RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Kieran McKenna is a smart man. So why would he get involved in the risky business of the nutters at Man United and Chelsea?

To apply a bit of context to what has made Kieran McKenna so popular of late, you have to go quite a distance into the past to find the last manager to make the same brilliant leap through the divisions. That would be Nigel Adkins and it might be an idea to ask him about the thanks he received for that.

He was the bright young thing once. Like McKenna, he was emotionally intelligent and tactically strong. And like McKenna at Ipswich, Adkins found an unfavorable table when he began the peculiar task of sporting prodigies in September 2010: Southampton were 22nd in League One.

That simply wouldn’t be enough for a club with good infrastructure and rated favorites to ascend under Alan Pardew a few weeks earlier. But what a ride they made: under the leadership of Adkins, then 45, Southampton went up automatically eight months later. League One being League One, it got some attention, but not much.

The same goes for when they signed just three players and lost Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Arsenal just before their next push. We mostly thought mid-table would be decent, if we thought about it at all. But it turned out very differently: Southampton never left the top two and played sugar-sweet football all the way to the Premier League. How we loved the Adkins yarn then, and what good it did him.

With Southampton’s results going in the right direction, finishing 15th in the top flight, Adkins was sacked in January 2013 and replaced by a smarter, younger thing: Mauricio Pochettino.

Now 59, Adkins is manager at Tranmere Rovers in League Two, having spent most of the intervening period in League One and the Championship. It’s been a fine and honest career for a fine and honest guy who remains the only manager I know who recites Dale Wimbrow’s poetry in times of stress. But if there’s a message for McKenna from Adkins’ experience, it would be that the risks of staying put could be just as dubious as the risks associated with making a big move.

Given his willingness to talk to other clubs, we know McKenna is open to taking a swing while his iron glows red. Which is to say, at 38, he’s willing to risk a stellar, emerging reputation for idiots whose madness is no surprise at this point, if we excuse Brighton from that conversation.

This is of course where the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea come into the picture, as they seem to have reached the Baldrick phase of the Blackadder episode, where the current plan seems to be the one reserved for after the pencils in the nose don’t work out. to work.

According to sources well placed to know, their interest has been less diligently nurtured than in Brighton. The latter have had McKenna in their sights for almost a year.

They watched him, studied him and mentioned him regularly in successive conversations, back to the days when Roberto De Zerbi still shone a halo. They are so sensible and out of necessity have gotten into the habit of doing it right. Whatever United and Chelsea may say, their fascination probably doesn’t come from such a deep place, which tells us a lot about two strange clubs stuck in strange times. There is no original observation possible about the ‘now’ culture of football. We know this. But has there been a more bizarre intersection in the Premier League in recent years between the arcs of a talented man on the rise and two desperate, declining giants reduced to punting on promise?

In United’s case, the escalation of their interest was reported on Thursday, which happened to be around the time the remarkable story emerged about Carlo Acutis and his posthumous sainthood. If you don’t know the details, the Catholic Church apparently has resources for researching miracles and a threshold for determining how many you need for canonization: if two are traced back to you after your death, you’re in the club. It’s been two great seasons at Portman Road for United and Chelsea.

That they are even considering this route is surreal and possibly alarming for such decisive phases of their respective regimes.

United’s next managerial appointment is Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s biggest decision yet at Old Trafford; for the Boehly-Eghbali axis of disaster, they must demonstrate that there was coherent thinking in the ‘mutual’ aspect of their divorce from Pochettino.

Within those parameters, you have to wonder how thick the line is between courageous and reckless. That’s the flammable, stifling and volatile environment they see as appropriate for a manager without a top executive to his name. It’s an incredibly wild game of danger.

None of that is a smear on McKenna. He has done a fantastic job at Ipswich. And Ipswich have done a fantastic job with him. Together they have risen at a rate we thought unlikely, at a stage where parachute payments have closed much of the store in the Championship.

For McKenna, the risk of a departure would be greater than for United or Chelsea. Clubs continue after a fire; a burned manager often stays burned, especially the younger ones. We can assume that supporting United as a boy, and then working there as a man, will make him especially sensitive to how hot things get at the club he favors.

A great dilemma to have, without a doubt. And good that he earned this; who knows, he might just be the miracle two clubs crave. But he’s a smart man because it takes a smart man to navigate from League One to these discussions. Just like a smart man might see the pencils in some of those noses and seriously wonder if bigger is better.

Don’t count on Novak’s decline

When the end of the sport approaches, it can often be predicted in alarming timescales. For that reason, it may be tempting to read a lot about Novak Djokovic’s third-set dive against Tomas Machac on Friday and his continued inability to win a title in 2024.

It would also be a misguided exercise in wishful thinking for those who want to hasten the changing of the guard.

Even if his 37-year-old legs start to lose some spring, that spirit will be worth at least three games every set when the Slams begin.

Rooney’s fight

In terms of the prevailing desire to go big and fast, there is something wonderfully warming about Wayne Rooney’s takeover at Plymouth.

He might never make it in management, which has followed the opposite path as a player. But his willingness to scrap and fight is still present and very admirable when easier ways to find purpose await on a broadcaster’s couch.