Statement from FAI

FAI officials believe that the senior international squad is making progress despite last night’s disappointing result in Prague against the Czech Republic. Ireland lost 1-0 and saw control of their Euro 2008 qualification hopes slip out of their hands.

Speaking to www.fai.ie, FAI President David Blood said: “Last night’s defeat was the first in ten games and I thought that the team deserved something for their display. They showed great character to recover from the setback of conceding an early goal and came close to equalising on several occasions.

“Like everybody else, the FAI is disappointed with the result in Prague but the performance offers a lot of hope for the future. Stephen, his backroom team and the players must continue the work they are doing.

“The senior international team is in transition. In the nine games we have played in this campaign Stephen has used 32 players which is well above the average of 21 over the previous ten campaigns. In addition 15 players have been given their first taste of competitive action and I have no doubt more will follow in the remaining three games.

“Stephen is a young manager but he has already put his stamp on the squad and has been instrumental in fast-tracking young emerging talent through the ranks.

“While qualification for Euro 2008 is now out of our own control we still want to finish as high as possible in the group and also improve our seeding for the 2010 World Cup campaign ahead of the draw on November 25.”

Chief Executive John Delaney said the association is firmly focused on ensuring that future transition periods will not require the type of surgery currently being performed by Staunton

“We are taking steps to ensure that we improve the conveyor belt of future talent coming through to our senior international team with the introduction of the Emerging Talent and High Performance Programmes and the creation of a National Academy at Abbotstown. The results of that investment won’t reap dividends immediately but will over the medium to long term..

“Despite their result last night, people now look on France as a footballing power and nobody refers to the wilderness years of French football when, after winning the European Championships in 1984 and finishing fourth in the 1982 World Cup and third in the 1986 World Cup, they failed to qualify for Euro ’88, Italia ’90, and US ’94. They did qualify for Euro ’92 but failed to win a game in the group stages.

“However, during that period they ploughed significant resources into the technical side of their game and have qualified for every tournament over the past ten years, winning the World Cup in ’98 and Euro 2000 as well as finishing runners-up in the 2006 World Cup and reaching the semi-finals of Euro ’96.

“The French Federation invested resources in the development of elite players and FAI is mirroring that strategy even though we are working off a much smaller population base and, therefore, reservoir of talent. We will spend €10m this year on our Development Plan and in the past eight years we have grown our coaching staff from two employees to over 80 today with more on the way.

“In addition to Emerging Talent and High Performance we also have development strategies for other key areas of our game while more, such as the review of the amateur and schoolboys game, are currently being devised.

“We are putting more coaches on the ground to work on the development of the game and our players. The FAI is determined that we improve our success rate in qualifying for major tournaments but the required level of success is created by hard work and patience and not by waving a magic wand.

“We are already making huge progress on key projects such as the construction of the New Stadium and the establishment of new headquarters for the association at Abbotstown as well as focusing on our core business of fostering and promoting the game at all levels. We have over 450,000 participants and are working hard to improve every aspect of the game. We have made tremendous strides over the past two years across the game and are determined to continue to build the game for the future.”

You spin me right round baby right round, like a record baby, spin me right round.

Aw ****k!!!!:mad::mad::mad:

the dreaded vote of confidence..

bye stan

Vote of confidence, or public show of support for Stan in advance of his resignation, making him look better?

'making progress despite last night’s disappointing result in Prague against the Czech Republic'

We can't even qualify for a European Competition:mad:

Wishfull thinking Stuttgart88, wishfull thinking! Stan won't resign and Delaney won't push him so, it's business as usual for the minnions at the FAI and (altogether now) F**k you! to the supporters, what do we know about football anyway? eh!

Lad's he isn't going anywhere, the FAI Board, mainly John Delaney have too much pride to face up to the fact they hired a complete novice. Staunton is not going to quit, he's a fairly stubborn man and doesn't take any sort of critisism onboard (not many managers do).

Unfortuately nothing is going to change.

I wish Delaney would f**k right off ! and take that muppet "Stan" with him !

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Originally Posted by Philly

Lad's he isn't going anywhere, the FAI Board, mainly John Delaney have too much pride to face up to the fact they hired a complete novice. Staunton is not going to quit, he's a fairly stubborn man and doesn't take any sort of critisism onboard (not many managers do).

Unfortuately nothing is going to change.

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I agree

Delaney is basically saying that there is no need to qualify for the next few tournaments so no need for quality Manager. Oh yeah 7 he also compares Ireland to France. :rolleyes:

Delaney says an awful lot there without really saying anything at all. Sounds to me like he was deflecting the question.

Not sure how getting rode rotten by Cyprus, struggling dreadfully to beat the painters and decorators of San Marino and failing to beat a poor Slovak side who were dying to roll over and get their belly tickled can be construed as progress.

Only in FAI World.

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Originally Posted by pete

Delaney is basically saying that there is no need to qualify for the next few tournaments so no need for quality Manager. Oh yeah 7 he also compares Ireland to France. :rolleyes:

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No. He's trying to secure his job by deflecting criticism away from Stan. Stan was Delaney's appointment and if Stan goes Delaney must surely follow.

I'll have a bag of whatever the boys at the FAI are smoking.

The FAI will fold and sack Stan. I have a lot of time for Staunton (great layer IMO for Ireland). Unfortunately he has'nt the savvy to be an international manager. The FAI are the real villians here in appointing someone with no managerial experience. The media and fan glare should and will be on Delaney and the various characters around him. And then they will come to some form of arrangement with Stan probably after the German game. Watch what happens.

Great layer what like brick layer ;)

Progress? I think we're in danger of finishing 4th or 5th. Slovakia could overtake us as they have two games against San Marino while we have to play Germany, Cyprus and Wales(away). I could see us getting just 2 points from these games. And if Wales(who also play San Marino) beat us they could leap frog us into 4th.

2 more years of PROGRESS!

If this is progress lets try failure.

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Originally Posted by Maroon 7

You spin me right round baby right round, like a record baby, spin me right round.

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Not spin at all, they're all valid points. I know Stan used the building for 2010 when he was appointed so he could use that as an excuse if we didn't qualify but that is exactly what we are doing. As was pointed out on another thread we need to set the foundations so we can qualify regularly for major championships rather than be lucky that we got a load of good players at the same time. Short term loss for long term gain. With Stan having more experience during our next campaign, some of the older players retiring and a lot of promising youth players coming through the next decade could turn out to be our most successful period to date.

Did anyone see how Wales hammering Slovakia AWAY from home last night that will tell you how poor Slovakia are!

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Originally Posted by DmanDmythDledge

Not spin at all, they're all valid points. I know Stan used the building for 2010 when he was appointed so he could use that as an excuse if we didn't qualify but that is exactly what we are doing. As was pointed out on another thread we need to set the foundations so we can qualify regularly for major championships rather than be lucky that we got a load of good players at the same time. Short term loss for long term gain. With Stan having more experience during our next campaign, some of the older players retiring and a lot of promising youth players coming through the next decade could turn out to be our most successful period to date.

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And then not play those same players! Or play others in positions that patently they can not play in. Like now really.

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Originally Posted by DmanDmythDledge

Not spin at all, they're all valid points. I know Stan used the building for 2010 when he was appointed so he could use that as an excuse if we didn't qualify but that is exactly what we are doing. As was pointed out on another thread we need to set the foundations so we can qualify regularly for major championships rather than be lucky that we got a load of good players at the same time. Short term loss for long term gain. With Stan having more experience during our next campaign, some of the older players retiring and a lot of promising youth players coming through the next decade could turn out to be our most successful period to date.

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Don't know where to start......setting long-terms foundations in place to ensure a stream of high-class footballers AND maximising the potential of the current squad are not mutually exclusive.

We can do both!

Only time will tell whether we can achieve the long-term goal (and the FAI's history of meeting any of their goals is very poor), BUT we can say for sure that we are not getting the most out of our current squad.

As many people are saying today, watching Scotland last night reminded me of past Ireland teams. Team performance was much greater than the sum of the parts.

Stan ain't the man.

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Originally Posted by DmanDmythDledge

Not spin at all, they're all valid points. I know Stan used the building for 2010 when he was appointed so he could use that as an excuse if we didn't qualify but that is exactly what we are doing.

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Can someone tell me exactly what "building for 2010" is supposed to mean?

I haven't seen any daring tactical experimentation or out of the ordinary formations (our flat back four being neither four nor flat notwithstanding). The blooding of "young talent" would I daresay have happened anyway.

Such emerging talents would have been deployed more astutely and probably not at the expense of an older face with a legitimate claim on a place in the squads.

Moreover if this garbage about "building for 2010" is anything but ...then surely qualifying for a major finals two years previous would have constituted a valuable stage in this mythologic building process? or are we to be told their inexperience led to their unsuccessful trip to South Africa and our elimination at the earliest opportunity (for which -taking the FAI at their word -it's almost a given that we'll qualify).

A vote of confidence from Alan Hunter is all that Stan needs now to be well and truly jinxed.

What utter sh*te! They're raised the bar for themselves with the French comparison. And regardless of whats going on behind the scenes the fact is the international manager isn't up to it. They're two seperate issues. Unless this is Delaney painting a pretty picture of himself before having to admit he was wrong and finish with Stan.

careful now lads, i just received "an infraction" for bad language using ****:rolleyes: