Looks like a good promotion/relegation year for the Irish (Well done Mick!)

[KK77]

Well done to Mick absolute excellent job inside two years its hard to believe what hes done since he took over all their prem players had to be let go and since then hes bought good players for knock down prices and moulded the team to come back again inside two years great job. Classic quote from him on saturday "To all the people who knocked me in the last two years they can stick it where the sun don't shine" fair play hes dead right. Wonder what the players thought of his and Ian Evans training methods!!!!! Will be interesting to see how certain people get on when they go into management!!!!! Lets see Bill O'H and Dunphy and co talk now to quote Dunphy two years ago "McCarthy will take them further down than they already are". A well he who laughs last.................

[NeilMcD]

He has done a decent job with them and we will see how they get on in the premiership. To be fair they are the biggest club in their Division so they should be expecting to win it. I think his job has been a little over stated but fair play he has done a decent job with the players that he has got and he has made some shrewd signings. It seems like you are having a dig at Roy Keane in your post too which seems strange in a thread about Promotion and Relegation to the Premiership. Move on is what I say and its good for Ireland that so many Irish players are coming up to the Premiership

[KK77]

He has done a decent job with them and we will see how they get on in the premiership. To be fair they are the biggest club in their Division so they should be expecting to win it. I think his job has been a little over stated but fair play he has done a decent job with the players that he has got and he has made some shrewd signings. It seems like you are having a dig at Roy Keane in your post too which seems strange in a thread about Promotion and Relegation to the Premiership. Move on is what I say and its good for Ireland that so many Irish players are coming up to the Premiership


Yea i am having a digg and why not it was ok for him to say McCarthy was a crap manager and any chairman who gave him a job was mad. I am not overstating the job he did with Sunderland eg Peter Reid, Howard Wilkinson, it was a huge job he had to do and hes done it yeah we all know they will struggle but whats new there with a promoted team. Everyone knocked him two years ago so why shouldn't he be praised now.

Lets see how the other lad gets on when he goes into management is all i am saying.

[NeilMcD]

Well to be honest peter Reid did a great job there, he got them promoted and they finished in the top ten for a few years. If Mc Carthy does that he will be a legend up there, but you can stay too long at a club and thats what Reid did. Football managment is a funny game and managers can seem crap but it can be brought on by circumstances and I think thats what has happened to Reid and he now looks past it as a manger. My point is that Let bygones be bygones. We as supporters should not go down to the level of the two men involved. We are dispassionate observers. If I have a fight with somebody its likely that I will come out with hurtful stuff that cant be backed up by fact. That is the nature of emotion etc. I dont think Keanes comments can stand up to any scrutiny in this matter but nor woudl I expect them to as they are they rant of someone who feels hurt. Mick is a decnet manager and we will see how far he can go with Sunderland but as I said before this shoudl all be about the playrs that got them up and many of them are Irish which is good for us. I think thats the point of the Thread too to talk about how good it will be getting all these players in the Premiership.

[OwlsFan]

To be fair they are the biggest club in their Division so they should be expecting to win it. I think his job has been a little over stated but fair play he has done a decent job with the players that he has got and he has made some shrewd signings.

It doesn't work that way with the big club. Ask me as a Wednesday fan struggling for a play-off place in the 2nd Division! Also Sunderland wouldn't be any bigger than Derby, Wolves, West Ham etc.

I wouldn't have been Mick's greatest fan as an Irish manager. He had certain blind spots but from Day 1, he was verbally assaulted time and time again by Dumpy (because his man Kinnear didn't get the job) on TV aided by Giles and
laughing Bill. Some of the stuff was absolutely scurrilous and this even before the Keane debacle.

Mick managed his country with pride and passion but because of a personality clash with his star player, he left the job with booes ringing in his ears.

I'm delighted for him becuase he lost in the play-offs last year, suffered the hurt of the play-offs for us and the last minute goal in Macedonia and had, what should have been the highlight of his career, blighted by Saipan.

My only worry is that if Sunderland struggle,the poison Dwarf DUmpy will have his darts all ready again and open some very raw wounds.

[NeilMcD]

[QUOTE=OwlsFan]It doesn't work that way with the big club. Ask me as a Wednesday fan struggling for a play-off place in the 2nd Division! Also Sunderland wouldn't be any bigger than Derby, Wolves, West Ham etc.

QWell I think only Wolves could probably come near them with supporters etc as Sunderland were gettting over 40,000 in the Premiership. However I agree that just cause you have a big fan base does not mean you will go up, but you should go up if its a well run club and the chairman there appears to knwo what he is doing. As I said I dont want to take away from what Mick has done and fair play to him, but I just think a bit of realism or context should be brought to it rather than sniping remarks and Roy keane or other people. Is it not enough just to say congratulations. If Roy Keane won the league this year it woudl not be oneup on Mick. We have moved on. I think their is a duty on us as supporters to move on and not bring it up time and time again. Fair play to Mick and lets hope he keeps sunderland in the premiership.

[KK77]

As you said if your chairman runs the club properly you should go up BUT what did Keane say two years ago before Mick got the Sunderland job "Any chairman who appoints McCarthy would be completely stupid" so yeah i think it is one up for him. As he said himself at the weekend "To all the people who knocked me over the last two years stick it were the sun don't shine" and fair play to him hes dead right. As you said Reid was great for them but did he take over a club in potential financial ruin???? Also Man U HUGE support, Loads of Cash, Loads of world class players should THEY not be challenging for the title??????? Why haven't they in the last two seasons???? Is it the managers fault, is it the chairmans fault or is it the facilities?????

[NeilMcD]

I think I have already said that anything Keane and Mc Carthy say about each other should be taken with a pinch of sald as they are both the 2 main components of the fight in Saipan. If I have a fight with somebody it is pretty natural that I will come out and say stupid and nasty things about the other person, it is the way of the world. None of these comments that Keane said about Mc Carthy as a manager can really stand up to scrutiny. BUt we as supports should take a rather more dispassionate view of it and say that Mc Carthy has done a decent job at Sunderland and that he has got the best out of the team he has there and if he keeps them in the Premiership fair play to him. I dont think the issues regaring Keane and Mc Carthy have anything to do with Sunderland been promoted and probably should not be mentioned by the supporters. It is history and time to move on and both Mick and Roy are more than welcome to buy me a drink anytime, as both captained and played for the the team I support.


In relation to your final point. I think Man Utd have underachieved in the last 2 years, however only one team can win the Premier League and its going to be relative failure for Chelsea Arsenal or Man Utd. I think some of the blame should be taken by Ferguson, and the rest should be taken by the players. Ferguson is one of the greatest managers the game has ever seen but it may be that the players are tired of hearing the same old stuff from him and he has lost his influence.

[KK77]

I think I have already said that anything Keane and Mc Carthy say about each other should be taken with a pinch of sald as they are both the 2 main components of the fight in Saipan. If I have a fight with somebody it is pretty natural that I will come out and say stupid and nasty things about the other person, it is the way of the world. None of these comments that Keane said about Mc Carthy as a manager can really stand up to scrutiny. BUt we as supports should take a rather more dispassionate view of it and say that Mc Carthy has done a decent job at Sunderland and that he has got the best out of the team he has there and if he keeps them in the Premiership fair play to him. I dont think the issues regaring Keane and Mc Carthy have anything to do with Sunderland been promoted and probably should not be mentioned by the supporters. It is history and time to move on and both Mick and Roy are more than welcome to buy me a drink anytime, as both captained and played for the the team I support.


In relation to your final point. I think Man Utd have underachieved in the last 2 years, however only one team can win the Premier League and its going to be relative failure for Chelsea Arsenal or Man Utd. I think some of the blame should be taken by Ferguson, and the rest should be taken by the players. Ferguson is one of the greatest managers the game has ever seen but it may be that the players are tired of hearing the same old stuff from him and he has lost his influence.


Fair points agreed.

[carnstien]

****e player, ****e manager, end of. :p

[Superhoops]

****e player, ****e manager, end of. :p
Remind us exactly of your contribution to Irish football that qualifies you to give such an educated and expert opinion!

[Superhoops]

I don't think he was badly treated by Ireland (without smashing open that can of worms...) but he always gave everything, as a player and as a manager. It's great to see him do well again.
Whatever the rights of wrongs of 'that can of worms' the way he went was undignified and shabby and not the right way to treat someone who, as you admit yourself, gave everything as a player and as a manager to Ireland.

[Donal81]

Whatever the rights of wrongs of 'that can of worms' the way he went was undignified and shabby and not the right way to treat someone who, as you admit yourself, gave everything as a player and as a manager to Ireland.

The way he went wasn't nice (booing in Lansdowne, Saipan, etc) but managers rarely leave a football team under a shower of praise, you know? His position was fairly untenable: he was responsible in some way for the exodus of our greatest player (not that Keano's hands were clean of responsibility, nor were the FAI's), the team were playing terrible football (Russia away, Switzerland at home). The whole Saipan account and the Genesis report brought up some fairly miserable details about his man-management as well as dealing with the incompetence of the FAI. With everything taken into account, I think he had to go.

Moreso, I don't think much could have been achieved had he stayed. The team was sick to the core from Saipan and it just needed a fresh start. Again, it wasn't all McCarthy's fault and he gets some unfair criticism from the same idiots who rush to shower Kerr with praise after a victory and kick him in the teeth after a draw. But it remains that the team couldn't go any further under McCarthy.

The whole thing - Saipan - was just a miserable farce. No one emerges from it with any real credit. It came down to McCarthy waiting for a simple phonecall from Keane who didn't even have to apologise, just say he wanted to come back, according to Niall Quinn. If that was the case, as Tom Humphries wrote, the whole thing was just silly anyway.

I take no pleasure in saying that McCarthy had to go as he gave us some great memories, brought in new players and ushered out the Charlton style of football, but I think that was the only end result.

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

****e player, ****e manager, end of. :p

Typical of your contribution to this message board.
Anyone who has read any of your previous posts will know that you have about the same knowledge of football as the Norwich City chairwoman, and your manners is on a par with an agitated Eamon Dunphy.

[pete]

I'm no fan of Mick McCarthy but don't know how anyone couldn't be impressed with way he essentially created a new team & took them from bottom of league to likely league winners.

[boysingreen]

Whoever was wishful thinking of Morrison going to Sunderland, like the way you think, and hope it comes about. It'd be great if he was the Andrew Johnson of next season (one of league's top scorers playing for a newly promoted team).

[Stuttgart88]

Except it could squeeze out Elliott. They also have Stewart, Brown & Kyle will be back...

[OwlsFan]

I agree that nearly every manager has a sell by date but Mick's came too early - 2 matches in after having just qualified for the WC 2002. If the Keane debacle never happened Mick would have probably have gone of his own volition at the end of the last campaign and not with chants of "Keano" ringing in his ears at Lansdowne - although the counter chant of "Ireland" is seldom mentioned.

I just fret that Sunderland will struggle and Laughing Bill will prompt Dumpy to attack McCarthy on the Premiership and my blood will start to boil again.

Dumpy has been there at just about every crucial moment of my football supporter's life, either as a cr*p midfielder in the Irish team of the last 1960s, attacking Jack Charlton as he led us to our most successful period ever as a football nation, supporting the Kilcoynes as they sold Milltown, making scurrilous and personal remarks about McCarthy even before Saipan and of course Saipan.

I just won't watch the Premiership I suppose is the answer if Sunderland struggle.

[Stuttgart88]

Apparently The Sun is saying Sunderland could try & re-sign Kevin Phillips if S'hampton get relegated. This would be pretty crap.

[Eirambler]

Kavanagh and Wigan on their way to the Premiership, 2-0 up. Kav running midfield according to 5 live.

Apparently their owner has said he will spend £25m on new players for next season.

Ipswich, Derby, Preston and West Ham for the playoffs at the moment.

[Colie]

Kav running midfield according to 5 live.



He's a legend. We need to fit him in in the first team somehow. At least he'll be there when Keane crys off at the next worldcup.

[brine3]

You found a way to refer to Saipan in a post about Graham Kavanagh.

And to think I thought I had a chip on my shoulder regarding the evens of May 2002...

[Fergie's Son]

Delighted to see Kavanagh make it back to the big leagues. I was one who was questioning Kerr's decision to play him at all. It seems, however, that Kerr was aright and Kav has a lot to offer the national team. Delighted I was wrong!

[Condex]

Delighted to see Kavanagh make it back to the big leagues. I was one who was questioning Kerr's decision to play him at all. It seems, however, that Kerr was aright and Kav has a lot to offer the national team. Delighted I was wrong!

Before you start dipensing marks, wait until he plays a few decent games in the premiership next season, its at a whole different ball game.

[Closed Account 2]

Did anyone else see Sean Thornton's rapping on Sky Sports??

Yeah, and the less said about that the better.

[Stuttgart88]

Marcus Stewart is being released by Sunderland. Good news for Elliott, and maybe Clinton?

[Stuttgart88]

But I've just read that Sean Thornton is on the transfer list.

[M@ttitude]

Yeah Thorntons on his way out, there was speculation in January about Everton being interested in him.. Hopefully he gets a move to the premiership anyway..

[Stuttgart88]

Yeah, it'd be a shame if Thornton had to stay in The Championship.

The Telegraph is saying that McCarthy is interested in signing Delap & Clinton Morrison, among others.

[tetsujin1979]

Yeah, it'd be a shame if Thornton had to stay in The Championship.

The Telegraph is saying that McCarthy is interested in signing Delap & Clinton Morrison, among others.

no surprises about Clinton, although Delap is an odd one. Not playing particularly well in a rubbish Southampton side. He was regularly picked by Mick but more often than not stayed on the bench.

[Stuttgart88]

no surprises about Clinton, although Delap is an odd one. Not playing particularly well in a rubbish Southampton side. He was regularly picked by Mick but more often than not stayed on the bench.

You were right about Stewart last week though.

[paul_oshea]

the fans seem to really have taken to him also. bbcs coverage showed a load of fans running over to him and putting him on their shoulders. about time too that he gets his chance to play in the premiership.lets hope he can prove himself

[JimmyP]

It'd certainly be interesting to see if Mick did that,
if a strike-partnership was formed between Elliot and Morrison at any point in his plans, it could only be good for the Irish team.

[Eirambler]

The Telegraph is saying that McCarthy is interested in signing Delap & Clinton Morrison, among others.

I have a feeling every second player from McCarthys Ireland days will be linked to Sunderland this summer.

What about Colin Healy? Any chance of him being back for next season?



Yeah Thorntons on his way out, there was speculation in January about Everton being interested in him.. Hopefully he gets a move to the premiership anyway.

There are (unconfirmed) rumours that Thornton's hit the bottle and the fags and has more or less p!ssed away his premiership chances. He was linked to Hibernian yesterday, which isnt a move thats going to get him in the Irish team any time soon. A real pity if its true cos the guy had unbelievable potential.

[Eirambler]

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=41418

[eirebhoy]

Before you start dipensing marks, wait until he plays a few decent games in the premiership next season, its at a whole different ball game.
He had a few seasons in the premiership with Boro. Got sold when Robson took over. I think he's twice the player Holland is and I really think Keane-Kav partnership would be superb. Both of them know when to stay back and when to go forward and they looked a good partnership against China. :)

[Donal81]

It's a shame to hear about Thornton. The bloke is still only 22 or whatever it is. I thought Mick had got him sorted out?

Maybe he's just a bad egg. Wasn't there loads of hassle when he left Tranmere? Maybe it's just rumours, though.

I don't like it when any player wastes a career, especially not young Irish ones.

[pete]

Stewart is probably making way for Darryl Murphy. McCarthy seems to like at least 1 target man. I presume Deane is also on his way.

[ken foree]

well it's sad about thornton but maybe another year or two with a champs. club might be best instead of being an immature lad being thrust into the money/spotlight/bs n' hype machine of the premiership - that's if them rumours about him are true though! there's a lot of rumours out there

[JimmyP]

I saw the footage of Sunderland celebrating on their open top bus, on sky sports last night (Elliot was givin' it loads), and McCarthy said he wanted to bring in 8 new players, so there could well be room for Clint or Delap in there (maybe even Doherty, if his favourtism for Irish players knows no bounds :) :D )

[Stuttgart88]

Steven Reid is another that Mick admires.

[Stuttgart88]

Here's a real wild card: Richie Partridge.

I don't think he was ever in a McCarthy squad for Ireland though, but the 8 players he wants to sign must include someone on the cheap!

[eirebhoy]

Here's a real wild card: Richie Partridge.
Partridge must have had a good game against Leicester when he was at Coventry, a lot of the Leicester fans want to sign him:
http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=5250

[Stuttgart88]

There was one game on SKY where he carried the ball a bit of a distance, cut in from the left and placed the ball past the keeper. Was this against Leicester?

[dr_peepee]

I'd be Surprised if Reid moves on during the Summer. He's only now starting to find his feet at Blackburn. Saying that, this is going to be his third year so if he's in Hughes plans at all I'm sure they'd be putting a contract extension in front of him to avoid loosing him for nothing.

[Slash/ED]

There was one game on SKY where he carried the ball a bit of a distance, cut in from the left and placed the ball past the keeper. Was this against Leicester?

He definitely got at least one incredible goal against Leicester, not sure if it was live on TV though.

[NeilMcD]

It's now half a century since Sunderland assembled a squad so expensive they became known everywhere as the Bank of England club. Rumour had it they had spent a million pounds, unthinkable money back in the 1950s, to try and win the league.

Instead, things went badly wrong and, to the amusement of a nation, they were relegated to the old Second Division.

There have been quite a few ups and downs since, but for the last couple of weeks the team now managed by Mick McCarthy have been preparing for life in the top flight again. The ground has changed and even the football bears little enough relation to what was produced 50 years ago. But some things remain the same.

The passion for the club in the town remains as strong as ever with 50,000 turning out for the street party that followed promotion, and then there's the money . . . the team assembled by McCarthy - this week named Philips Manger of the Month - after more than 20 stars had to be offloaded cost that same magical £1 million to assemble.

Few supporters could have expected such a swift return to the Premiership when it emerged a couple of years back that the spending that accompanied the latter part of Peter Reid's reign had left the club hugely in debt and haemorrhaging cash due to an annual £30 million wage bill.

The debt now stands just short of £40 million, but the wages have been halved as most of the saleable big earners have been shown the door to be joined by those whose contracts have expired. In their places has come an array of next-to-nobodies assembled by McCarthy with the help of Ian Evans and, particularly, Dave Bowman, a long-time associate of the manager. Bowman appears to have a gift for spotting players and he is said to have played a highly significant role in bringing players like Liam Lawrence (soon to be the owner of an Irish passport) from Mansfield, Andy Welsh from Macclesfield and Stephen Caldwell from Leeds for next to no money.

Some idea of the seriousness with which the club now weigh up their spending is provided by the arrival of Neil Collins. Dumbarton wanted £25,000 for the Scot, roughly a week's wages for Phil Babb when he was at the club, but it took McCarthy and his coaches several visits to Scotland before they decided to take the plunge.

A handful of players continue to earn very large sums thanks to contracts signed under former regimes, but with chairman Bob Murray trying to reel things in on the financial side, the maximum wage for the everybody else this year was £5,000 a week.

A few big names departed rather than take the required pay-cuts when their deals ran out, but among those glad of the money in a tightening market was Gary Breen who earned roughly four times that during his year at West Ham.

Breen has looked good value this year, playing 40 games in the Championship-winning campaign and looks set to play an important part next year. With Marcus Stewart gone and Michael Bridges transfer-listed, Stephen Elliott will be the club's most prominent striker next year if reinforcements aren't signed.

His arrival, at the prompting ofBowman and Evans for (all add- ons now fulfilled) £375,000, has perhaps been the club's best bit of business over the past year with the Irish striker, who scored 16 goals in just over 40 games, now worth a multiple of that figure. Seán Thornton's future is less certain since being transfer- listed due almost certainly to his antics off the pitch.

The swiftness of McCarthy's decision to release the club's top scorer, Marcus Stewart, after promotion was assured shows he is no longer the sentimentalist some of his decisions while at the helm with Ireland suggested.

Promotion brings with it increased revenues of at least £20 million and McCarthy heard how much of that he will have to spend on players last week when he met with Bob Murray.

McCarthy says he wants to bring in eight new faces and the plan is to "do a Bolton on it" - sign decent players on free transfers, and make provision to get rid of them again in the event the club is relegated. Recent history suggests that is a distinct possibility and even a repeat of West Brom's last-gasp survival will be viewed as success.

McCarthy looks ready for the challenge even if the swift decline in his humour when asked about Roy Keane towards the end of a less than gruelling radio interview with Eamonn Holmes suggests he is no better equipped to handle the increased media attention.

[drummerboy]

Thought Thornton had mended his ways. If he hasn't he's a moran. Hoped he watched Gazza on the Alan Hansen documentary last night. The guy seems to be in a worse state than poor Paul McGrath. Hope Thornton cops himself on.

[tetsujin1979]

Thornton was linked with a swap deal to Hibs for Derek Riordan recently

[eirebhoy]

Whelan scored the crucial 3rd goal for Wednesday last night as they won promotion to the Championship. He also won man of the match for the 2nd time in the 3 playoff games.