England V Republic of Ireland - Thursday, 12th November 2020 - Friendly

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Your point would be somewhat valid, save kenny has had more than a handful of games now. Those were one-offs in those managers ireland careers(granted did always look like coming especially in Traps case). I really dislike this site the way people use one of or stupid results to try and disprove or prove their own point, from the generally glaring obvious point. It shows a serious limit in ability to see clearly and argue the case effectively.

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My point is entirely valid Paul. Those two were important p*** or get off the pot games that were lost heavily. I'll start listing off the games under both those where we hung on by our fingernails against teams better than us, no better than us and worse and we'll be here a while if you like.

I'm not some big Kenny fan either nor someone who thinks the answers to all our problems lie in the league of Ireland. They simply don't. But I'm not for changing him not least because we can't afford to be paying him off and someone else to do it when we've already paid Mick a fortune and the others before him. And the money thing matters. We don't have it and we 've been overpaying managers going back to at least Stans time and possibly as far back as Mick1.
An amount of that is Delaney legacy - the 'Trapattoni Era' should NEVER have happened. There's a reason we were an outlier with that carry on. Its unsustainable, sets a precedent and means everyone who's managed in the PL on a cup weekend is gonna rock up asking "where's MY 2 million quid?"

Turns out it wasn't even Delaneys idea. It just landed on his lap. But it got him over a hump and allowed him do something short term expedient that made him popular and got him on the late late show. It was a disaster for Irish football, a dearly bought qualification for 1 EC and no world cups and if we'd only missed out the whole rotten structure would've collapsed on Delaney. All that might seem a long way from a friendly hiding by England but this all matters because all that money was flushed on people who couldn't a flying one about player development here in Ireland.

Look at what the Welsh and Icelandics have managed in those years. We're not even at the starting blocks in terms of what needs to be done. You can't blame a coach who doesn't have the playing stock and you can't blame players for not being good enough anymore than you can blame your cat for not being your dog. So if Kenny takes a bit more interest in whats going on domestically -be it in the LOI, junior or the schoolboys - great. I've concerns about what he's on as well for his work though. He'll get 300k this year -jumping to half a million next year!?!? That's insane. Ryan Giggs isn't on that. More Delaney legacy.

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Originally Posted by da bishop

Some amount of hypocrites on here,maybe a few should lose their short memories and remember what they have posted in the past.So make up yer minds will yee either yee want to see us try play football on the floor or we hoof it .

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Well if you read what I wrote it's exactly this kind of binary thinking that I am worried about

Have doubts about Kenny, but unless we are being beaten at home by a minnow and losing all our other games heavily, he needs to be given the next campaign.

Kenny has been somewhat lucky that he has had a number of competitive games before the wc campaign. Not all managers get that. I never really saw the purpose of playing England aside from making a few quid. Would have been far better to play Latvia and give the likes of Idah a chance of a goal and get the regime off to a winning start.

We have real talents coming through but the reality is that is likely to be 2-3 years before they are really making a difference. In the meantime, we are utterly mediocre.

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Originally Posted by D24Saint

I fear that if things continue like this MON & Micks tactics will be vindicated. It could become apparent that hoofing it and being hard to beat is our modus operandi and that’s where it ends.

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There has to be some middle ground. Pep Guardiola and Jack Charlton aren't the only 2 football managers who ever lived. You can try to play the ball without completely standing off the opposition and letting them have their way with you.

If Kenny can do it, great. But it feels like unless he's prepared to change his approach, and the men he's selecting, he's circling the drain. This isn't good enough.

The correct answer for this team is somewhere in between those 2 extreme levels. I meant to quote da bishop there. Bloody phone.

Matches against England aren't what Kenny should be judged on. They have better quality in every position on the pitch. We would have lost no matter what system we tried.

The real issue is that we look no better, and no more threatening, against weaker teams like Finland, whose squad are no better than ours.

Kenny has been unlucky with the absence of strikers, and we are also paying the price for years of neglect of underage work.

As somebody said earlier, it's going to be tough to play this style of football with one of the poorest generation of players we've had.

Everything was too nice. Too often the likes of Grealish, Mount, Winks were allowed to take a touch and progress with the ball without the fear of being tackled. I’m not saying make stupid fouls but the only people who were prepared to make any kind of tackle or put any pressure on were Browne and McClean after he came on.

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Originally Posted by Bungle

Have doubts about Kenny, but unless we are being beaten at home by a minnow and losing all our other games heavily, he needs to be given the next campaign.

Kenny has been somewhat lucky that he has had a number of competitive games before the wc campaign. Not all managers get that. I never really saw the purpose of playing England aside from making a few quid. Would have been far better to play Latvia and give the likes of Idah a chance of a goal and get the regime off to a winning start.

We have real talents coming through but the reality is that is likely to be 2-3 years before they are really making a difference. In the meantime, we are utterly mediocre.

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I'm sorry. No.

The next campaign is for a World Cup. That's biggest sporting event in the history of the world.

I'm happy enough to give him the next 2 games, and bringing through young players is important, but Stephen Kenny has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We've not only lost games, we've not even looked like a threat.

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Originally Posted by backstothewall

There has to be some middle ground. Pep Guardiola and Jack Charlton aren't the only 2 football managers who ever lived. You can try to play the ball without completely standing off the opposition and letting them have their way with you.

If Kenny can do it, great. But it feels like unless he's prepared to change his approach, and the men he's selecting, he's circling the drain. This isn't good enough.

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Thing is some of that tiki taki stuff at barca got well boring after a while, playing sideways for most of the game, plus all the added cheating, nah give me big jack all day long.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020...-right-things/

Not a great thing for a player to be saying , what exactly does he mean saying we gave up a little bit? Did they not believe in themselves, the gameplan or what they were doing?

saddest night since I am an irish fan. How much money did we get at least?

bonnner mcgrath moran lawrenson hughton houghton brady whelan galvin aldo stapleton

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Originally Posted by Bielsa´s irish

saddest night since I am an irish fan. How much money did we get at least?

bonnner mcgrath moran lawrenson hughton houghton brady whelan galvin aldo stapleton

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You must not have watched the away game v Georgia.

There's so many games at the moment it must be hard for the players. This could have been a well earned week off for them and instead we are self flaggelating ourselves against England who could probably field 4 sperate teams to beat us.

Anyway onto the next game in *checks notes* - 3 days time - madness.

I just read the bbc comments from the match, they are celebrating a friendly victory and the hating is still there, friendly bananas. What happened to Egan ?

We were muck after the opening tonight. In a game we didn't need to play, and shouldn't have played. Too many players were muck. But of the 17 who played, look how many need to be transitioned out, or are learning the ropes (and others currently around as well). We had – at best – half a team tonight, out of an entire squad. RAM's right - England could field several teams, all able to play us off the pitch.

Not now/never going to be up to scratch: Christie, O’Dowda, Curtis (add Maguire)
Jury’s out: none playing tonight (add Kelleher, Travers, Manning)
Squad players/last resorts: Horgan, Long, McClean (add Collins)
On the bench/occasional starters: Browne, Brady (add Arter, Clarke, Byrne, S Long)
Need to be challenged/too complacent: Randolph, Hendrick, Duffy, Hourihane (add McCarthy)
First team starters: Egan, Doherty (add Stevens, Coleman, Robinson)
Prospects – need 12 months: Idah, O’Shea, Molumby (add Cullen, Knight, Connolly, Parrott, Obafemi)

Would we have offered more if Coleman, McCarthy, Connolly and Robinson were playing instead of Christie, Hourihane, O’Dowda and Horgan? If Egan hadn’t gone off almost immediately before England began to dominate? (Is that a coincidence? Did it speed up the inevitable?) I think we could have, if only to have made England work harder for a lower score win. The u21scoming through have been encouraged to play ball, not hoof it up the pitch like the seniors have for 15 years. We’ll never improve if we panic and hit reset to puke football every we get a bad run. The style of play needs to be embedded, and the players who aren’t up to it need to eff royally off into the sunset. The only way to maximise the potential of the up and coming players is to drill a consistent style of play into the squad. That’ll take time, and elements will evolve and disappear. To be honest, it’s an indictment of the short termism and results only focus going back to Kerr. International teams re-invented their tactics repeatedly in the time we’ve stayed stuck in a cave throwing our own 5hit at anybody who looked like they could play ball until they stopped and threw 5hit at the next poor f***er with a bit of talent. Rinse and repeat.

Short term pain, long term gain – that’s my hope.

But tonight, I’m mightily disappointed with the application and cohesion on the pitch. The short kick outs are to cover Randolph’s inadequacy, but won’t work as long as Duffy can’t pass the bloody ball. Our defence was outhustled. Maybe that – or the personnel responsible – needs to be looked at long and hard, because every team watching can see that’s a big flaw in our game.

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Originally Posted by backstothewall

I'm sorry. No.

The next campaign is for a World Cup. That's biggest sporting event in the history of the world.

I'm happy enough to give him the next 2 games, and bringing through young players is important, but Stephen Kenny has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We've not only lost games, we've not even looked like a threat.

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The reality is forget about qualifying for the world cup. Irish teams packed with top players missed out on world cups, so I don't see how a team with 2 very good players (Doherty and Coleman), a few decentish ones and the rest a mixture of mediocre players and good prospects can expect to suddenly win a group against a Germany or Spain, or get through a playoff against a Poland or Switzerland.

The best we can hope for is to see Knight, Parrott, Molumby etc come through and be ready for the next campaign. If we are going to think of world cups, 2026 is more realistic.

As I said, Kenny is lucky he has had so many games. If he is a decent manager, during the next campaign, we should begin to see improvements.

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Originally Posted by bennocelt

Thing is some of that tiki taki stuff at barca got well boring after a while, playing sideways for most of the game, plus all the added cheating, nah give me big jack all day long.

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Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020...-right-things/

Not a great thing for a player to be saying , what exactly does he mean saying we gave up a little bit? Did they not believe in themselves, the gameplan or what they were doing?

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I find that quite concerning. One thing we would never have done under previous managers was let the our heads go down and not give 100%.

Worst I've felt snce Kevin Keegan scored two on us back in about 1979 or 1980.

I cannot see what the Idah fuss is, he moved like a chap in slow motion all night, lacked passion. Would be better off giving Greene a go over that performance. Duffy might be low on confidence but at least he tried his best. Thought Browne and Hendrick worked really hard. Was O'Dowda on the pitch? ; because if so he was invisible. All we found out is we need to work damn hard to get to England's B- team level.

Only plus tonight is that the North tanked.

There is still the Delaney stench over the Kenny appointment. I also think Kenny made a mistake when picking his assistant.
The next 2 games are must score games, or the media will oust him and his backroom team within 12 months.
But what do I know, this is just my stupid opinion. Would love to be proved wrong.

Daryl Horgan of Wycombe Wanderers has become a fixture in our side. Let that sink in. And I think that just about sums our whole situation up at the moment.

What is to be achieved by this course of action? Is Horgan good enough? No. Is he likely to improve? No. Does he improve us as a side? No.

It smacks of Kenny running for cover by picking a player he knows, and is the one player he can call upon from whom he will, presumably, command automatic respect.

Hardly the brave new world some promised.

Surely McClean and, especially Knight, were better options? Even Harness and Curtis would probably offer more.

Collins, our only goal threat on current form, was left on the bench with Curtis, a winger, coming on instead. Again, I struggle to see the rationale.

We don't have the players to play the style of football Kenny wants to play. Our goalkeeper isn't particularly comfortable in possession and our defenders aren't good enough on the ball. And yet we continually attempted to play it out from the back whilst being pressed high up the pitch.

We aren't technically good enough to beat teams like England on their own terms. Even most eastern European 'minnows' are technically far more proficient than us, with a head start on us of decades at playing that kind of football.

We look toothless, defensively shaky, and even a lot of the old grit and fighting spirit that even at our worst you used to be able to take for granted, seems to have been knocked out of us.

I fear a long period in the wilderness awaits us.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Iceland concede twice in injury time in Hungary to be knocked out of the Euros.

That'll be geysir taking a day off from the site anyway :p

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I have already offered worthwhile input on this site today.
It was the most painfull defeat in Iceland's football history. But one cannot say they didn't take it to the wire or give their all and it probably marks the end of this most remarkable chapter in world football history.
But as is said here, "never give up".

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Originally Posted by backstothewall

I've put it back on because i'm a gluten for punishment.

This is as bad an Ireland performance as i can remember since the dog days of Stan. England should be much further ahead.

I'm not calling for his head yet, but that day is getting closer.

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You must have missed Gibraltar home and away, Georgia home and away....

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

The worst Ireland team in living memory losing 3-0 to the best England team in living memory in a game that shouldn't even be happening is no reason to sack the manager.

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Our expectations are bonkers.

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

I find that quite concerning. One thing we would never have done under previous managers was let the our heads go down and not give 100%.

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Guess you weren’t in the stadium for that game against Germany under Trap

iam watching the match on espn taped, Ireland played ok for 16 minutes, grealish is a rat. Dont know if it was said but Maguire goal was a clear foul on Duffy from behind by Maguire

Another humbling performance in what should serve as a watershed moment in severing ties with the worst generation of players we’ve had in 50 years.

All three mistakes from senior players. Duffy, Hendrick and Christie are only 28 and the inevitably anonymous Hourihane 29, however questions must be asked how long we persist with such a mediocre generation.

O’Shea was faultless, Molomby at least tried to run and show for the ball and Idah has gained invaluable experience playing against top centre halves. This generation need to be blooded immediately. Knight and Molomby are the future of that midfield, so whack them in now. Collins is playing at a higher level than Duffy so should at least be in the squad and if Parrot, Connolly and Idah are our future front three, we might as well stick them in now, as we score buck all goals anyway!

As for Kenny, I want to give him time, however he needs to learn fast. This turgid passing style is a lethargic Tika Taka pastiche which is simply not direct enough. Leicester didn’t win the league by out passing the opposition, but by using the resources available to them. A resolute defence, width and pace working on the counter attack.

As it is, we have an abundance of centre halves who are prone to errors as a flat back four, barely two good centre midfielders (let alone three), young strikers with pace in Connolly, Idah and Obafemi who could spring an attack and the two best wingbacks in the country not utilised in their proper position. The team is crying out for a 3-4-3 formation, however his insistence in playing a 4-3-3 is as stubborn as his usage of mediocre ex-league of Ireland players in a parochial tip of the hat to the FAI.

I was a little disappointed with the selections. I thought Molumby deserved a start on recent showings and that was borne out in his substitute appearance. And I don't know how Kenny thought it was a good idea to play Christie against such quality opponents. In that case, I'm starting O'Shea all day long. Christie was under ferocious pressure in possession and out of possession. He was actually worse in possession because he consistently turned back to Randolph or Duffy and invite the English press right down our throats. I don't think O'Dowda should have started either but maybe that is informed by his terrible performance and hindsight being 20/20.

Getting back to Molumby, I'm actually very disappointed he didn't start. England were completely underloaded in midfield with Mount and Winks. That was where they were most vulnerable and that was demonstrated by some surging runs by Browne and Idah when he came a little deeper.

That aside, the game was much in line with my expectations. I thought we would be beaten handily and we probably were. 2 of the goals could have been avoided but would England have scored others? Sancho's goal was great.

It's disappointing to sacrifice the unbeaten record v England but I think when this fixture was announced, the FAI had to have known that they were forfeiting that. The chances of us getting a result with us at a low ebb and England having an abundance of options was absolutely miniscule.

I'm not going to dwell on that. I know Robinson is out for the rest of the games. Is Connolly too? I think he is? If so, that's my greatest source of disappointment so far in this international break.

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

Daryl Horgan of Wycombe Wanderers has become a fixture in our side. Let that sink in. And I think that just about sums our whole situation up at the moment.

What is to be achieved by this course of action? Is Horgan good enough? No. Is he likely to improve? No. Does he improve us as a side? No.

It smacks of Kenny running for cover by picking a player he knows, and is the one player he can call upon from whom he will, presumably, command automatic respect.

Hardly the brave new world some promised.

Surely McClean and, especially Knight, were better options? Even Harness and Curtis would probably offer more.

Collins, our only goal threat on current form, was left on the bench with Curtis, a winger, coming on instead. Again, I struggle to see the rationale.

We don't have the players to play the style of football Kenny wants to play. Our goalkeeper isn't particularly comfortable in possession and our defenders aren't good enough on the ball. And yet we continually attempted to play it out from the back whilst being pressed high up the pitch.

We aren't technically good enough to beat teams like England on their own terms. Even most eastern European 'minnows' are technically far more proficient than us, with a head start on us of decades at playing that kind of football.

We look toothless, defensively shaky, and even a lot of the old grit and fighting spirit that even at our worst you used to be able to take for granted, seems to have been knocked out of us.

I fear a long period in the wilderness awaits us.

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Calm down. Has Horgan started two of Kenny's 6 games in charge? That's hardly evidence he "has become a fixture in our side." We have been missing a lot of attacking players. Let that sink in maybe?

You are hardly making compelling arguments when referring to McClean, Harness and Curtis as potential starters before him. And Knight tends to play deeper- left of a 3 behind the striker when he's not playing centre mid.

And you follow all your points about Horgan by stating Collins shouldn't have been left on the bench. Have you not seen him play at international level before?

Try a little balance.

i am not going to be critical of kenny at this stage given the dreadful luck with covid and injuries that has deprived him of many a central player, sometimes only a couple of hours before KO, since he took over. I also think the performance against slovakia (the game that really mattered) was a 7/10 and a natural goal scorer would have made all the difference i believe. we were unlucky that night.

its incredible though that previous managers who eeked out some superb results were slated at the first opportunity and it was argued that our, lets call it, pragmatic tactics were outdated and would get us no where. MON was blasted even after superb wins against wales, germany (think about it.... we took 4 pts off the world champions), austria, italy and bosnia. incredible results when you think of it now but it counted for very little with many fans at the end. MMcC had about 8 games and a defined brief to get us to the finals....... two of the performances were very good (georgia H and denmark H) and we managed to squeeze draws at home against a much better swiss side and away to denmark. some of the football was poor to watch but we almost pulled it off. qualification is what ultimately matters.

its completely naive and deluded to think that we can out-football many of the teams at our level (rankings) and especially those ahead of us. teams like us, with their limited resources, have to bring something to their tactics that maybe better footballing teams lack. I like the way we hold onto the ball at times at the moment but we just don't put the opposition under enough pressure to throw them off their own stride and we need to reintroduce that back into our game. look at some of the tackles that went in against italy in lille...... it put italy under savage pressure from the start that they couldn't really cope with it. we also used the ball well at times in that game and the build up to bradys goal was quite direct but also involved very good use of the ball. that match is the blue print as to how we need to play...... a good mixture of our traditional getting stuck in along with decent retention and use of the ball

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

You must have missed Gibraltar home and away, Georgia home and away....

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At least we kept going till the end there. My biggest concern and worry now is how limp, facile we are. Even pfizer wouldn't get us up.

Really smacks of a lack of belief in themselves and the system they are playing. For all SKs superlatives I'm worried about actual buy in.

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Originally Posted by Bielsa´s irish

iam watching the match on espn taped, Ireland played ok for 16 minutes, grealish is a rat. Dont know if it was said but Maguire goal was a clear foul on Duffy from behind by Maguire

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I said this at the time on a group chat. Thought it was a clear free to be honest.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

I said this at the time on a group chat. Thought it was a clear free to be honest.

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You had a group chat to watch that 🤭

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Originally Posted by brine3

Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch

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speak for yourself, Diego, Roger Milla, Valderama, Schillaci and Baggio, the style, the tackling, the songs............its easy to look back in anger but it was a world cup that people will remember.... José Mourinho soon put a stop to that tiki taki:D

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Originally Posted by livehead1

You had a group chat to watch that ��

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Nah a WhatsApp football group ;)

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

Calm down. Has Horgan started two of Kenny's 6 games in charge? That's hardly evidence he "has become a fixture in our side." We have been missing a lot of attacking players. Let that sink in maybe?

You are hardly making compelling arguments when referring to McClean, Harness and Curtis as potential starters before him. And Knight tends to play deeper- left of a 3 behind the striker when he's not playing centre mid.

And you follow all your points about Horgan by stating Collins shouldn't have been left on the bench. Have you not seen him play at international level before?

Try a little balance.

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And yet he was the one who looked most likely to create something.

I've no problem with him making the team on last night's showing.

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Originally Posted by brine3

Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch

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England was a horrendous game. Egypt has never been out of the archive room since (I know someone posted a link to it here recently, but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it)

The other three games were all very watchable though (having rewatched them during lockdown, and ignoring the last 10 minutes v Holland of course). In the Italy game, it was the Italians who spent most of the second half abusing the backpass rule.

Actually watched England game when it was on TG4 during summer and thought it was a good game. Thought we were overall the better team but they looked like they could score at any given opportunity also.

Christe and hourihane are terrible players. Even with our limited resources they should have been watching that on the tv

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Nah a WhatsApp football group ;)

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was worried for a moment!

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Originally Posted by bennocelt

speak for yourself, Diego, Roger Milla, Valderama, Schillaci and Baggio, the style, the tackling, the songs............its easy to look back in anger but it was a world cup that people will remember.... José Mourinho soon put a stop to that tiki taki:D

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as I wrote:
"Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest."