According to Kieran McKenna, ‘it wouldn’t have been right’ if he wasn’t in the Brighton dugout for Ipswich Town this coming weekend.
The Seagulls are understood to have shown strong interest in the back-to-back promotion winning Blues boss after Roberto De Zerbi’s departure back in May.
After several days of intense speculation and uncertainty, however, McKenna signed a new four-year deal at Portman Road and the south coast club appointed 31-year-old Fabian Hürzeler from German club St Pauli.
Ahead of his side’s trip to The Amex stadium, McKenna was asked about Brighton’s repor
“I was really keen to be the one leading Ipswich Town into the Premier League. Anything other than that wouldn’t have felt right. This was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss, even though I know the realities of that is that, as a newly-promoted team, you’re going to face a lot of challenges.
“Brighton are an excellent football club as well. I think everyone in world football admires how they’ve built their football club, the way they’ve progressed every season, their recruitment and playing models, the investment that they’ve put into the stadium and the training ground. There are so many things that they’ve done well.
“For us at Ipswich Town, and for so many clubs, they are an example of a lot of good practice in a lot of areas. They’ve recruited well again this summer, both with their management and players, and facing them is going to be a good challenge.”
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This is Brighton’s eight successive season in the Premier League. They have finished ninth, sixth and 11th in their last three campaigns, reached the last 16 of the Europa League last season and have started 2024/25 with wins against Everton and Manchester United, plus a draw against Arsenal.
“It’s a game we’re really, really excited for,” said McKenna. “They are certainly one of the better teams in the division. I think they’ll have a good season.
“For us it’s going to be a great challenge again. We know that we’re going to have to be at our very, very best to compete.
“We’re really respectful that Brighton are a very, very good side. They’ve got to the later stages of European football very recently and they’ve been in the top half of the Premier League for quite a few seasons now. They’ve added more excellent young talent to their playing squad and every time they’ve changed manager they’ve made really good decisions.
“We’re respectful of the level of the challenge, but we’re looking forward to the game. We are really determined in our mindset that we’re going to go to every team believing that we can win, believing that we can be competitive and believing that we can impose ourselves for periods of the game on the opposition. We know there are a lot of obstacles in the way of that happening, but that’s the mindset that we’ll be going with.”
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Asked if he felt Brighton were playing differently under their new boss, McKenna replied: “The main things are still the main things. They’ve built a team that are really comfortable in possession, having recruited a lot of technical players who can build from the back. Their big threat is still the fact that they have outstanding one-v-one forwards. They’ve added depth to the forward positions now and start four forwards who are really, in my opinion, top level for Premier League, then they can sub them off and bring on four players of the same sort of level. So they’ve got outstanding individual ability at the top end of the pitch.
“From my studying, I think Fabian’s done a really good job of integrating the best things they were doing under the previous manager. They’re probably a little bit more transitional now, a little bit more vertical on counter-attacks and willing to go in behind your defence a little bit earlier and make the game a little bit more open than in previous seasons. It makes them a dangerous teams with lots of different threats.
“We’ve watched their early games and pre-season fixtures. The analysts have spent a good amount of time on some of the St Pauli games as well, but the systems are different. St Pauli last year were more of a 3-4-3 base and Brighton this year have been more of a 4-3-3 base. But there are always principles that every manager takes with them and you can see that between the two teams. We know what their strengths are.
“It’s a great challenge for us, but we believe we can go to any team and cause them problems. If we play to our best and stick to our principles then we can give teams problem to solve as well. We’re looking forward to it. This is another great test.”
