Republic of Ireland V Serbia - Tuesday, 7th September 2021 - 2022 World Cup Qualifier

[pineapple stu]

I presume there's similar press releases from Azerbaijan and Serbia today?

(Well - maybe less scary, but otherwise similar)

[tetsujin1979]

I presume there's similar press releases from Azerbaijan and Serbia today?

(Well - maybe less scary, but otherwise similar)

I missed it at the time, but Serbia's squad was announced a week ago

Fortunately it was also added to Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia...l_team#Players
Defence seems to be a little inexperienced

[pineapple stu]

Kolarov seems the only real omission going off wiki's "Recent call-ups" list. Maybe Ljajic too. They do seem to be a little light caps-wise in defence and in nets alright, though we'd kill for some of their options such as the Sevilla keeper.

[Bielsa´s irish]

If we get a heavy defeat he must resign. Mark Hugues is my candidate we need a motivator

[tetsujin1979]

Hughes peaked with Blackburn 13 years ago.

[Diggs246]

I wouldn't rule out hughes. He can handle players and get a tune out of them, even when they are only average players

[third policeman]

It’s come to a sorry state when I’d even contemplate Harry Redknapp. Not yet willing to countenance Big Sam. Just someone who knows how to set up a team. If this continues, we will have destroyed the confidence of the young players who have been thrust into this shameful chaos.

[MylesNotMiley]

It’s come to a sorry state when I’d even contemplate Harry Redknapp. Not yet willing to countenance Big Sam. Just someone who knows how to set up a team. If this continues, we will have destroyed the confidence of the young players who have been thrust into this shameful chaos.

I don't think reverting back to a "British" manager is the way to go.
Do we really want to go back to watching the same tactics as the last few years of the O'Neill era or McCarthy's last term.

The idea around the Kenny experiment is the right one IMO, but maybe Kenny just isn't good enough to lead the revolution in the playing style.

I saw a list online with the odds for the next manager. Neil Lennon, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Sam Allardyce all among the favorites. That's almost as depressing as Kenny's results.

[paul_oshea]

Score draw. Posters come on to say we look really good and must follow this up at lux away.

I do think we'll get the score draw.

[Fixer82]

If we get a heavy defeat he must resign. Mark Hugues is my candidate we need a motivator

Is he still alive?

[TonyD]

I don't think reverting back to a "British" manager is the way to go.
Do we really want to go back to watching the same tactics as the last few years of the O'Neill era or McCarthy's last term.

The idea around the Kenny experiment is the right one IMO, but maybe Kenny just isn't good enough to lead the revolution in the playing style.

I saw a list online with the odds for the next manager. Neil Lennon, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Sam Allardyce all among the favorites. That's almost as depressing as Kenny's results.

Amen to all that. As someone who has defended Kenny up to now, I still think he’s trying to go about things the right way. For one reason another it’s just not working. It’s frustrating, and must be for him that we do relatively well away to the top two teams in the group, then follow it up with two shockers against Luxembourg and yesterday. At least the effort was there yesterday, and if the finishing was better we could have ended up with a relatively comfortable victory. But we didn’t, so it’s not really much consolation. I feel for Stephen Kenny, but we have to find a way to win some games, otherwise I fear the end is nigh. Please though, no washed up English managers to replace him.

[Stuttgart88]

I dunno Tony. Stephen Kelly was on SSN with Richard Dunne earlier. He was saying it's all well and good trying to play between the lines but you need results too. But yesterday and in some other games I didn't even see us try to play between the lines. There was no clever movement or interplay, it was all functional A to B along the touchline or into a channel type stuff. So is he trying to go about things the right way? I'd definitely agree that he's right to ask the players to trust themselves on the ball and there is plenty in his public interviews to agree with in terms of what he wants Irish teams to do, but a lot of the time none of this is evident on the pitch.

And yeah, no washed up English managers for me either. I like the Sinn Fein attitude coming from Kenny. I really want to see us succeed with mainly homegrown players with a mainly homegrown coaching team. It's a bit of a purist view but it's a challenge I think we should face face.

[third policeman]

Until we have homegrown infrastructure and a competitive domestic league that produces players and managers that can succeed in international football, that’s a long way off. There have to be better options than a guy who was not won a single match and is utterly deluded about the trajectory of his great project.

[pineapple stu]

Not sure what to expect out of this game now. I can't see any chance of a win. We ran them close on the scoreboard in Belgrade but really we were very much second best.

Probably the best we can hope for in our last four games is improved performances on the first set, but our two best performances were away to the top two teams and I don't see we have what it takes to step things up another gear. An Azerbaijan/Luxembourg-level performance would be ugly against Serbia though.

Team-wise - not sure it matters really; we're that weak. I think we should cap Kelleher because, like Bazunu, he'll likely be around for a while to come and should get competitive experience. Robinson up front because he has half an idea where the goal is, which is half an idea more than Idah/Connolly/Parrott at the moment. Agree with those who said Coleman was wasted in centre-back (3-4-3 against Azerbaijan opens up the question of why Clark/Lenihan were left at home even after we lost a centre-half to injury in Portugal)

Sometimes the darkest hour is just before the dawn, but I'm not seeing any reason for positivity out of this one.

[John83]

Home to this lot, I think a narrow defeat is the most likely outcome. A draw would be a good result, and a win is very unlikely. Granted, I'm currently demoralised enough to consider a win unlikely versus anyone better than East Timor, but I think I'm being objective in the above.

A thumping might be a good result if it sees Kenny finally run or pushed, and I don't like that I'm thinking like that.