"I love Kieran McKenna and Michael Carrick to bits. Top coaches and they’ll prove it," Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told The Athletic last year, reflecting on his assistants during his time with Manchester United.
McKenna has certainly vindicated his blessing after leading Ipswich Town back to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years. And the Northern Irishman did not inherit a team destined to return to the top. When he took charge of Ipswich they were in their third season in League One, the third tier of English football, closer to the relegation zone than the play-off picture.
In his first full campaign he secured automatic promotion back to the Championship and after his side beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 to finish second on 96 points, he became only the fifth manager to take a team from the third tier to the Premier League in successive seasons, and the first to do so in 12 years.
Not bad for someone who had never previously been head coach of a senior team and who was forced to abandon their dream of becoming a professional footballer due to injuries, instead enrolling in a university degree in sports science.
Less than three years after departing United, the club he supported growing up in Northern Ireland and which was his home for five years, McKenna will be returning to Old Trafford next season in the opposing dugout. And don't rule him out one day sitting in the home dugout once more, calling the shots...