Is there a purpose to this post, or is it just a random dig at Kenny?
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Our previous manager, Mick McCarthy, has earned a long-term contract at promotion-chasing Cardiff. This is a news story for those of us who take an interest in Irish football:
https://www.skysports.com/football/n...act-until-2023
Have you got a problem with that?
Mick might still be in Ireland job if he didn't sh1t his pants away to Georgia and play for a 0-0 from the start when we needed a win. I'll never forget the image of Randolph wasting time early in the 1st half of that game.
How much would you say Cardiff had to pay for his services? Ireland paid him double what they are paying Kenny, not including the 1.13 million euro pay off when his time ended as planned. That pay off alone would cover 2 years of Kenny.
Do you have a list of managers you'd pay half of what McCarthy asks for?
Not a fan of Kenny but that's absolute nonsense. We barely scored under McCarthy and he had all our best players available. Sure we went 397 minutes without scoring under O'Neill. Played dire football under both of them to boot. Not scoring isn't a Kenny issue; we have no strikers, it's an Ireland issue. Who should be scoring the goals? 19 year old Adam Idah who hadn't even been available?
And I'm certainly no big fan of McCarthy - but he made us competitive with what was available. Kenny's strategy has confused even the players, McGoldrick has retired, two backroom staff have walked and, of course, the ridiculous Videogate circus. Selection problems have not been exclusive to us - we've played teams similarly damaged by injuries and covid. Apart from one game - it's been a shambles.
I doubt any manager would have done much better with the players we have had available in recent years. The criticism O’Neill and McCarthy faced at times was unfair.
McCarthy is proving that he’s still “got it” as a manager if he has something to work with, and I’m happy to see him do well.
I hope Kenny can bring the belief and fighting spirit back — but I suspect given how poorly we’ve done to date he will not get to keep his job for Euro qualifying unless there’s a marked improvement on what we’ve seen so far.
For someone who isn't a fan you're giving him an awful lot of credit while simultaneously going after his replacement.
Were we competitive under Mick? 7 goals in 8 games with our best players available and our only top level striker still playing. Scraping wins against minnows and digging out a few draws against he giants of Denmark and Switzerland to appease the plastic hammer brigade. It was grim enough stuff and only looked an improvement when set against he backdrop of O'Neills later games which were truly dire.
Then you go on to highlight the issues Kenny has faced in comparison but seem to be attributing him the blame for them? He's had our third string when compared to the players Mick had whilst also dealing with a rat in the camp/FAI and having no fans in the ground to boot. On top of that he is paid less than half of what McCarthy ended up getting. Dose of reality needed amongst Ireland fans these days. Plenty of people had their minds made up before a ball was kicked. I'll be waiting until he's had a fair shake and a few games with a consistent squad but even then he won't have a proper striker to call on. And I'm sure that will be his fault.
Mick is doing well at Cardiff but was just sacked by Apoel. He's had some ups and downs.
Is calling Mick a 'horrendous manager' not an 'unnecessary jibe'? And if not, why not?
The way he set up his team against Georgia during the last campaign was not something I agreed with, but at least we were competitive and hard to play against and beat. And now...?
When Mick left first time round, we were 12th in the world, and our unlucky home defeat to Switzerland was our first in 18 matches.
Mick McCarthy managed tonight for the 1000th time, joins Hodgson, Allardyce, Ancelotti and a few more to reach that number. Probably at his level in the division he's in now, but still a fine achievement for the player who captained us V Italy in Rome in a WC Q/F. Well done to him.
And if Connolly had put his late chance against Georgia away, he'd be hailed as a genius.
That's football.