Printable View
Why do you bother coming to this forum when your positive sporting interests lie elsewhere? Obviously the Irish national team is very low (if at all) on your list of intrests. In fact it looks like that almost everything about the Irish team is high on your list of pet hates. Do you not have a relegation dogfight to occupy your sporting thoughts at present?Quote:
Originally Posted by mypost
Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
:D ............(muttley type snigger)
so we are now comparing our media to probably the worst media in the world are we?? our media should be compared to the likes of switzerlands or norways, for example, who are in as equally a precarious position as ourselves regarding qualification and are also of a similar status to us footballing resources wise. I bet their press arent giving their managers half the stick ours is giving Kerr at the moment because they know their footballing limitations.Quote:
Originally Posted by mypost
all qualifying games are a "win or bust" situation as there are relatively so few games to qualify. no one else is breezing through our group and we have just as good a chance of the play offs as anyone else in the group. kerr should be judged on his finished work alone at the END of the campaign. all that matters is that we have enough points at the end of qualification. very few european teams ever qualify with a couple of games left to play. if we qualify then he has done his job but he cant be slated when we still have, on paper, two very winnable games left. Kerr should only be judged on the finished product only
news is supposed to be just that, news! not the same old line being trotted out all the time. everyone knows whats going on currently yet at todays press conference kerr was still pressed on his contract situation. this question could only have been put to him to try and stir trouble by getting a reaction from kerr. it cant have been for any other reason as there is nothing new to be said on the topic
why are the Irish media trying to stir up **** before our fate is known? I'm glad Kerr wouldn't answer the questions surrounding the team today. That conference was to do with Cyprus game and trying to qualify.
Easy ride my arse!! Kerr was welcomed more, and had a longer honeymoon period than any manager I can remember, internationally or at club level by the press here. Jack had to fight for respect from day 1, Mick wasn't seen as the popular choice and it took until 2002 before most of the media accepted him, and following Saipan half of them dropped him just as fast.Quote:
Originally Posted by thejollyrodger
Go Brian go, we're all behind yer, well most of us anyway
How would Kerr change things for Euro 2006 if we don't qualify? We haven't beaten one team of note in a competive match during his tenure. We will be in a more difficult group for the Euro's than than one we are in now. His agent Drury stated on wednesday that "the Greener!" has had to work with players inferior to those from previous Irish managers(that should go down well with the players). Why would he want to stay on if thats the case? Surely that "unnamed" champions league team will come in and whisk him away.
Okay BK was welcomed more... but there is no way MC Carthy had to endure what kerr has had to put up with the last 10 daysQuote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
McCarthy received the same treatment, if not worse before his last game against the timepieces. By that stage, all of the media had turned against him, mainly because of the Saipan saga, there were rumours that he was sniffing out English club jobs, he said that he would leave at the end of the campaign, which unsettled the players, and led to vitriolic abuse from the press. Following the defeat that followed, his position was untenable, and he duly resigned 3 weeks later.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tram_14
With respect mate, you don't support a club in our league, so you're in no position at all to lecture me, or others like me, on why I should support domestic football, especially at this crucial stage of our season.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
This Ireland team is a good side, we have good players, many of them in their prime right now, and on their day they can walk over the best in the world. But unfortunately, the coach won't let them play to their potential, he insists that they play conservatively, he refuses to learn from his mistakes, as shown against Israel in Dublin. He hypes up clearly inferior opposition, and shows a lack of ambition at this level. We have failed to beat any useful side during his reign. This current French team is the worst since the late-80's, and we should have beaten them in Dublin, and we would have, if Kerr played for a win instead of playing for his beloved point. Switzerland, and Israel are poor sides. We are the best team in the group, but unfortunately we have a coach who has well and truly fkd us up in at least 3 crunch games.
As getting a point is no use to us anymore, he has to go for broke, and take chances in the last 2 games, something that is completely alien to him. If we won, as we should have, both games against Israel, we could have qualified as group winners after Game 9, Kerr's negativity, bad tactics, and wrong subs in both games, has come back to haunt him, and probably deprived one of our best ever sides from going to the World Cup in Germany. I want us to qualify of course, but I cannot see BK delivering what we need in the current circumstances.
It didn't have to be this way. We must win the games left, or he is out of a job on Thursday morning.
Here's a first: I agree with mypost on this one. :eek: If we're knocked out on Wednesday night, Kerr should clear his desk on Thursday. Until we're out though nothing less than full and total support for Kerr and the team will do. He may yet surprise us all and (cough, splutter) "lead" us to Germany.
:ball: PP
Tom Humphries feels Brian Kerr has not played tactically cute in his hard-ball game with the FAI
Quote:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/spo...72SPS2TOM.html
Remember Jack Charlton? Big, blunt Geordie whose tactical sophistication ran no further than giving it a lash? Wouldn't have known a spin doctor from a witch doctor? Well, scorn not his simplicity. Charlton understood two very basic things about the media.
First. Managers get paid not to take media too seriously or too personally.
Second. Editors abhor a vacuum. When you give 60-second press conferences, when you send in fringe players to speak to the media, you create a vacuum. It gets filled with speculation and opinion and conjecture. If there's one thing soccer people hate, it's media opinion.
And in the Irish papers this week there has been much media opinion. Six points left to play for and everyone was reaching conclusions. The evidence is still not fully submitted but the jury was issuing verdicts.
Times have changed since Jack strode among us, but the truths are eternal. The media is easy to satisfy. The media is not like Oliver, constantly wanting more. The media asks for sufficient.
If 60 or 70 media people gather in a room on the week of a World Cup game for a press conference, they expect to be speaking to somebody who will actually play in the game.
This week, the media, who have paid through the nose to come to Cyprus, were allowed to speak to Paddy Kenny, Keith Doyle, Liam Miller, Andy O'Brien and Gary Doherty. The Expendables, insufficient to the point of being an insult.
If the media goes to a training session in the expectation of being given a five-minute, pitch-side briefing, as per the official media guide, they expect the briefing to happen. On Tuesday it didn't happen at all. On Wednesday it lasted just over 60 seconds. Again, insufficient.
So, in the most important week for Irish soccer since the last World Cup, the media and the Irish squad were engaged in a phoney war which need not have happened. It has been distracting, dispiriting and disappointing.
Why did it happen? Why has media professionalism in the FAI never advanced beyond the old McCarthyite view of the media either being "in the tent ****ing out or outside the tent ****ing in". Why? Because nobody wants it to change.
The FAI this week were letting the media do the dirty work, as usual. You would think that after Saipan, after Genesis, after the messy end to the McCarthy era that lessons would be learned? They have.
When it comes to ditching a manager, it takes the pressure off if you let the media soften him up a bit first.
Brian Kerr's team play football tonight. The kick-off in Nicosia will put an end to one of the more bizarre weeks in the already quite bizarre recent history of the Irish soccer team.
Playing football will be a welcome return to business as usual, but Kerr will feel the bruises on his body and the burns on his neck. He was left dangling from a tree this week and he was beaten with sticks like a pinata.
After the week he has had it is important to remember that, whatever happens on the pitch over the next few days, and whatever goes down in the bloodstained boardrooms of the FAI over the next few weeks, Brian Kerr will remain potentially a great Irish manager. Whether he gets the chance to realise that potential depends largely on the convergence of several sets of circumstances.
Lie down. Imagine you are Brian Kerr. Go back in time a little way. Picture yourself approaching the final three games of a tense World Cup qualifying group. France. Cyprus. Switzerland.
Could you please list in order of horror which of the following you would need like a hole in the head. Best player and leader suspended and injured? Only decent striker pictured on the razz at 4am? Other half-decent striker suspended? Half of your team not getting regular football? Employers leaving you dangling over the issue of a new contract? War with the media?
On Wednesday evening at Larnaca Airport a member of the Kerr backroom team could be found musing aloud as he stood near the baggage carousel. "Am I mad?" he said, "or are we six points away from a World Cup play-off? Do we have an away game against Cyprus and a home game against Switzerland to make the play-offs? Is it just me that thinks that?"
He had a point, but if the message has got lost this week, a time which demanded the relentless accentuation of the positive, then it is not, for once, the media who are entirely to blame.
Brian Kerr, the FAI and the players handled things badly, and the entire tone of the week has been negative and defensive. From Le Meridien Hotel in Limassol there issues the scent of fear and loathing. The odd thing is that, if it all goes wrong this week, only Kerr will be paying the price.
Perhaps it will all come good. If next Thursday morning transpires, though, to
be a time for reflection and regret, it
would be best to divide all the circumstances which got us there into those which could have been avoided and those which couldn't have been.
It's important to remember that there are things which Brian Kerr can do nothing about.
He can do nothing about who gets to play in English Premiership teams. The paucity of our resources, though, was never better highlighted than during the ludicrous fuss which followed young Stephen Ireland having a good debut for Manchester City last week.
If a 19-year-old who seems already to have a record of placing petulance above patriotism (Ireland has apparently announced he will never play for Kerr) is hailed as a solution, well, then the problem is more crippling than we thought.
Brian Kerr can do nothing about the past. We have somehow arrived at a state of mind where we assume we have the right to be at every major soccer tournament. We don't have the right and we don't have the players.
Brian Kerr can do nothing about the psychological make-up of his players. He has some technically gifted footballers at his disposal. He has few leaders. He has few big men. He doesn't have anybody who will grab a game by the scruff of the neck and win it on his own.
That's the hand Brian Kerr has been dealt. Fintan Drury alluded to as much on the radio this week. Kerr was quick to point out that Drury wasn't speaking on his behalf at the time, but what Drury said wasn't nearly as big a deal as the space it occupied suggested.
Obviously, the wisdom of the manager's agent commenting on team affairs is moot, but taken as a contribution to the debate the point itself bears argument.
None of these guys are leaders. None of them are of the quality which persuades one that collectively they should grace any tournament of world-class players. We get to tournaments by punching above our weight.
To the list of things about which Brian Kerr can do nothing (at this stage) could be added Roy Keane's absence, the structure of his contractual arrangements with the FAI and the re-emergence of a clatter of world-class French players. He could add to his list of untimely misfortunes the recent regime change at the Irish Independent, which has seen a notable stiffening of the line on his stewardship.
Will all this be taken into account by Kerr's employers, or are they already rushing girlishly after some big man in a suit and looking to ditch Kerr regardless? How did the Irish manager come to be engaging in the sideshow of a major media bunfight in the most important working week of his life? How did he get to Cyprus with a World Cup play-off spot beckoning (the very route by which Mick McCarthy's long reign was redeemed) and find the clouds gathering over him, the mood sour and the Cypriots chuckling to themselves?
As Brian Kerr bumbled through his media engagements this week, the spotlight on him served only to emphasise the isolation he must feel.
Those who know Brian Kerr will say the job hasn't changed him much, that behind the tight public face he is still essentially the same likeable, genial character who took the job three years ago and was welcomed into the Shelbourne Hotel for his firstpress conference with garlands and palm leaves.
Those who know him lament, though, that he can't bring himself to perform for the media as if nothing has happened to alter that happy relationship. It's not, they say, that Kerr didn't expect criticism and pressure when he took the job, he just didn't realise it would hurt so much.
Kerr suffers a disadvantage not felt by an Irish manager since Eoin Hand's days: he lives in Dublin. He can pretend to ignore what is said and what is written, but it is all around him. He lives in and breathes the same atmosphere.
Much of what is written is penned by people he knows personally and has known for a long time. Kerr can't bring himself to pretend he doesn't notice.
Early in his reign, the first hint that his media hand would be less steady than other aspects of his talents came when he steadfastly refused to meet the group of English journalists who cover the Irish team for a get-to-know-you lunch.
His argument that they hadn't wanted to get to know him before he became Irish manager was dubious, at best, but if he decided to tread gingerly with the English media it was the home-based contingent he was failing to cater for.
cont...
Quote:
Part of Kerr's problem this week lay in his inability to fake it. There was a smarter way to handle matters, but it ran against his grain. Also, he may have miscalculated.
Take the issue of the contract. There are some of us who believe no Irish manager should be allowed to go into two crucial World Cup games with the smell of death on him. It didn't happen to Mick McCarthy. It didn't happen to Jack Charlton.
It has happened to Brian Kerr. The manager didn't help his situation, however, by directly answering a question on the business last week.
His words, to the effect that he was trying to find out what was going on about his contract but nobody was telling him, were oddly chosen, but, one assumes, deliberately chosen. Yesterday, in Limassol, he defended his right to give an honest answer to the question, but as a manager he is sufficiently astute at deflecting questions to have known he could have batted this one off the agenda.
In the power-play between himself and the FAI, Kerr will have realised that shedding a little light on his employers hard-ball tactics will have upped the ante a little. The FAI, however, have remained inscrutable and left the media vacuum to be filled willy nilly. The issue blew up in the media and did collateral damage to Kerr.
The media response this week seems just a little pre-emptive and trigger-happy, but there has been a sense these last few days that the criticism has almost been licensed by the FAI's indifference to media matters and their willingness to let the Irish manager squirm without issuing the sort of statement of strong support which previous managers drew comfort from.
Kerr is an emotional man too. If he doesn't like you, it's not in his make-up to pretend that he does. If he is uncomfortable with questions, you don't have to examine his words to find how uncomfortable.
His face tightens, his neck stiffens and he rolls his head like a boxer before answering.
Nobody questions that he has had some bad luck, that he is professional and meticulous and has an honourable view of how Ireland should or could play football. But his inability to simulate emotions is his Achilles' heel, and his opponents and detractors within the FAI, men with lean and hungry looks, are easily smart enough to sit back and see him hoist upon his own petard.
Kerr's expression of bewilderment about his contract will have garnered some sympathy from a public which holds lots of residual goodwill towards him since his days as a youth team miracle worker.
How the contract comments played to the Irish players is another thing. Yesterday, in Limassol, his captain Kenny Cunningham was circumspect when offered the chance to step in and slug for his boss. He spoke of respect for the manager, but of players being essentially selfish beings. Watery stuff.
With Kerr's blood turning that water orange and then red, a media feeding frenzy has ensued. Not shark-like bites. Piranha-size nibbles.
Unfair? Probably.
Premature? Certainly.
Avoidable? Definitely.
If Brian Kerr pulls six points out of the bag in the next few days the entire view of his tenure will be up for review. When a team qualifies for a major competition the means to that end is forgotten about. If the team make a play-off, he will be judged almost exclusively on how the play-off unfolds.
In the interim, everyone, including the media and the FAI, is entitled to give their own answer when asked what they think of the show so far.
The FAI, however, owe a little more to their international manager and a man who has provided them with so much over the last decade. This week he was left unprotected.
The silence concerning his contact position was deafening. That the FAI see the role of public relations as being to indulge the petulance of the international team by protecting them from exposure to the scurvy media became clearer than ever this week. With nothing to write about and a very large bill to be paid for the privilege of coming to write, the house fell down on Kerr.
The odd thing is that in aping the media tactics of the English FA (who are otherwise without competition when it comes to the winning awards for most disastrous media relations), the FAI have gone further and refined the technique of withholding into one of calculated insult.
While Irish hacks were wondering what to do with five or six minutes of banal Paddy Kenny quotes this week, they were watching Sky News and seeing their colleagues with the England team speaking with Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Peter Crouch, Frank Lampard, Darren Bent and others.
To put that into context, this was an English team coming off a defeat to Northern Ireland, players who have been through the full tabloid mill and an English manager whose every peccadillo and venality has been blown up and magnified for the edification of the English audience. And there they were going about their business like professionals.
Deep down, Brian Kerr appreciates that two views of his tenure are possible. He concedes not everything has been peachy. If he didn't, he wouldn't be as smart a man as we gave him credit for.
His opponents and detractors within the FAI are easily as smart as we give them credit for, though, and must look on with thin smiles as Kerr immolates himself in front of the media.
Every instinct of Kerr's being must tell him that it would be smarter to play the game . . . And yet, in Le Meridien Hotel (where a cordon sanitaire has been erected and only paying guests are allowed past the front door this week) the view was indulged that it was unhelpful and unpatriotic for all these arguments to be rehearsed this week.
Nobody from the FAI did anything to fill the void, though. Instead, there were new and frankly ludicrous restrictions on TV crews and photographers at team training. There were no player quotes. No co-operation other than what was mandatory. The pressure on Kerr got ratcheted up subtly.
The harsh fact is that with players hiding or sulking, with Brian Kerr having put the issue on the table himself and with space to fill, practically all coverage this week was going to, at best, have the feel of an end-of-term report.
Every criticism gathered like a storm cloud over the manager's head. If you were holding Brian Kerr's new contract in a drawer in your desk, perhaps you'd smile too.
Kerr's isolation this week was awful and agonising to watch. He made mistakes and he paid the full price. That's been the way right through this campaign on and off the field. Somebody said to him yesterday that he used to have the reputation of being a lucky manager - did he still feel lucky?
He smiled tightly. Sometimes you have bad luck.
Sometimes you have bosses who play the game well.
© The Irish Times
jollyrodger
Thanks for posting the article. More balanced one than most this week. Kudos to Humphries.
no worries CollegeTillIDie. I agree also. It looks at both sides of the arguement, something that has sadly been lacking in the Indo and the scúmmy tabloids.
As would I, Gonzo, as would I... ;)
:ball: PP
Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Your talking bóllócks. Jack was a dictator and didnt speak to anyone he didnt want to, he over took the underage setup to keep on to power (even though he hadnt a notion about it). He was thick as a ditch and thats how he kept the whole thing going.
Mick was a slow learner with a incomptent FA backing him with all the contracts he ever wanted when he failed pathetically.
Kerr was a breath of fresh air because he actually knew a few things about football and he was home grown. His lack of tatical knowledge wasnt any worst that of Mick's or worse Jack Charltons approach.
Just watch where kerr goes after the Ireland job. There was one champions league club that already offered him a job. Im sure he will be able to take such a job if he wants it.
yeah.....nice one jollyrodger, a decent read.thanks.
The Irish Times is the only paper I'd read coming up to these games.
one would have thought a man of humphries knowledge would have known its kevin doyle not keith doyle . a deliberate mistake to emphasise a point perhaps?
Humphries is as disigenious as most of the other hacks writing about Kerr. The potentionally great manager thing is laughable at this stage (3 years!). He mentions the return of the French greats without mentioning the fact that when we played the French in Paris they had the worst French side out since the early 70's. The Swiss who are and always have been mediocre at best. And Israel who have no world class players. Kerrs record out of a possible 18 points 4. The players aren't good enough is another joke especially to those of us with long memories. Stapleton stated in 1985 that the Hand managed Irish team didn't have enough world class players to qualify for a tournament! And if Kerr considers the players weaker than previous Irish teams then why stay on? Humphries has been a cheer leader for Kerr from day one and has never dissected his tactics or substitutions in any meaningful way. He mentions Charltons tactics as been caveman like which is partially true but fails to mention the dourness and negativity of Kerrs tactics.
It has to be remembered that this is all a hang over from Saipain. Humphreys an the irish times helped Mc Carthy out the door and have backed kerr ever since. the indo generally backed mc carthy and have been very critical of kerr. The tabloids just print anything.
Personally I back Kerr even with all the howlers he has made and some of the low down dirty acts he has pult off (which i wont go into).
I'll overlook the poor grammar (it's "you're", btw) but I won't overlook the insult. Take issue with the post and argue against it by all means, but leave the direct rudeness out. Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by thejollyrodger
I'd heard a story that Gerard Houllier was after Kerr to join his coaching staff at one stage (more likely at Liverpool but it could have been Lyon). May God above have mercy on the support of whatever club these two end up at together. I'd be heading for the poítín and paracetamol were I among their number...Quote:
Originally Posted by thejollyrodger
:ball: PP
I always think its funny when jounalists mention "the media" in the 3rd person as if they weren't part of it. Poor journos writting about how badly they treated. :rolleyes:
Humphries is a good journalist but he is a jack of all trades & his football knowledge is not better than GAA or rugby or whatever big event he covering. I don't think he has great sports knowledge.
Well said Pete. That's one of my little bugbears too.Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
:ball: PP
That is what I was doing. I was referring to his post not him;)Quote:
Take issue with the post and argue against it by all means, but leave the direct rudeness out. Thanks.
Touché. You were indeed. :o I hope you take my point though. :)
:ball: PP
Yes I do. No offense was meant.
Thanks for the post Jollyroger.
Well I'm off to the game. I'm taking public transport down to Toronto - about 2 hours aways - so I can have a pints while enjoying our victory.
Hopefully everything will look rosier this evening.
Come on you boys in GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN.
Thanks for the article but I am very suspect about Humphrie's motives. He championed Kerr for a long time so he's hardly unbiased himself.
i always take the irish media with a big pinch of salt. Take Liam Brady for example, he went from kerr has to go to kerr has to stay in a matter of a few weeks. i think that was due to the Roy Keane as manager speculation. says a lot really
Well, the first half of the post was right, and the second half of it looked like being right for a long time. :) Everyone knew how the game was going to pan out. Kerr didn't let us down.Quote:
Originally Posted by mypost
Lads, it's all very well supporting the side, but seriously, is there anybody still out there who supports Kerr's tactics, and judgement after such an inept performance in Cyprus?
We won the game, but this type of football from our team is sickening to watch. I feel disgusted that talented International-class players are being forced to play this way. I feel appalled that part-timers like Cyprus are allowed to outclass us. We should be hockeying these kind of teams 5-0, especially after scoring early. This is disgraceful, and if we take the lead against the timepieces, I am switching over to watch one of the other games, because playing the way we do is mind-numbingly boring when we are in front, and I can't stand watching us play that "brand" of football. If I went to the Cyprus game, I would want a refund for having to spend €700 to watch that level of utter shi-t served up by our team, and when the final whistle blew, I stayed glued to my seat in sheer disgust at the "performance". :mad:
There is zero leadership in the side, there is no assertiveness, there is little passing, all long-ball crap, there is no urgency. Quality players are forced to play boring negative football. We got away with it in Nicosia, we won't get away with it some other time.
This type of football is not going to get us to the World Cup. The sooner this joke of a boss is gone, the better. :mad:
Ireland has always been like this.
The match in Cyprus for the 2002 qualifiers was a carbon copy, except we had a 29 year old Roy Keane to save our arses with a one man show. Yesterday we had Shay Given in the one man show role.
We're mostly ****e with a small sprinkling of excellence, get used to it.
hold your fire on him till after the swiss match , if someone had said to me at the start that we would be going into our last game knowing a win would put us in the play offs with an outside chance of winning the group i would have taken it.
Ok bit of perspective here. John O'Shea was appalling in the Cyrpus game and is brutal. If he plays against the Swiss in Dublin they will beat us 4-0 ! He was overrated from day one but flattered to deceive in his debut season. He was crap in Basel twice, and he has seemingly never recovered from that. Kerr's tactics have nothing to do with the lads fundamental lack of quality. So much as I fret over Harte's lack of defensive qualities I would bring him back only as a short term solution. At least Hartey scores the odd goal.
On current form ManUre have no decent defenders fit and available to play for any one.
People talk about Kerr being a lucky coach, last night proved it. We would not have had to perform any worse to have ended up at the wrong end of a 3-1 hiding by the Cypriots. Shay Given was magnificent and was quite rightly voted man of the match. The only credit the rest of the team deserve is for two things one, Stephen Carr covering his wayward centre-backs during the first half with a crucial last ditch clearance and , finally we managed to survive the dying minutes of a match without conceding a goal.
Thought we were a little better in the second half and that some of the substitutions worked to a degree. If I was picking the team on Wednesday I'd make about 8 changes from the starting 11. Elliott took his goal well and we played well for the opening 10 minutes and hung on at the end the only positive things to be said from the display outfield. Given was bloody marvellous
Team for Wednesday;
Shay Given; Steve Finnan, Andy O'Brien, A.N. Other, Ian Harte;
Stephen Reid, Andy Reid, Matt Holland, Damien Duff (if fit) Killer if not; Clinton Morrison, Stephen Elliott
Open to suggestions as to Andy's centre-back partner cause neither Kenny nor Richard covered themselves in glory last night. The centre midfielders were ineffectual big time against Cyprus. Graham Kavanagh is not up to it.
Robbie Keane needs to be used as he is at Spurs at present as an impact sub hence my striker parings. All suggestions welcome. Who knows maybe the Greener is reading this thread. I want you to do it on Wednesday Brian .. honestly!
Basically true, but by eliminating obvious liabilities we limit the damage potentially the Swiss can inflict on us. So drop John O'Shea, at left-back, for one has to be a priority.Quote:
Originally Posted by brine3
Quote:
Originally Posted by gustavo
Same here - while im p**sed off with the preformance lastnight, im not really bothered to be honest.
We knew it wouldnt be easy, we rode our luck (though were due a bit of luck after losing 2 points in the last minute in israel and after robbie keane getting injured in the home match which f**ked us up in a match we were cruising and i thought we were unlucky to lose at home to france), so f**k it, we got the 3 points, thats all that matters at the end of the day.
Forget about cyprus, lets just focus on the switzerland match on wednesday - wont be an easy job, but lansdowne will be buzzing and the team know what they have to do, so i reckon we have a brilliant chance of getting to the play offs :)
I'd like to point I've moved firmly into the other 3
Seven out of 10 say Kerr should stay
NEARLY seven out of 10 people believe Brian Kerr should continue as manager
of the Irish soccer team, according to a nationwide Sunday Independent
telephone poll after the match in Cyprus last night.
The poll showed that 67 per cent hold the opinion that Kerr should continue
as manager and the remaining 33 per cent said it was time for him to go.
Brian Kerr insisted last night that speculation about his future as Irish
manager was not a distraction for him in the run-up to the Cyprus match.
"It was absolutely no distraction for me. It obviously kept the media very
busy over the last week or two. I answered a question that I was asked when
I named the squad and the issue for me now is to prepare the team as best as
we possibly can for Wednesday," he said.
He said the three points that Ireland needed had been achieved and that was
all that mattered. The Cyprus game was a "hard old scrap" but now the team
was "in with a shout" as they prepared to go into the match against the
Swiss on Wednesday.
He conceded that the team did not have a great rhythm in the first half but
he pointed out that he made changes at half time which resulted in the team
being "quite effective" and being more in control.
"We need to do a lot better if we're to have much of a chance on Wednesday,"
he said.
He said Damien Duff was suffering from a recurrence of an injury that he had
before and, as a result, he must be "very doubtful" about appear
SEE ANALYSIS
ing in the Swiss game. The Chelsea winger will receive a scan today to
ascertain the extent of the injury.
Man of the Match Shay Given said he was delighted by his very important
penalty save in the first half. Wednesday's clash with Switzerland will be
"a massive game" and the team will need the famous "Lansdowne Roar".
Speculation that Kerr will be axed should Ireland fail to qualify for the
2006 World Cup finals in Germany had been rife in the run-up to the game.
Kerr has been in the job for just over two years, having taken over from
Mick McCarthy in November 2002.
Kerr has a remarkably successful history with Irish youth teams. Prior to
that, as manager of St Patrick's Athletic, Kerr won the League of Ireland
title twice. He took on the national job in 2003, commanding a salary of
?484,000.
On Friday, he refused to discuss his position and appeared defiant when
questioned on his contract.
He said speculation surrounding his position did not bother him and was out
of his control.
The relationship between Kerr and FAI chief executive John Delaney has
become especially tense in recent times, with Delaney reprimanding the
manager before the squad left for Cyprus.
The people know better than the FAI as usual.
What does it matter if he's boring? What does that have to do with anything?