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Yeah, Leicester crapped themselves when Spurs were snigging around one time and Brendan saw his angle and fair play he absolutely rinsed them :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Supreme feet
I'd say Spurs can have him now. I live around the area and would be following a bit, I wouldn't want him near our team, he gave an interview recently with a straight face, that keeping the club up would be his biggest achievement while the aforementioned budget was unmentioned.
It absolutely isQuote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
“My upbringing is important to me. I'm very much from Northern Ireland — a Northern Ireland man who loved his life when I was young and was brought up in a real secure community.”
- https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/s.../28737541.html
I believe he also said once the Northern Irish boys should play for Northern Ireland
So, again interesting from Boomers, and again factually incorrect. Bit of Celtic / PL goggles on perhaps with little actual discernment or evaluation there.
The expectation that we could snag a manager that was on 10 million a year is the type of unrealistic nonsense that ya see all over Facebook pages from fans who haven't a clue about football except for what Sky tell them about the Premiership.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
Maybe we should go after Graham Potter, he's about to get sacked at Chelsea. Liverpool not having great season, why not see if they'll take a payoff for Klopp?
By the way, I've haven't seen a single suggestion of what a different manager would or could have done better against France
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
Surprised he said that, given that his son has underage caps for the Republic
CTP, could you tease this one out a little bit for us?Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
Would he be a possibility even allowing for current wages vs what would be on offering?
Likes his teams to play ball.
Tactically whats the deal at Leicester?
Rodgers is Irish, he was on 2.3 million pounds a year at Celtic, so maybe not as big a reach as first thought. And if anyone is suggesting that Rodgers is not a huge step up from what we currently have, they're living in Cuckoo land.
I can't see how he would be, Leicester are Thai owned, serious money people and his pay off - 10 million has been mentioned in the media - was sufficient to make them put up with any amount of decline short of relegation & they may have left it a bit late on that too, they are in serious trouble after yesterday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
Tactically, they lose from leading, they go to bits after he makes changes, he makes changes too late, he makes the wrong changes ( to a point that you sometimes wonder if he's watching the same game at all ) He has available to him Tielemans and Maddison, two very sought after players but he cant knock a tune out of the midfield. He has fallen out with the Turkish CB Soyunchu who was in several teams of the season. He has proven goal scorers who he cannot set up to get service to despite the aforementioned midfielders. There isn't one signing of his who has added to what he inherited four years ago, everyone has a few flops but his are all flops. The club relented in January to let him make some signings, and he brought in Tete - the missing piece he had been lacking according to him & everything would now be ok - who has absolutely stunk the place out since, he's desperate. This spoofer inherited a very good Leicester side, best in their history, remember and was given budget.
Call him up Trap.
Pep would be a huge step up too, but he's not getable either. 2.3 million pounds might as well be 200 million pounds for the FAI right now, completely impossible.Quote:
Originally Posted by BOOMSHAKALAKA
And again, what could a different manager have done differently against France?
I don't think anyone has doubted that Rodgers is a better manager than Kenny, the issue is that his wages are outside the FAI's budget. Don't forget Celtic are backed by serious money too
I'm not sure why that's being used as an argument when a more valid question would be "What could a different manager have done against Malta/Luxembourg/Lithuania/Azerbaijan?" And the answer to that has to be "Quite a lot"Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Agree Rodgers is almost certainly way outside the FAI's budget though.
I'm going off the most recent games where we've has a full squad available and I believe progress was made.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Fair enough. I think it's very short-sighted to consider that Kenny is now equal to someone like Rodgers (warts and all) because of one match against a sluggish France. The Malta game wasn't that long ago and I don't think we were missing then
Italy only beat Malta 2 nil in a qualifier last week. My beef about the Malta game was that he didn't play Smallbone, not the result. It's a friendly and we won, but he did play Ferguson so he was ahead of the curve there.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Do I think Rogers would be a step up, probably yeah, but I also think it's impossible to get him and even if we managed it he'd jump ship at the first smell of a Premiership club.
All I'm asking for is for people to stay in reality
My beef with the Malta game is the entire turgid performance tbh. We weren't winning that unless they gifted us something on a plate (which they did). That's not good enough, especially when it's a regular problem. Italy were 2-0 up and cruising after half an hour. Italy of all teams will quite happily sit on that.
I agree we're highly unlikely to be of interest to Rodgers, but your question was "What could a different manager have done differently against France?", and I don't think that's the right question to be asking
no chance rodgers would go near us unless we had a huge pay packet which is not likely to happen.
that being said, if we lose to Greece and find ourselves out of the running after 2 games yet again under Kenny's stewardship then it's time to give someone else a go in my opinion. i know there are plenty here that disagree.
you'd like to think the FAI have a shortlist of candidates drawn up that meets their budget, but who knows.
It was a friendly, we've had plenty of friendlies over the years under multiple managers when players wouldn't even turn upQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
2.3 million is better than 10 million. We've already quartered it here. Maybe we can introduce a bit of national pride to drag his fee down further. He's already amounted a large amount of money, the less time consuming international job might suit him. Although difficult, this definitely isn't impossible like you're making it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
I don't know what the French game would have to do with appointing a better manager? People were wondering what options were available should Kenny get sacked, here's a really good option.
You'd have to hope so and it sounds like they have a few in mind. No harm having a chat with Rodgers anyway. Can rule him out if he's looking for mad money, I'd be pushing the budget as far as it can stretch to get him on board though.Quote:
Originally Posted by zero
Why wouldn't the French game have something to do with getting a different manager, It's the most recent qualifier we have against a top side. You don't want to give an answer because we did very well and were set up absolutely correct for the gameQuote:
Originally Posted by BOOMSHAKALAKA
It certainly helps his case, but to judge him entirely on that one game (which you seem to be doing) doesn't make sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Why did you compare it to a qualifier so?Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
We've had too many games against smaller countries where we've performed quite badly (you can add Armenia to my list) and very very few where we've performed well. In that regard, it was an extension of a bad run that needs to change.
Graham Potter is available now ~ ~ If we can find a rake of money ! !
Of course the poor results against weaker teams need to improve. I disagree any team in Nations league were weaker teams though, the are in same group as us precisely because they are similar level to us.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
However moving forward we need to see where we are really at. France was a decent start, in a defeat. We need to follow it up in rest of games now. I don't think Greece away is a game we should win, I think it's one we could though and I expect a good performance. People will expect us to beat the Dutch because of their game against France. But again it's not we should win, but we could...
At the end of the group we'll see where we are. In the meantime talk of getting Rogers or any other Premiership manager in their prime on top wages should be kept to the comment section of the RTE Sport Facebook page where it'll fit in with the rest of the idiocy
Jaysus, we'll have both the lads fighting amongst themselves about who'll be the one to take a 95% pay cut to manage Ireland.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Ah now. Armenia were clearly weaker than us, partly because they were promoted from a lower division which had had no strong teams relegated into it (North Macedonia, Georgia and Estonia), and partly because they're about 250 points lower-rated on Elo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
We can't judge Kenny just on France alone.
We should have been relegated, twice
Certainly could have anyway. I'd be building that into my judgement of Kenny.
I've said plenty of times on here that I don't think Kenny the man to move forward, but I seen enough last week to make me think he's learned from mistakes.
Certainly the France game seemed better managed than previous ones, but that's still no reason to judge him entirely on that one game.
I'm not judging him entirely on that, as I've said multiple times, but I'm saying let's see how we do in next few games and the Rogers stuff is LALA land
Is Kenny going to be sacked before the Greece game? No. He'll only be sacked if we lose to Greece because it'll be his 5th failure as Ireland manager. So the France game is irrelevant. Hopefully Rodgers is still available and within reach if Kenny gets the boot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Let's hire Rodgers right away! And a select few visionary fans can can form a guard of honour mounted on unicorns when he rocks into Landsdowne Rd for his first game in charge.
Suggesting alternatives for the Ireland job has not gone down well with some Kennyites. Rodgers may be unlikely but his philosophy would be along the same lines as Kenny's except he has shown he's capable of implementing it. He's basically what we hoped Kenny would turn into but have been left very disappointed to date. Let's hope the FAI have a chat word with Rodgers anyway.
So after all the debate about the Kenny reign, is there actually a case to be made for him potentially being replaced should the next few results not go our way? I was OK with him getting the contract extension as he seemed to be turning things around towards the end of the World Cup campaign - but then came the Armenia games, the insipid performance at home to Ukraine, the Norway defeat and the very laboured victory against Malta and I went back to worrying that this will be another lost campaign, particularly when the draw came out. Now, if the performance against France is repeated throughout the rest of the qualifiers and is translated into results, then we may well be in a strong position going into the play-offs, if we fall short of qualifying from the group. I think a win in Greece followed by a convincing performance against Gibraltar would certainly justify allowing Kenny to see out this contract. But a bad defeat followed by a scraped three points should surely mean that we need to make a change and give a new manager time to prepare for the play-offs. Or should he stay for the full term no matter what?
Of course then there's the entirely plausible scenario of a draw in Greece followed by a victory at the Aviva - what should happen then? Would it depend on the nature of the games - Greece clinging on for a draw plus a big victory against Gibraltar vs us being lucky to come home with a point and then putting in a poor performance in Dublin? Or should he go or stay either way?
I’d like to see him get the full campaign. I think my opinion could change if we were ever really uncompetitive in a non-friendly.
The England game is the only one I remember where we were soundly beaten. The loss to Serbia, we were knocking on the door at the end. The same with France. Portugal got a 94th min winner.
I don’t think we’ve lost a competitive game by more than a goal. If I got a sense that the players weren’t playing for him - or that we were all at sea, I’d probably want a change made. But otherwise, I think we’ve had poor luck in a number of scenarios and considering the group of death, I’d like Kenny to be afforded the chance to qualify both via group and via playoff.
Personally I think a draw in Greece is a good result. To finish a minimum of 3rd in this group with a hope of pushing the Dutch 4 points against Greece is a must, but they will think the same against us.
I think the nature of the performance in Greece will be a good barometer on if we really are making progress or was France performance based on the occasion of having world cup finalist in town.
I think historically we've not been good in June, but I do expect us to put in a good performance in Greece and hopefully it'll be enough. The Gibraltar game being just 3 days later will probably be a bit of a damp squib that we'll win but it'll be flat.
But let's be positive and say we are on 4 or 6 points after June. Our Sept games are Paris and home to the Dutch 3 days later. What do we do in Paris? You don't want a hammering so you have to put a good team out but surely we'd have to keep something in reserve for the Dutch game that we'd have to win to qualify.
Barring a total disaster in Greece I think Kenny is going to see out this campaign, but with our squad improving all the time with the likes of Smallbone, Johnston and Ferguson introduced recently and Cannon possibly next, we are on an upward trajectory and less reliant on players that have been poor in the past. Kenny hopefully has learned from his mistakes too so let's see if we really have moved on in summer.
I'm kinda sick of ever game being a referendum on the manager but he has brought it on himself
I also don't think a draw in Greece would be a bad result. People put too much stock in individual games - and of course I do it too, as it's hard not to in international football with so few games - but the decisive factor for me is whether we're actually better than Greece over a full campaign. I think it's little better than 50:50 right now. I hope I see more cause for optimism over the coming games. A win in Greece would be a huge boost in that regard. Even a draw with us the better team would be (weakly) positive, just as the good performance and narrow defeat to France was weakly positive.
It really is something to see two and a half years of failure being whitewashed based on us apparently being set up correctly for one game - and we lost the game! And I don't even know that we were set up to maximise our chances of a result in the game. It's incredible stuff to read.
A few issues with that...
Firstly, we already knew that we could be set up reasonably well against stronger opposition. We saw that against Portugal in the last group (and we actually got a result against Portugal). So there's nothing new there, losing this time is a step back if anything. It's the games against teams our level and weaker teams that have been the persistent issue, so a borderline commendable performance against France doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.
Secondly, France never beat anyone anyways decent away from home by more than a goal or two in qualifiers anyway so the result isn't particularly impressive. It was our first home loss in the Euros qualifiers in a long time. It was also a game we badly needed a result from in the context of the group. We should never be happy with a defeat, but in particular we should never be happy with a home defeat. It just shows how low the bar is now being set that many are happy with that result, but the only team that actually had reason to be happy was France.
And thirdly, were we actually that well set up? Out of possession we were nice and compact at the back alright. But what was the game plan on the ball? Pass it around a bit? It looks nice I suppose but we didn't create much from general play. As usual our one big chance came from a header from a corner right at the end. Which seems to be the story of Kenny's time in charge. So if we're relying on that for a goal anyway, why are we bothering tapping it around at the back? As usual we didn't score from that approach, but we did concede from it. It would have made more sense to be a bit more direct and try and get more set pieces, as that was likely to be the only way we would have scored anyway. And it would have reduced the likelihood of us gifting them the chance for the goal.
In all honesty how anyone could think that France game was something worth whitewashing everything that has gone before over is beyond my comprehension. People just seem to be searching for anything at all they can find to defend the management with, even when there's absolutely nothing new there.
Meanwhile a must win game against Greece has been reduced to "a draw would be good", the campaign which Kenny was finally to be judged on results has been reduced to "finishing third would be good" and Kenny's disastrous management of the Nations League campaign and the subsequent impact of that on our group seeding and our playoff prospects has been wilfully forgotten about.
Good post, though I don't agree Greece away is a must-win. I think Austria and Wales in 2017 are about our only away wins of note in the last dozen years; to suggest Greece is a must-win with a poorer squad is harsh. Greece at home could well be described as a must-win though.
And a Norway/Scotland-type defeat in Greece would be a poor result.
Yes we played pretty well against France so now I've decided to whitewash everything that has gone on since we qualified for Euro 2016. A one goal defeat in the searing heat of Athens in June is now something all Kennyites aspire to also. What absolute drivel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
I think it’s very selective to say “it’s our first home Euros defeat since x years ago”, like our home form has been in any way impressive for some time. Euros groups and WC groups are interchangeable. They’re always against European teams and often the same teams. We’ve had one amazingly good home qualifying result since 2010 qualifying, two shockers (Germany and Russia, though we nearly salvaged the latter). We shipped 9 goals in those two games under a manager famous for his defensive organisation. We lost 5-1 to Denmark. Even under Trap I think we only drew at home with Bulgaria and Montenegro and were blessed to beat Georgia 2-1. Stan's was probably the best home campaign in the last 15 or so years - draws with Germany, Czechs and Cyprus, wins over Wales and Slovakia.
Who of the sides we were trying to qualify against have we actually beaten at home? Bulgaria, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Wales, Switzerland, Scotland…all no. Bosnia play off was probably the only notable win other than Germany.
And have we beaten any of the lesser sides convincingly?
So, let’s not pretend that losing to France was some kind of outlier.
And Greece hasn’t suddenly been demoted in importance. We all know how these groups work. It used to be draw away, win at home, but that plan stopped working years ago. Now it’s get whatever we can wherever we can. I’d certainly hope to win in Greece but a draw would be ok if we win at home and we at least match Netherlands in our head to heads and their results against Greece. Under Trap we got 18 points in a 6 team group in WC10 qualifyng, 4 wins against seeds 5 and 6 and draws against everyone else. So I’ll judge the Greece result and performance on its own merit and after the group picture becomes clearer.
I think Greece are probably tougher than Georgia who we’ve struggled against. I don’t know the rankings but in terms of club strength and infrastructure I’d say they have more about them. I think it’d be a really good one to win, bad one to lose and a draw is “it depends”.