A Page boy or a Page turner ! !
Our reputation ( the FAI and all that goes with the FAI ) is so bad now that it probably puts off many candidates ~ And the money ain't good enough to take the chance !
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A Page boy or a Page turner ! !
Our reputation ( the FAI and all that goes with the FAI ) is so bad now that it probably puts off many candidates ~ And the money ain't good enough to take the chance !
I think Page's time had come to pass, the last impressions matter most. Wales lost twice to Poland in the NL and got relegated with just 1 point. They had a very poor Euro qual campaign by any standards plus they were handed the gift of playing both playoff games at home.
Though I was hoping Page would stay on for the NL B games in the autumn :)
Is there or do we just overrate ourselves and are less familiar with some of the other teams players? Transfermarkt is relatively impartial for "on paper" values and considers the Irish team 29th in Europe and below Georgia and Albania.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/vere..._id=6&yt0=Show
Does that reflect on Page or on the passing of a golden generation that a small country can't readily replace?
The NL campaign - that showed Wales aren't at the level of Holland, Belgium and Poland. We knew that anyway. They were competitive throughout (five one-goal defeats, three of which were late winners), though I guess you could argue Kenny almost matched that against Serbia, Holland and France.
A very poor Euro qualification campaign - with four points off Croatia, semifinalists at the World Cup 12 months earlier? Harsh. I see an erratic campaign from a middling side with a middling manager.
Both playoff games were at home, sure, but we'd bite your hand off for 4-1 v Finland and 0-0 v Poland.
I don't think he's an exceptional manager, but I think he's about our level.
You are the best at talking up every national team...except Ireland ofcourse!
Page isnt even Stephen Kenny's level and Kenny wasnt our level so Page definetly isnt, he's a slightly better version of O'Shea and like O'Shea he isnt good enough for us and realistically is isnt good enough for Wales either, he benefitted from the good work that Giggs had done.
The value on that page is based on the most recent squad, and whilst this applies to all teams potentially, 4 of Ireland 6 highest valued players were not in that squad lowering it by up to 101 million (Ferguson 50, Collins 25, Bazunu 15, Omobamidele 11). The addition of those would put us on a par with Scotland, value wise, which we probably aren't.
That's because the Irish squad listed is missing 115M euro worth of players who were unavailable. Add that on and it would value our squad at 227M currently put us 18th/19th in Europe which if anything is very good when you consider the age profile of the squad as pretty much all the players at the top of that value chart are under 23 so will only increase when they get to the mid 20s.
For context, when Stephen Kenny took over our squad was only valued at 120m.
Transfer values out a huge value on youth… or at least there’s a threshold over which your transfer value becomes negligible… So it’s not that squad quality equates to transfer value…
Take right back:
Seamus Coleman €500k
Matt Doherty €3m
Festy Ebosele €6m
But Festy might not be ready at all yet…
It's a good way in particular of comparing countries between where they are now and where they were 2-3 years ago for example.
If I had to be critical I would say that they are clearly biased towards certain countries (Serbia & Denmark are the main examples for me). What I notice in regards to these two countries is when a player from these countries gets signed for a big sum of money their transfermarkt value automatically increases to that sum (Krisitiansen for Denmark in 2023 and Pavlovic for Serbia in 2021 despite very little evidence to justify their increase in value) but when a player from another country moves for a big sum their value stays similar to what their value currently is and they have to prove their worth at their new club first.
For example Milan Skrinier for Slovakia, gets signed for Inter Milan for 34m euro when his transfermarkt value was 7m. If he was Serbian ,for instance, his transfermarkt value would automatically increase to 34m euro for just simply being able to tie his shoes before even playing a game for Inter whereas in Skrinier's case he had to play 4-5 months at Inter to get his transfermarkt value above 30m...and this is just one of MANY MANY examples that show transfermarkt have bias towards certain nations.
Yeah I'd take Sagnol based on that if we could get him. Certainly on the football side anyway, An unfortunate bobble away from winning the game there and probably qualifying Georgia to the knockouts. Just Portugal left to play now so they likely won't get out of the group but, a couple of standout players aside, they're a bang average team and he's got them organised and competitive at a major finals.
He'd be a good appointment so I'm fairly sure we can trust Marc Canham to fail to close out a deal.
We didn’t hire the misogynist - why would we hire the racist ?
Sagnol has had ample opportunities to address his racist comments appropriately and has failed to do so. What message would it send to the senior and underage players from a minority ethnic background to appoint a racist as manager ?
Grand, until you consider we probably almost did. If there was an early April man, as Canham assured us, it points to Sagnol significantly more than any other candidate. I fully accept also that Canham might just have been spoofing heavily, that remains a possibility, however I think one got away around that time and I like Sagnol for it.
Fast forward to recent weeks from there, Dan McDonnell saw fit to raise it in his newsletter several times, particularly the race row angle, and to even ask Sagnol a question about the Ireland job at a Georgia presser before the Turkey game. Sagnol refused to rule it out, not the time to think about it he said, but he hasn't signed up again with Georgia and he remains the bookies favourite as of today.
Sagnol is perfect, 2 moral victories so far. He's made for us...
Oh and he also plays the JOS wingback system so at least we'll have continuity there too
Not sure about that, out and out wife threatening would score a lot more poorly in the Irish media than racial stereotyping. There's almost nothing worse that Lennon could have done in terms of his Irish job hopes, there would have been certain people marching on Abbotstown if they'd hired him. I wouldn't foresee anything like the same level of kickback if Sagnol was brought in.
It does when or defence is crap...if we have a 60m pound defence and still cant defend then I don't see how manger is capable of fixing other complex areas of the team such as midfield.
It would be nice instead of making excuses for the manager for doing such a terrible job with the team, we actually held them accountable for the terrible job they are doing, like I've said in another post the valuation of the squad would put us as a bottom half pot 2 team yet the managers we have has us playing like minnows... whatever way you look at it that's a travesty.
I'm not saying that a particular manager can't do a better job with the current Irish squad. I'm just pushing back against this notion that our prospects will be markedly different with a particular manager. That saying 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear' or 'you can't make chicken salad out of chicken ****' applies here.
You're putting a lot of stock in these valuations you keep mentioning, but let's take a deeper look...
Goalkeepers: I agree that we have particularly good options here; options that most other nations our size (and bigger) would be envious of. I was gutted with Bazunu's injury and hopefully he'll return without any complications and can continue his progress. Kelleher has to move this summer and I genuinely think he's good enough for top 10 PL side.
Centre Backs: It's probably fair to say that Collins probably hasn't progressed as much as we'd hoped, but he still has plenty of time to do that. Jake O'Brien has just emerged this season and looks to have a lot about him, but he's still had just one season of fairly high level football behind him. Both are still young (23) and haven't played together yet but I think we can definitely say they're more than a solid proposition for the future.
Forwards(s): The depth we have up front is the best we've had in a long time, and with the talent that's emerging in the youth ranks I'd say it'll end up the best we've ever had. Evan Ferguson is obviously the stand out prospect and I'm of the firm belief that he'll go on to play at the highest level (if he can avoid injury and keep his head straight).
The Guardiola style predominates the game nowadays and as a result it's an era dominated by particular ball playing technical midfielders (and wide forwards). We have none of these. What we do have is, comparatively speaking, crap! We just have little to no quality here, regardless of what potential there is in other areas. The obvious option for any Irish manager on this front is to stack the midfield and hope.
In other words our expectations have to be reasonable, regardless of valuations.
Our prospect literally couldn't play any worse than they currently are... the only possible way with a qualified manager is up. But the squad isnt a chicken or a sow's ear...its a squad valued at over 200m Euro which puts it in the top 20 teams in Europe...if you have a squad with that valuation and are not even competing to qualify for major tournaments then there is something seriously going wrong.
Ahhh so now the valuation doesn't matter...it matted a lot when the squad was only about 100m and barely in the top 30 in Europe though didnt it, but when it doesnt suit you're argument it's irrelevant. Like what was said earlier it one of the best ways of impartiality judging a squad and you can try twist reality all you want but these are the facts.
No offence but that Guardiola argument is garbage, it might be the case at the very top of the game but in the middle/bottom the game is the same it always has been. What we see in the game nowadays is tactics are more important than ever, this "hit n hope" nonsense of the Trap/O'Neill era is long gone and to be competitive you need a management team that are in line with the modern game or at least semi competent tactically....which we simply haven't had in forever really.
Our expectations are reasonable, simply can we be moderately competitive and not play like a minnow...it honestly shouldn't take THAT much for a manager to accomplish that. We were competitive for 2016,2018 & 2020 tournament and qualifiers with a worse squad so I dont see the how asking to be competitive is setting the bar too high.
Yes that's true as well. The ultimate point here being that, if Sagnol is hired, it's highly unlikely to create the sh!tstorm a few posters seem to think it could. He'd be asked, would apologise, clarify or say he was misquoted or whatever and everyone would just move on.