After a 22-year absence, Ipswich Town has been promoted to the Premier League with a 2-0 victory over Huddersfield.
Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna deserves all the praise for leading his team back to the Premier League. The Tractor Boys are back in the top class league following a long term nonappearance from the English Premier League.
On reaching at this achievement, the team manager was met by huge number of the Tractor Boys with thick tufts of blue smoke, and with wild celebration in the air at Portman Road.
There was celebratory pitch attack when the final whistle was blown for the end of the game after close to 60 minutes to clear for coach Kieran McKenna and his players to get back to the EPL.
‘I’m not sure it’ll be done again like this. The way we’ve done it,’ McKenna told supporters to roars of approval.
In becoming the first club since Southampton in 2012 to accomplish consecutive promotion to the Premier League, Ipswich have amassed an astounding 194 points and were the division’s top scorers with 92 goals.
The club which once won trophies under administrative titans Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson had endured severely since George Burley’s side were toward the end in the PL at the beginning of the Hundred years.
Under new owners and Kieran McKenna’s masterful coaching, the gloomy years under Marcus Evans and the team’s fall into the third tier have been swiftly and unexpectedly reversed.
Wes Burns had scored the opener in the first half to give Ipswich the perfect start to the game. Omari Hutchinson rounded off a perfect day when the Tractor Boys only needed a point.
Ipswich Town needed a point to guarantee promotion on the final day of the regular Championship season.
It was never in uncertainty against a Huddersfield side whose rout affirmed their transfer into League One.
However Ipswich failed to get any of their first eight shots on track, there was little apprehension with Leeds – the first team that could get them – after Southampton.
Furthermore, when the promotion did show up after 27 minutes, there was an eruption of massive noise.
Sam Burns had already missed one good chance provided by Chaplin when the pair combined again. This time Burns found the bottom corner from the edge of the penalty area to get the party started.
They could have scored more, but they settled for just one. Chelsea loanee Omari Hutchinson scored with a lovely finish at the start of the second half and celebrated with an extravagant backflip.
Mick Mills, Robson’s legendary FA Cup and UEFA Cup captain, perfectly expressed the feeling after the whistle up in the stands.
American owners haven’t always had a good reputation in England but US companies Gamechanger Ltd and Bright Path Sports Partners have barely put a foot wrong since Evans sold up in 2021.
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McKenna should sort out how to make up for losing loanees players like Hutchinson, Kieffer Moore and Jeremy Sarmiento, but it would be boorish not to permit him some celebration time first.
‘It’s amazing. I feel pride and a bit of relief. We didn’t expect this to happen so fast but the players are incredible. It has been a privilege to work with them in my first managerial job, McKenna said.
Defender Cameron Burgess scored the midweek winner at Coventry that set up their big day and acknowledged not many teams have the bravery of McKenna’s team.
‘We have tried to attack every single game this season and I feel like we’ve done that. The last few months it’s been a case of being in a good position and ticking a game off at a time’, McKenna said.
Teamwork has also been a major factor to Ipswich’s success. Ipswich’s top scorers this season Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead have 13 each – not exactly around 50% of the count of Blackburn’s Sammie Szmodics who was doing battling at the opposite end of the table.
