{"id":284205,"date":"2026-02-06T17:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/284205\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:08:09","slug":"sammie-szmodics-departure-was-in-the-best-interests-of-ipswichs-culture-and-values-kieran-mckenna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/284205\/","title":{"rendered":"Sammie Szmodics\u2019 departure was in the \u2018best interests of Ipswich\u2019s culture and values\u2019 \u2013 Kieran McKenna"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sammie Szmodics\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/c3c37373-67bf-4acb-b265-18b23d70e057.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Sammie Szmodics<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Sammie Szmodics\u2019 loan move to Derby County this week was not a football decision according to Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna, who admitted the Ireland forward\u2019s deadline day departure was in the \u201cbest interests\u201d of his team\u2019s culture and values.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The 30-year-old will spend the rest of the season on loan at Ipswich\u2019s promotion rivals Derby, where he links up with his former Blackburn boss John Eustace, with the move coming just 18 months after he signed for McKenna\u2019s side for an initial \u20ac11m fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sammie Szmodics Sammie Szmodics\u2019 loan move to Derby County this week was not a football decision according to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4700,61,66472,60,66471,4876,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-284205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ipswich-town","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-kieran-mckenna","13":"tag-sean-oconnor","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}