the new coach at Manchester United Youth Academy - he was getting paid to be there. That’s the dream isn’t it? Find something you love doing and get paid to do it.
Yes, in many ways it was a dream come true for the Enniskillen native but there was a much, much bigger picture; a job to do at one of the biggest football clubs in the world with a proud reputation for bringing through their own players from Duncan Edwards to George Best and Bobby Charlton, Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes and Scholes, Beckham, the Neville brothers and Nicky Butt, the ‘Class of ’92’.
So there wasn’t time for any just-happy-to-be-here bedding-in period. McKenna had to show he meant business from the start and of course that’s exactly what he did.
“The chance came to move to Manchester United was too good to turn down,” he explains.
“It was the club that I had followed so there was a personal connection there but it has also been a massive growth period for me.
“I had been with Spurs since the age of 14. For 15 years I had strong links with Tottenham, and coming to United gave me the chance to go to a new environment and implement my own ideas.
“United had always been part of my childhood. I had been over a lot of times since I was a young lad so working here was a dream in a lot of ways but also it was a goal and an ambition. So it’s not something that was a fairy-tale, it was something I worked towards and I went in really keen to implement my ideas and to become my own man.”
Nicky Butt was the Academy manager when he arrived and he and McKenna soon forged a productive working relationship. Former United midfielder Butt gave him the freedom and responsibility to run and develop an under-18 squad which included precocious talents like Brandon Williams, Tahith Chong, James Garner, Angel Gomes and Mason Greenwood, all of whom have featured in the first team this season. He also took sessions with an under-23 group that included current first-teamers Scott McTominay and Axel Tuanzebe.
“I was lucky at the time because I had some very good support staff around me and we had a really good youth team group,” says McKenna.
“I was able to make a lot of progress with the players individually and progress the programme and progress the group well. The couple of years I had with the Academy were really beneficial and that was recognised by the club and I got the chance to move to the first team.”
After guiding his team to the under-18 Premier League title, McKenna’s chance to move to the first team came when Jose Mourinho – who’d also arrived at United in 2016 – promoted him and Michael Carrick to replace Rui Faria as first team coaches before the start of the 2018/19 season.
“It was a real privilege and an honour to work with Jose,” says McKenna.
“He is someone who has been so successful in the game and he is such a role-model for so many coaches of my generation who have grown up watching him in his career.
“For him to see value in my work and for him to give me that opportunity was brilliant really and also I got such a good insight into how he works. We built a good relationship in the time we had together and that gave me great confidence. It’s something that I’ll always be grateful for.”
With a track record of consistent success at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid behind him, Mourinho was arguably the highest-profile manager in the modern game when he replaced Louis Van Gaal at United. McKenna explains that ‘the special one’ persona is only for the media.
“At the level I’m at now you’re working with some top people and top managers and players,” he says.
“But when you’re in it at close quarters you realise that they are all just normal people and good people who have the same values and the same interests as the rest of us.
“So it’s important just to try and treat them the same as you would treat the next person, do the best you can at your work and hope that gets recognised. Whether it’s somebody like Jose, who is and has been a top manager, or one of the first team players who has been successful and has a big profile, it’s important to treat them as a person first and they tend to do likewise back.”
Mourinho spent his playing career in the lower leagues in his native Portugal but his lack of elite level experience was obviously never an issue for him as a manager.
A chronic hip problem forced McKenna to retire at 22, denying him the chance to become an established professional player at club and international level. Bad luck meant he never had the experiences that the players he works with have been fortunate enough to enjoy. However, he hasn’t found that to be an issue.
“There are obviously massive benefits to having a very long playing career and I’m fortunate enough to work with Michael Carrick who had a fantastic career as a player and a vast range of experiences that he can draw upon,” he says.
“But, on the other hand, I think players recognise that it is also very important to have had the experiences I’ve had at such a young age and, at the end of the day, players will either value the quality of your work or they won’t. They can very quickly suss out whether you are knowledgeable and whether your experience can help them with their game.
“If they feel you have those qualities then they tend to have a positive relationship with you and they will want to take on the information. Thankfully, I’ve been able to have good relationships with the staff and with the players. My input is valued and players, whatever level they’re at, they all want to get better and develop their own careers so if they feel that the people they’re working with can help them do that they’re always very receptive no matter what their background is.”
United won the EFL Cup and the Europa League in Mourinho’s debut season and finished Premier League runners-up in his second. But he was sacked after a poor start to the 2018/19 campaign and former fans’ favourite Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was brought in to replace him.
The 1999 Champions League hero who scored a dramatic winner at the death when United beat Bayern Munich 3-2 in the final was initially appointed on a caretaker basis but an impressive showing in the remainder of the season earned him a permanent contract and he chose to retain Michael Carrick and McKenna as his first team coaches.
“Ole has been great,” says McKenna.
“I think everyone, players or staff, would attest to that. He’s a really good man first and foremost. He trusts people, he supports them and he really gives them the opportunity to do what they’re good at, whether that’s players or staff.
“The transition to working under him was good and pretty seamless. The role of first team coach can change between different managers; some are more hands-on than others and like to get involved in all the details whereas others like to step back a little bit.
“Ole has his own way, he is a really good manager and he likes to oversee the bigger picture so he gives his staff a lot of responsibility for taking care of their areas. He has been great to work for and I feel I’ve really progressed and developed in myself as well as contributing well to the club and trying to make the team successful on the pitch.”
Solskjaer certainly values McKenna’s input: "The coaching here and the teaching has been exceptional, incredible,” commented the Norwegian in a recent press conference.
“The coaches have opened my eyes since the last time I was here.”
McKenna’s role has continued to develop under Solskjaer. There are signs of his coaching and influence on how the team sets up and plays and there are also signs that it is paying off. From late January until the current COVID-19 enforced suspension, United had found a rich vein of form that yielded nine wins in 11 games with 22 goals scored and just two conceded.
“My role incorporates a bit of everything really,” says McKenna.
“It’s to support the manager and the players in whatever way necessary but probably the main things are to prepare the training sessions for the team that will help them individually and as a group and also to prepare for games.
“We work a lot as a coaching staff on the analysis side of things to review our games and to prepare for upcoming games and make sure that we give the right support to the team and the right support to players because ultimately they are the ones who are going to go on the pitch and try and perform in front of thousands of people.
“As a coaching staff we try to prepare them as well as possible and try and give them the tools that will help them in the games.”
Progress is being made, he insists. United’s most recent Premier League title came in 2013 and was the 13th of Alex Ferguson’s 26-year reign. Time moves on but all subsequent managers continue to be judged by the standards he set. At least that’s how the outside world looks at it but inside the club the focus is on the here and now and improving day after day.
“Everyone who is currently involved with United can see that it’s a transitional period at the club,” says McKenna.
“A lot of experienced players have left over the last 18 months and this year we have been, by a long way, the youngest squad in the league and the youngest team in the league.
“It’s a big jump for a club like Manchester United to be going into a season with such a young squad but I think there have been positive signs there. There is a lot of hard work, and good work, going on behind the scenes to get the club back to where it has been and I think that work will come to fruition over the next months and years.
“I think everyone is realistic at the moment, no-one at the club will be happy until United is at the very top of the European game. We won’t be satisfied until that happens but I also think people close to the club realise that that is going to take a bit of time.”
Bringing back the golden years of Premier League titles and Champions League success is the target and the key to meeting it will be finding the quality that sets the great teams apart from the good ones – consistency.
“There are other teams at the moment who have been more consistent over the last couple of years and it’s important to put some blocks in place that can enable a team to get up to that point,” McKenna explains.
“That’s what the club are trying to do behind the scenes and there have been signs of that coming out this year.
“There have also been times when the team has been inconsistent and not picked up the results so it’s important for everyone to stay patient and block out all the noise from outside so everyone outside the club can do the best they possibly can to make sure that we close that gap and be ready to compete for the Premier League and European trophies.”
Go hard or go home has always been his way. A mixture of special ability and dedication have seen him clear career hurdles and put setbacks behind him to reach this lofty stage and he wouldn’t have got anywhere near it without the drive of realising his own career ambitions. Perhaps he’ll be a manager himself one day but for now his focus is crystal clear.
“I know I’ve got a massive job here like everyone else at Manchester United,” he says.
“It’s a very important time for the club and it’s not the time to look too far ahead into my own future. I’m developing well into the role that I have and the most important thing is to contribute as best I can to build a successful United team. After that I’ll see what the future brings.”
