When Kieran McKenna took charge of Ipswich Town’s transfer business in his first summer window, few could have predicted just how spectacularly his project would take off. With back-to-back promotions culminating in Premier League football, the Irish tactician quickly earned a reputation for sharp recruitment and bold vision. But buried in the glow of his rise is one costly misfire that rarely gets talked about—an eyebrow-raising £500,000 deal that went completely sideways.
While the arrivals of Leif Davis, Marcus Harness, Harry Clarke, Nathan Broadhead, and George Hirst turned out to be foundational pieces of Ipswich’s soaring success, there was one player who fell between the cracks in dramatic fashion—Panutche Camara.
The Guinea-Bissau international came with solid credentials, a proven track record in the lower leagues, and glowing reviews from his time at Plymouth Argyle. A high-energy midfielder with 81 league appearances for the Pilgrims, Camara had been instrumental in pushing them to a seventh-place finish in League One. McKenna clearly saw something promising and greenlit a move worth a reported half a million pounds.
But what followed was a footballing nightmare.
In what now looks like a rare lapse in McKenna’s near-perfect recruitment drive, Camara barely featured for Ipswich. After arriving at Portman Road, the midfielder was plagued by injury setbacks, starting with groin surgery that kept him out for a huge portion of the season. He logged just one minute of League One football in his debut campaign.
To make matters worse, his former club Plymouth Argyle soared ahead of Ipswich to clinch the League One title that same season—rubbing salt into the wound of his failed switch. McKenna, who had just orchestrated one of the most exciting teams in English football’s lower leagues, had little to show for the Camara deal except a brief FA Cup goal against Bracknell Town—hardly the legacy envisioned when the cheque was signed.
Camara’s second season brought no redemption. He was loaned to Charlton Athletic but once again found himself sidelined—this time with a hamstring injury that derailed his campaign. Featuring just five times after returning in March, Camara’s stint with Charlton was just as ill-fated. It was no surprise when Ipswich allowed his contract to quietly expire, right as the club prepared for its long-awaited Premier League return.
But football is never short on plot twists.
After his Ipswich exit, Camara returned to familiar ground at Crawley Town—his former home where he had once made his EFL debut. And there, he began to look like the player he used to be: sharp, focused, and—most importantly—injury-free. Though no longer in the upper tiers of English football, Camara’s revival at Crawley serves as a bittersweet reminder of what might have been.
Had he stayed at Plymouth, who knows? Perhaps Camara would have played Championship football regularly, forming the spine of a team that could have pushed even further. Instead, he became one of the few—if not the only—high-profile misfires of McKenna’s otherwise golden reign at Ipswich.
“He just didn’t get the opportunity he needed, and the timing couldn’t have been worse,” one insider claimed. “McKenna built something incredible—but even the best managers make the occasional mistake.”
Indeed, while Kieran McKenna is now being hailed as one of the most promising young managers in England, the curious case of Panutche Camara remains a cautionary footnote in his glittering ascent. A £500,000 gamble that simply didn’t pay off, a player who never found his rhythm, and a career path that may have been forever altered.
