Manchester United fans will be reminded of what could have been when Kieran McKenna leads Ipswich out at Old Trafford.

United . McKenna had a strong case and he had progressed through the ranks of Old Trafford after his arrival in 2016, successfully coaching their Under-18s.

He became Jose Mourinho’s assistant in 2018 and continued in that role under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and then Ralf Rangnick. McKenna left in December 2021 to take over at Ipswich in League One and guided them to back-to-back promotions to the Premier League.

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Ruben Amorim, or Ruben Interim as he has been cruelly dubbed, was seen as one of Europe’s hottest young coaches because of his success at Sporting Lisbon, but McKenna was already pulling up trees at Ipswich. He didn’t return to United in May and instead signed a four-year deal with Ipswich worth a reported eye-watering £6million-a-season.

McKenna was done well trying to make Ipswich into a top-flight squad and he has developed the likes of Liam Delap into a Premier League striker. Delap, 22, has scored 10 top-flight goals and has doubled or trebled the £15million Ipswich paid Manchester City for him last summer.

United missed a trick with McKenna and although he’s 38, he’s only 17 months younger than Amorim. The Ulsterman knows United inside out and it has been painful seeing Amorim trying to get up to speed at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Managing United is way more harder than Amorim could have imagined when he boarded a private jet to Manchester in November. He looks in over his depth and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he can turn around the drifting supertanker that is Manchester United.

He's lost nine of his 22 games and has turned Old Trafford into the Theatre of Dread because of their awful home form. Qualifying for the Champions League has never been easier and the top five clubs will make it because of the English sides’ co-efficient, yet they are not in the picture.

They can’t even get in the fight for Europe and instead they were 14th heading into Wednesday night’s games. It’s hard to see anything Amorim has got right so far and he apologised for branding United the worst team in their history following their home loss to Brighton last month.

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Marcus Rashford looks reborn at Aston Villa and just the sort of livewire striker United desperately need after he sent him packing in the winter transfer window. Even Antony has done well since being offloaded on loan to Real Betis.

Instead, with United springing more leaks than a colander, he spent what little money he had on a new left wing-back in Patrick Dorgu, as if that would begin to solve their problems. Amorim has refused to adapt his 3-4-3 system, even though it looks hopeless with his three lumbering centre-backs, who are not comfortable bringing the ball out of defence.

Yes, United must wish they had gone for McKenna in May and avoided sticking with ten Hag, wasting £200million and appointing Amorim to preside over their worst Premier League campaign.

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