Portugal v Republic of Ireland - Tuesday, 11th June 2024 - Friendly

I can't believe Stephen Kenny, James McClean, Jeff Hendrick, Shane Duffy and Matt Doherty have done this to us.

If only we picked Manning instead of Brady maybe?

Sammy, Cannon and Azaz haven't saved us either…

Basically every silver bullet people have called for has made no difference.

This is a major rebuild job and I only think we're half way through it, things might only get worse if we can't get serious funding in to the LOI underage. There's a decent team in the future that will come out of some of these guys but we are not even close to there yet I fear. I love John O' Shea, I don't want him to get this job either, we need someone with far more experience to make sense of this it feels like.

Honestly I wish we would have gotten relegated to Nations League group C at some stage to give someone a chance to build momentum and confidence in to a squad. We would have been after O' Neill only they restructured the tournament. This slide has been coming for a long time unfortunately.

This is still all John Delaney's fault anyway, I hope we can all agree on that at least.

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

I can't believe Stephen Kenny, James McClean, Jeff Hendrick, Shane Duffy and Matt Doherty have done this to us.

If only we picked Manning instead of Brady maybe?

Sammy, Cannon and Azaz haven't saved us either…

Basically every silver bullet people have called for has made no difference.

This is a major rebuild job and I only think we're half way through it, things might only get worse if we can't get serious funding in to the LOI underage. There's a decent team in the future that will come out of some of these guys but we are not even close to there yet I fear. I love John O' Shea, I don't want him to get this job either, we need someone with far more experience to make sense of this it feels like.

Honestly I wish we would have gotten relegated to Nations League group C at some stage to give someone a chance to build momentum and confidence in to a squad. We would have been after O' Neill only they restructured the tournament. This slide has been coming for a long time unfortunately.

This is still all John Delaney's fault anyway, I hope we can all agree on that at least.

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It doesnt matter how much funding we have if we continue to entertain the idea of having managers like O'Shea incharge of our NT.


Yes, getting relegated to league C will definitely improve the moral of the squad...

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Originally Posted by Jd2793

we did much better vs portugal in 2021+22. cant believe how much we've gone back since.

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I think if Portugal had scored their early penalty in 2021 the game would have ended up like tonight's. Sometimes you get something to hang on to and it can change a game compared to when you go behind early. Portugal had enough chances in both games to win by 3/4 goals, but this time they did it. It doesn't necessarily mean we've gone backwards. If we play Portugal five times away from home, we might take a draw off them once, run them close once and get easily beaten three times.

I do agree with The Fly that a new manager probably isn't going to turn things around significantly. Most of our squad is bog-average Championship standard (and I include the Celtic guys and the players relegated with ease from the Premier in that). We're missing that one or two top quality players that smaller countries need and that's a big difference. (I do expect a new manager to get better results against the likes of Armenia, Finland, Luxembourg, Qatar, etc for all that)

Not looking forward to Wembley in September tbh.

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Originally Posted by The Fly

Regardless of who the manager is I just don’t think the performance levels would be much different. The lack of quality in the Irish team is just so obvious, particularly in centre midfield.

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You're saying a manager in his 4th game in charge ever would do as good a job as any other manager, including managers who've managed in the game for over 10 years?

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Originally Posted by CSAD

It doesnt matter how much funding we have if we continue to entertain the idea of having managers like O'Shea incharge of our NT.


Yes, getting relegated to league C will definitely improve the moral of the squad...

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I will be concerned with morale after playing the 6 games in League B as well

That interview with Kelleher was horrendous. Absolutely sick of Tony O'Donoghue. Another person that really needs to go. I'm all for strong questions in interviews but leave those for the press conference. Not to a young player when he's getting a motm award. Argh!

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

I will be concerned with morale after playing the 6 games in League B as well

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If we cant compete with Greece or Finland in this NL campaign then I dont see League C being much better really. Instead of making excuses for O'Shea and Kenny and accepting mediocrity maybe its time we ask them to...you know...do you're job for once.

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Originally Posted by CSAD

If we cant compete with Greece or Finland in this NL campaign then I dont see League C being much better really. Instead of making excuses for O'Shea and Kenny and accepting mediocrity maybe its time we ask them to...you know...do you're job for once.

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My main initial point was that the problems run way deeper than a manager ;)

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

My main initial point was that the problems run way deeper than a manager ;)

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In this instance it really doesn't, we've accept 3-4 years now of mediocrity from manager's clearly not up to the task of managing at that level and instead of calling them out all we do is make excuses to lower the bar of expectations. If we cant get a manager capable of managing at international level than it doesn't really matter what players we have we're going to struggle.

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Originally Posted by rebelmusic

That interview with Kelleher was horrendous. Absolutely sick of Tony O'Donoghue. Another person that really needs to go. I'm all for strong questions in interviews but leave those for the press conference. Not to a young player when he's getting a motm award. Argh!

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Thought it was embarrassing too. The questions about Ronaldo after losing 3-0 was just ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by CSAD

In this instance it really doesn't, we've accept 3-4 years now of mediocrity from manager's clearly not up to the task of managing at that level and instead of calling them out all we do is make excuses to lower the bar of expectations. If we cant get a manager capable of managing at international level than it doesn't really matter what players we have we're going to struggle.

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Again, I'm more worried about the structures that have lead to the situation, not the individual managers. It's ok if you want to focus on the manager. We obviously want to get the best man we can.

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Originally Posted by The Fly

Regardless of who the manager is I just don’t think the performance levels would be much different. The lack of quality in the Irish team is just so obvious, particularly in centre midfield.

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Maybe if we bothered to resource the midfield we might at least have some kind of starting point to work from. I mean, pretty much nobody thought he was a tactical expert, but how clueless do you have to be to pick a two man centre midfield away to Portugal? How anybody ever thought that O'Shea was in any way, shape or form equipped to be the next permanent Irish manager is beyond me. The last three months have been just as big a waste of everyone's time as the three years that preceded them.

The only positive that might come out of tonight is that any lingering hopes he might have had of getting the job full time should now be gone. I say should though, because with Canham involved, you just wouldn't know.

I'm not sure James McLean went to Betty Ann Norton. I actually had to put the subtitles on!

We deserve better then this lads. We deserve an experienced professional manager. We clearly need to play 4-5-1 away from home. O'Shea playing that set up v Portugal shows he's a bit of a wally imo

Thank you John.........NEXT!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Jd2793

we did much better vs portugal in 2021+22. cant believe how much we've gone back since.

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We did but my response is pretty much the same as pineapple stu's...

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I think if Portugal had scored their early penalty in 2021 the game would have ended up like tonight's. Sometimes you get something to hang on to and it can change a game compared to when you go behind early. Portugal had enough chances in both games to win by 3/4 goals, but this time they did it. It doesn't necessarily mean we've gone backwards. If we play Portugal five times away from home, we might take a draw off them once, run them close once and get easily beaten three times.

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Ditto.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I do agree with The Fly that a new manager probably isn't going to turn things around significantly. Most of our squad is bog-average Championship standard (and I include the Celtic guys and the players relegated with ease from the Premier in that). We're missing that one or two top quality players that smaller countries need and that's a big difference. (I do expect a new manager to get better results against the likes of Armenia, Finland, Luxembourg, Qatar, etc for all that)

Not looking forward to Wembley in September tbh.

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Yeah, it's the quality of the squad that's the major issue in all of this imo. I just think the notion that some manager can bring a marked difference to our prospects, with the players we currently have at our disposal, is naive. A particular manager coupled with a more fortunate draw can of course make a difference...but it's more hope than expectation.

The emergence of Evan Ferguson, our goalkeeping options and centre backs (now bolstered by Jake O'Brien) are the real plus points we have. There's also some eye-catching prospects in the youth teams but as ever it's a waiting game with them. We desperately need quality in central midfield though...it's been so poor for so long now that it just drains the hope out of you. :(

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Thought it was embarrassing too. The questions about Ronaldo after losing 3-0 was just ridiculous.

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The real cringe fest is that ridiculous Irish man of the match routine on RTE after every game.

I'd love it if Roy did co-commentary just once.

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Originally Posted by Jd2793

we did much better vs portugal in 2021+22. cant believe how much we've gone back since.

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Agreed on the point that we did much (much) better v Portugal (regardless of penalty saved) in the competitive games under Kenny, that's a no brainer comparison, except that this game was a friendly, the second of two and losing the plot after going behind with a patched up team is not that remarkable.

Scales, our first choice CH was horrendous all game, Coleman was given a total runaround and generally useless, we're weak at CM with absolutely little or no impact coming from either wing. The one good thing is that the players kept trying to the end. Idah is not being utilised to his strengths, I wondered if his shot had been on target instead of the side net, would have beaten the goalie despite the tight angle.

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

Again, I'm more worried about the structures that have lead to the situation, not the individual managers. It's ok if you want to focus on the manager. We obviously want to get the best man we can.

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Whatever the individual structures are its led to Ireland being top 10 in Europe at u17/u19 level and pot 2 at u21 level...sadly though when it comes to international level we've decided to accept total mediocrity in recent years unlike our underage squads. Maybe for once we actually hold our manager responsible instead of making excuses for them we might actually get somewhere.

That was about as bad a display as could have been expected. We were poor all over the pitch. O’Shea simply is not the answer (not now anyway). The fare on display in March and June was objectively worse than what we saw under Kenny. Where to from here? Everything about Irish football right now is toxic and the list of possible managerial replacements are unlikely to unite the fans while also improving our performances. Our players are, despite the potential, clearly just average. The FAI are ineffective stewards of our game and have failed as safeguards of our long term future success. The whole thing is a depressing mess. Not a lot to be hopeful for at the moment.

Portugal have a stunning array of talent.

But, O'Shea handled that selection really poorly again. The 5-2-3 set up allowing our midfield to be overrun made no sense again. He has not ventured away from this shape bar make it a 5-4-1 in certain games but in this game he selected Parrott and Szmodics seemed to be playing higher and wider so the midfield two were completely exposed.

And he has stuck with this formation with barely any wing back options bar two lads into their 30s, one of whom doesn't really play there for his club as they don't play that way and the other whose international career had looked to be petering out.

The lack of wing back options has been incredibly clear since O'Shea took over.

Based on his 4 games, we will struggle to achieve anything under O'Shea. It has me all praying for Chris Hughton or anyone with the ability to set a team up to a) play to their strengths and b) be hard to beat.