"the greener":so far so good

i have to admit that i was one of the doubters about the abilities of brian kerr when he took over in charge of our national squad.
i have to take my hat off to the guy and eat humble pie as i think he is doing a great job and is very professional but still retains his personal touch with the players.just listen to the amount of "fringe players" of the squad who say he is always in touch with them finding out how they are doing etc.

i thought that it would be all too much for him but he has so far proved me wrong.i hope he continues to do so.

keep it up brian...... :)

I still think we need to wait and see what he does in the qualifiers. He needs to weed out the dead wood from the squad (you know who I'm talking about) and if he does that, fair play to him, if he doesn't, he is just another Mick McCarthy.

Yeah, ultimately he's had one big test so far and failed. Now, he can't really be blamed for that too much as he only took over mid way through the campaign and couldn't introduce new players, but I'm reserving judgement until the we see what he does in the qualifyers.

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Originally Posted by Slash/ED

Yeah, ultimately he's had one big test so far and failed. Now, he can't really be blamed for that too much as he only took over mid way through the campaign and couldn't introduce new players, but I'm reserving judgement until the we see what he does in the qualifyers.

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The jury is still out and I really hope he succeeds.

However he did fail in the last campaign, he did not take over mid way thorugh the campaign but after 2 games of an 8 games series. With the way the results went in other games he had a real chance of getting out of the group with a home win against Russia ( and a draw away to Switz, too lazy to go back and look at the table ). Ultimately the job was not done and the game in Basel will be remembered for a long time as a very poor performance. Brian used the excuse of a bad start too often for my liking, but I think he deserves a pass on the last campaign.

Finishing second in the forthcoming campign is a must, if we don't it's goodbye Brian.

Comparitively the performance that we have produced in freindlies (Brazil, Czech Rep. or Holland) have not been matched by the performances in competitive games. In fact while I can remember what could be called battling performances in Albania and Georgia there weren't any real quality ones (Georgia at home was the best performance but even that was hardly scintillating.) Worse than that Albania and Russia (home) and Switerland (away) were all very poor performances.
The encouraging aspect is that the better performances, in freindlies, have come since the failure to qualify for Portugal (okay Nigeria excepted). He now seems to have the team capable of playing good football and indeed quite a few chances have been produced of late.

Brilliant apart from the 2 games that really really mattered. Russia home and Switzerland away - we were toitally flat and didn't perform. The manager must carry the can here.

The friendlies have been really encouraging but we need performances and results in Basle and Paris not to mention 2 home wins v Cyprus and the Faroes.

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Originally Posted by 1MickCollins

Finishing second in the forthcoming campign is a must, if we don't it's goodbye Brian.

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If we don't finish second, I honestly don't think he'll be sacked.
One of the perks of managing the Irish team is that failure seems to be acceptable, thats why we were stuck with idiots like Big Jack and Mick for so long.

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Originally Posted by carnstien

If we don't finish second, I honestly don't think he'll be sacked.
One of the perks of managing the Irish team is that failure seems to be acceptable, thats why we were stuck with idiots like Big Jack and Mick for so long.

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Big Jack and Mick ( who very much shares responsibility for last campaign ) always finished at least second and got to the play-offs at worst.

Of Charlton's 5 campaigns he qualified for 3. He finished 2nd in 1992 behind England but we did not lose a game and failed to get to Sweden, again in 1996 we finished second but lost to Holland in the play-off. Long live St Jack, where/how did Jack fail?

I don't think Mick failed either, but the FAI appointed a man with little experience but then they all do it, Germany appointing Klinsmann, if the FAI appointed Klinsmann what would we say???? Van Basten now manager of Holland??

But Kerr starts off with a young team which has been to the last WC, and has class players like Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Roy Keane and a hand full of other decent players. Finishing second and getting to the play-offs is not failure, finishing 3rd is.

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Originally Posted by 1MickCollins

However he did fail in the last campaign, he did not take over mid way thorugh the campaign but after 2 games of an 8 games series.

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I think hat Slash/Ed meant was he took over without any time to bring in the players he wants. You can't expect him to make 5/6 changes midway through a qualifying campaign. Most teams go through a qualifying campaign with more or less the same set of players so Kerr was continuing where Mick left off. There has been a load of changes to the first team since the Swizz match and that is what the friendlies were for.

Also, while we probably should have beaten Russia (even without Robbie and O'Shea) I certainly wouldn't expect to beat any top 50 side away from home without Cunningham.

I'm not sure about that now, we got such a small panel it's not like he was swamped with choices. I think the loss of Keane was a huge blow as well as the loss of Staunton and Quinn, not easy to find replacements for those fellas.

BTW we qualified for the world cup without Kenny playing key games. Breen & Dunne played in Holland, it's true we don't win many away games against top 30 teams but in fairness now only a few teams do that regularly and it's not really necessary if you win the home games.

No getting way from the fact that Brian Kerr had a great chance to get a play-off play place. Anyhow lets look to the future...

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Originally Posted by EamonD

BTW we qualified for the world cup without Kenny playing key games

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If I remember correctly, Cunningham didn't get his game during the WC qualifiers. He has improved immensely over the last 4 years or so and is now one of our most important players. Anyway, I'd prefer Dunne at centre half any day over O'Shea who has played around 10 games at the top level in that position.

In all honestly, if we had any other manager for the EC qualifiers, does anyone think we would have had a better chance of qualifying? Plus, do you think so many of us would be thinking we can actually top the group if Mick was still in charge?

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Originally Posted by gspain

not to mention 2 home wins v Cyprus and the Faroes.

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I think it's even more important to get good results against Israel than both those teams you've mentioned.
Israel is an away trip that no one will fancy so the home game is vital for us to win.

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Originally Posted by davros

Good luck with the lobotomy :eek: ......you clearly know Nothing :mad:about the History of Irish soccer........ :D

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My opinion is that McCarthy and Charlton were both terrible managers.

They were lucky that at times during their respective reigns they had excellent players and extremly low expectations, making it virtually impossible to "fail". Any half decent manager could have done better than those guys in the same situation.

Like I said thats my opinion and you are not going to change it.

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Originally Posted by carnstien

My opinion is that McCarthy and Charlton were both terrible managers.

They were lucky that at times during their respective reigns they had excellent players and extremly low expectations, making it virtually impossible to "fail". Any half decent manager could have done better than those guys in the same situation.

Like I said thats my opinion and you are not going to change it.

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My word. For once I find myself agreeing with Davros.

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Originally Posted by Metrostars

My word. For once I find myself agreeing with Davros.

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It becomes really worrying when you do it a few times :eek: :D

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Originally Posted by Metrostars

My word. For once I find myself agreeing with Davros.

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Sometimes the little Buddha talks sense. Carnstein, you do talk some tripe. Half decent managers? You mean like Monty Burns in Soho Square, getting paid £4m to f*ck around and get the tans to the quarter finals of two competitions (one more stage in the competition than the idiot McCarthy :rolleyes: ).

[QUOTE=lopez]Sometimes the little Buddha talks sense.

Are you sure about that. :confused:

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Originally Posted by 1MickCollins

Finishing second in the forthcoming campign is a must, if we don't it's goodbye Brian.

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It's a bit sad to be planning obituaries before we've even started.
These last few weeks before the whole thing starts up again are the best time I reckon. It's the dreamtime. We've got the fixtures. The table is still blank and I'm gone bananas with the usual '3 points here and one there and they'll drop two there etcetcetc' madness. One thing is certain though, no matter how you twist and turn it in your head, when it's all finished there'll be scorelines in there that one could never have guessed. I love dreamtime because we always finish on top. Once it starts its ******ed :)

I looked at the perfornace of Man United with and without Roy Keane
to see if he made a difference.
I found they won 22% more points when he started, which is a
pretty staggering statistic!!
22% more points would have see us qualify I beleive.
You could argue that he would have a greater effect on the Irish
team as Man U are better able to replace him

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Originally Posted by carnstien

My opinion is that McCarthy and Charlton were both terrible managers.

They were lucky that at times during their respective reigns they had excellent players and extremly low expectations, making it virtually impossible to "fail". Any half decent manager could have done better than those guys in the same situation.

Like I said thats my opinion and you are not going to change it.

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but that's not what you said earlier on at all. earlier you implied they finished worse than second (failed)and were kept on anyway. I can go and quote it if you like. you said they failed.

now in this bit you're saying they didn't fail but that they were lucky to have such good players - which is it?

mccarthy wasn't always lucky- the first 3 years we all said how well he was doing despite having a squad full of jack's aging heroes

this isn't the first time you've been woefully inconsistent now is it?

I don't expect to change your opinion- you do it yourself with astounding regularity

unless your on a wind up- actually you must be on a wind-up