Kieran McKenna offered new QUADRUPLE-your-money Ipswich contract to fight off Man Utd, Chelsea and Brighton interest
IPSWICH have offered Kieran McKenna a blockbuster new contract to try and keep him at Portman Road.
Manchester United, Chelsea and Brighton have all made tentative enquiries over hot-property McKenna who has led Ipswich to back-to-back promotions.
The Suffolk club’s desperate board are fighting hard to keep the highly-rated Northern Ireland coach and are offering him a stunning new worth £5million-a-year deal over the next four seasons.
Ipswich have reacted as they expect an offer from Brighton in the next 24 hours as the south coast club look to replace Roberto De Zerbi.
McKenna’s current deal, although still an extremely good one for a Championship manager, is about £1.2million a year.
And whether this new offer from Ipswich is enough to tie him at the club remains to be seen.
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Ipswich believe their best chance of staying in the top-flight next season is to keep hold of McKenna, 38, who was also in talks with Crystal Palace over taking over from Roy Hodgson during the last season.
And this current deal is the biggest contract Ipswich have offered since giving Italian keeper Matteo Sereni over £20,000-a-week when he joined from Sampdoria in a £4.5million deal in 2001.
Ipswich were relegated from the Premier League a year later and they have not been back until now, with McKenna leading the club to this stunning promotion.
Yet McKenna could end up with three huge offers.
One big option could be United as he was previously an assistant coach at Old Trafford.
But United have also been linked with Mauricio Pochettino off the back of the Argentine's departure from Chelsea.
Erik ten Hag is gripping onto his job in Manchester but SunSport understands Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a big admirer of Poch.
McKenna has been internally discussed by the Blues board with De Zerbi and Ruben Amorim also in the frame.