id be kind of worried at this stage about collins. hes on a bit of a slide over the past 12 months. surprised at the reaction to bazunu. thought he should have done much better for the goal. collins incredibly poor for it mind you
id be kind of worried at this stage about collins. hes on a bit of a slide over the past 12 months. surprised at the reaction to bazunu. thought he should have done much better for the goal. collins incredibly poor for it mind you
"Mikey Johnson looked lively. ' Yes he did and I would think that most Irish fans were left wondering why he wasn't in the starting line up. SK has done very little right during his tenure, but Johnson is one of his success stories. And in his curtain call game as manager Kenny leaves one of his most lethal weapons on the bench? Difficult to understand.
You touch on a good point. It is the change of environment when Collins and others report for international duty. They must all feel that they are going from ultra professionalism to amateurism. The glory of representing your county is the motivation but the players surely must feel a lack of leadership and a certain air of defeatism about the place.
The next guy needs to turn Collins into a six.. because as long as Cullen is anchoring that midfield, we're screwed..
Burnley have finally realised it and dropped him..
Everything you say is true, but the fact remains that we are arguably the worst team in Europe in terms of creativity. Josh Cullen could not build a paper plane, never mind a decent attacking move. And how far removed from the midfield conversation is Jack Byrne? Not very far I would suggest.
Cause he played 25mins of football all season for Celtic and can't even make match day squads. If Johnston started and underperformed Kenny would be getting it in the neck for starting someone who isn't making match day squad at club level.Quote:
Originally Posted by mark12345
With Ogbene out think he was gonna get criticised no matter who he picked (bar Andy Moran maybe) to replace him had they underperformed. Robinson gets a lot of stick, Idah/Ferguson combo didn't work against Greece, and Johnston can't make a squad for Celtic.
This talk about the environment being "amateurish" or that it is holding back players like Ferguson and Collins doesn't stack with reality. In fact, it's contradicted by the players themselves at every turn. For example, Matt Doherty delivered an impassioned defence of how well coached they are last night. Collins and others have been similarly glowing about Stephen Kenny, Keith Andrews and the coaching team. Daryl Horgan talked about how brilliant John O'Shea, Damien Duff, Anthony Barry and Andrews were, with their attention to detail and personalities.
For whatever reason, the training pitch work Doherty referenced is not showing when it matters. A consistent issue is how poorly prepared the team is when the ball is turned over and it's primarily because Kenny wants them to commit bodies forward. When we lost the ball for the goal yesterday, seven Irish players were in the Dutch half. The LCB Liam Scales was much higher up the pitch than LWB Ryan Manning. Collins and O'Shea were then left man-for-man with an ocean of space behind them. One pass to Weghorst was enough to open the defence up. It's too easy. When it comes down to it, individual moments and decision-making are crucial when you play that high-risk approach. Collins needed to win the ball or stop Weghorst - he did neither and that part is on him. The defence was left utterly exposed in the breakdown and Weghorst did brilliantly to turn him.
To some of us - and certainly Kenny! - the idea of dropping off in these situations, not committing as many players forward or playing a slightly deeper line is heresy, but it arguably would have helped stop that type of goal. We've shown a defensive naivety that was certainly not present during the MON and Mick years. It's no surprise in some respects given how many relatively inexperienced players are now in the team.
Just further shows how poor the production line has been when it comes to players born between the years '92 and '98. There's no leaders in that team around the 27/28/29 age mark and when you look at Scotland they've got that with Robertson, McGinn, McGregor, McTominay, and Tierney.Quote:
Originally Posted by Predator
Dara O'Shea whose the oldest of the "Kenny's Kids" as we'll call them will only be turning 25 this March. In four years our young players will be in around those ages and you hope some of them become team leaders for Ireland like those listed for Scotland.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
They didnt drop him, he was unavailable.
We’ve so much strength in depth at CB and lack of same in midfield, this has to start being a realistic and better option. Hard for an international manager to experiment with that as it carries some risk if it goes pear shaped (remember Christie?!) - although that is what friendlies are for…Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
edit: meant to add, not seeing the best from Cullen - slows everything down and a complete sideways merchant.
He was on the bench.. and never came onQuote:
Originally Posted by CSAD
Cullen is going to turn out to be a fantastic Championship holding midfielder, but he'll not make it at Prem level
Think Cullen will be fine once the next manager comes in and can make us solid again. Wouldn't judge some of our defensive players too harshly over the last 12 or so months. Especially this campaign. When you're so open to play against and have a tactically inept manager it spells disaster. Which is basically what this campaign was.
But we really need someone with a bit of passing range to play in midfield next to him cause he's not going to be the ball playing midfielder we need.
Someone that can pass between the lines a la Moran for his assist for Szmodics last goal but he's not gonna play deep, or has the passing range of pinging passes 60 yards a la Luca Connell but don't know how his medical issues might set him back.
He was suspended for one game and then just kept a settled side for the next game. Considering he's started all bar 1 game this season that he was available for suggests he is still a starter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
Well he is a premiership holding midfielder because he's doing now currently isnt he!
Interesting comment from SK post game: "The Republic of Ireland have never won an away game against a tier one team in history..."
"Surely not?" I thought. But looking back on it, if you discount a couple of wins away to England in the British Championship, NI have only managed it twice (I think) in competitive games, vs Spain and West Germany, with the last of those in 1983!
I suppose SK got it right when he added: "and it's because it's very hard."
Stephen doesn't get to define what is a tier 1 country is
Mon beat Austria, wales and Italy in the euros
Stephen has embarrassed himself and what worse our country.
To quote Richie Sadlier "There is no point going over what he said or analysing his mood, or pick apart what he said or deems as important. We're at the point now where we're ready to move on."
I discounted Austria , whom NI beat 2-1 in Vienna in the Euro's in 1994. Also Wales, on the basis that The Bale Years excepted, they've hardly ever done anything on the world scale. (I mean, both NI and ROI have more impressive overall records than them).Quote:
Originally Posted by Diggs246
As for your two wins against Italy, they were both at neutral venues, so maybe don't count as "away"?
He's right.. and in fairness he got an absolute dog of a group, basically getting the top ranked team in Pot 1, 2 and 4.. I mean talk about the footballing God's being against you..Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
But what did for him were two woefully inept performances against Greece in this campaign, and losing against Armenia last NL campaign
The Luxembourg loss was also a kick in the stones
No one who's honest expected Ireland to finish ahead of France and Holland... but the **** poor NL campaign had killed the play off opportunity even before the draw was made.. we really need to fully understand how important NL is in terms of seedings for World Cups, and seeding plus play offs for Euros.. and you still have people thinking they are glorified friendly games.. finish 2nd in your Nations League group and you're almost guaranteed a play off spot in the Euros
Though watch next time, we'll likely end up with England, Ukraine and Georgia.. when we could end up with Wales, Iceland, Kazakhstan
Looking at the teams coming up, Greece, Georgia and Turkey are all fourth seeds.. would we fancy beating any of them?
Unless we improve quickly, we'll be in the C path fairly rapidly
Kenny was engaging in semantics - maybe instead of trawling back through 100 years of results he should have focused on the upcoming game.Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
The defence was a shambles all game - and it has been like that since Kenny took over - that is on the manager.
When you can't figure out how to get the ball to your best player - that is on the manager.
And I could keep going
And the guff by Doherty about how great training sessions are actually exposes the incompetence of Kenny and the coaching staff in match situations.
Even the free kick when it was passed sideways for someone to have a shot (can't remember who it was) showed incompetence - if you are going to do that you do not pack all your players into the box in front of the goal - you spread them out so there are gaps - and secondly, you have players running towards the free kick taker to drag defenders away from where the ball will be travelling towards the goal.
Last point - Bazunu was excellent last night - and had zero fault for the goal. As I said before - give any striker worth his salt time to set up and pick his spot and he will bury the ball - there was nobody within yards of Weighorst when he hit it.
I disagree - Holland were there for the taking in Dublin and were there for the taking last night - this is a very poor Holland team - France hammered them 4-0 at home and barely broke a sweat when beating them away. 4 points from those two games was entirely possible - as was beating Greece at home. That would be an extra seven points and a massive shift in momentum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
Would we fancy beating Greece, Georgia and Turkey - yes we should and if we don't serious questions should be asked of any manager.
Remember Kenny's six competitive wins were Gibraltar x2, Scotland, Armenia, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan - his competitive losses included Finland x2, Wales, Luxembourg (at home), Ukraine, Scotland, Greece x2 and a bad Holland team x2.
Oh my god stop ...the footballing gods against him!Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
The only reason we have France is because of Stephens results?. If we beat the worst Bulgarian team in 20 year's at home... Guess what we remain second seeds and no France
As against that, he had the Luck of the (Southern) Irish in the draw for the 2020 Euros, where ROI were drawn out as 3rd seeds in a Group with Germany, Netherlands, Belarus and Estonia, but went back into the hat again, since you couldn't have 3 hosts in the same group. Then ROI subsequently didn't actually host any games because of Covid etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Insidetherock
While your new Group (Switzerland, Denmark, Georgia and Gibraltar) was noticeably easier.
P.S. I say "Southern" because NI got put in the original Group instead.
He wasn't even in charge for that group Ealing Green.
But yeah, the bad luck thing is nonsense. We got the draw we got because he made a balls of the Nations League campaign. We didn't get a playoff that would have probably allowed him to cling on grimly for a few more months because he made a balls of the Nations League campaign. He got two handy enough Nations League draws and made a mess of both groups, narrowly avoiding relegation each time only because there was a team even worse than his one in both groups.
We concede too many soft goals because he has no clue how to set a team up defensively. We have beaten Wales, Austria and France (over 90 minutes) away from home in recent years so his Tier 1 "stat" is bull**** as well.
He is a terrible manager at this level and has been shown up in this regard repeatedly over the last three years. I can't wait to see the back of him in truth. Only once he's gone can our rebuild really begin.
Let’s not be stupid about this. Wales and Austria aren’t Tier 1 teams. France we didn’t beat.
Tier 1 teams are:
Germany
France
Spain
Italy
England
Netherlands
Portugal
-
Belgium
Croatia
First 7 are sure things. Belgium and Croatia aren’t always but are in the last decade
If you're cutting it down to that few a number then I wouldn't have the Netherlands in there either. Not the current team anyway.
Teams you never want to get drawn against in qualifiers will always contain that list from ES. To suggest that the Netherlands shouldn’t be in there, current team or not, is a bit much. Of the list of 7, England and Portugal have had dips in form too over the last 30 years but quality always stays high and you’d still hate to draw them, let alone any two of them in the same group.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
Less than a year ago, they lost in the quarter final <EDIT> of the world cup, on penalties to the eventual winner. Not sure how they're not at the very very top table???Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
The quarters, not the semis. And that with about as easy a run to the quarters as you could hope for
But they're definitely top table in my eyes, even if they're often one step away from a crisis
(I'm also quite happy to count the France game as a win!)
Doh! For some reason I had it in my head he took over in 2018.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
Can't comment on that, since I don't follow closely enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
Generally, however, I firmly believe that managers, like players, need time to grow into the job, but while we're patient with young players, managers never get that time.
Mind you, even if SK might learn more and improve with more time on the job (debatable), I suspect he may have lost this set of players, won't get them back, and there isn't another set to replace them.
Treason ? Jesus, calm down. He’s a football manager who hasn’t done very well, that’s all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calcio Jack
I think Weghort's shot was perfect. Powerful, started outside the post and curled in.Quote:
Originally Posted by elatedscum
Scales was outstanding imho. Cullen was very brave but really had a thankless task trying to build anything. I was lucky enough to be at Chelsea v Man City last week. Two players really stood out. Cole Palmer and Bernardo Silva. Always looking to do something poisitive with the ball. Years ago I used the terms "adhesive" and "accretive" here to describe CMs. The former is a Cullen-type who recycles the ball but doesn't add much in possession, the latter is someone who constantly probes and stretches defences, either by direct running or incisive passing, or both. Silva and Palmer were accretive-on-steroids. Palmer's bravery in taking the ball on the half-turn, spinning quickly and just relentlessly attacking space was incredible. On Saturday we just had nobody capable of doing what rugby calls "getting over the gain line". Knight tried to spin his man once but just ran straight into him. Lack of pace ahead of Knight and Browne made it harder tbf. At Chelsea Palmer knew that once he had turned he had a pacy wide man to hit either side (Sterling was frequently his out ball and their full backs got forward) with Gallagher supporting him centrally and a mobile centre forward to hit (even if Jackson is a bit hit & miss). Apropos nothing, Rodri was huge. Much bigger in the flesh than he looks on TV.
He's had 40 odd games in charge now which is enough to make the generational change in the player pool (which he had done) and to improve our lot in terms of results (which he hasn't done, obviously). His win percentage is just 28%. While this win percentage may be acceptable to give more time on the job elsewhere, for example it's more than what Baraclough achieved and what O'Neill currently has, it is from our historical perspective as low as it gets.Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
He does seem to have the players backing but that's not too surprising given he made previous squad players into regulars in the team (Doherty, Egan, Cullen) or gave players their debuts. There's always a couple of options to change the make up of the team but a full set of readymade players to come in doesn't exist. But it's a young squad with potential, and looking at the underage teams, it's reasonable to hope that a few above-average senior players are coming through.
Martin o neill got us to the last 16 of the euros.... But Mon has attacked and had a load of goes at Stephen. Fine whatever
But Stephen having a go at Stan who has never once had a go at Stephen is absolutely disgraceful. Christ I thought Stephen was just useless but he might be a bellend as well
Nathan Collins the only one ruled out with an ankle ligament injury. Evan Ferguson seems to be okay according to Kenny.
It’s called exaggerated hyperbole used to match Kenny’s own exaggerated spoofing ( on the rare occasions when one can decipher his gibberish)Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD
Anyway hopefully tonight brings the end of the worst manager we’ve ever had to suffer.
That's a bit mad.Quote:
Originally Posted by JR89
Saturday on its own would have been overlooked had it not been the culmination of lots of poor results of course.
Its pretty odd that Kenny could even think that even in his wildest dreams that he could / should be kept on as Irish manager.
Better to leave with a bit if dignity and realism.
His media interactions are excruciating at this stage,like he lives in a bubble and doesn’t understand how badly is reign is now viewed,taking shots at previous managers doesn’t paint him in a good light…..