Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane

[tricky_colour]

John Delaney should be the new manager.

He clearly can't do his current job so it is time for him to try something he might actually be good at.

It is a fact of life people get promoted until they are incompetent in their current role as he is.

Hence his highest level of competence will be manager, a level below chief executive.

Roy and Martin reached their highest level of competence as players which is why they will as mangers.

Delaney is the man to take us to the next world cup, having him as manager will prevent him embarrassing himself and Ireland again as chief executive.

It will also take pressure off the players as they know they will not be blamed for failure should it occur (again),
John will get the blame because he clearly should never have been given the job in the first place.

Roy would be ideal to take over John's job.

[Spudulika]

This MON saga and ufc nonsense have now confirmed to me why there was a spike in kleenex and vaseline sales in Ireland (or Irish related areas) in the past 48 hours. We love our meeja p)rn, and add in some horrific violence and we edge ever closer to a return to the Kingdom!

[zero]

ranieri now odds on favourite according to this:

http://www1.skysports.com/football/n...heavily-backed

how does he keep getting jobs?

[Stuttgart88]

I used to really like Ranieri. Whatever we think about MON he got a draw in Germany and has only lost once. Ranieri lost twice to the Faroes. If I was Leicester's owner I'd take note!

[mark12345]

Doesn't matter if it's Ranieri or Prince Ranieri it ain't going to matter. We don't have the players to take us places. Forget the short term and let's start focusing on youth development and LOI development.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Doesn't matter if it's Ranieri or Prince Ranieri it ain't going to matter. We don't have the players to take us places. Forget the short term and let's start focusing on youth development and LOI development.

You're right. Until we unearth the likes of Conor McLaughlin, Jamie Ward, Chris Gunter, Aron Gunnarsson, Emil Hallfredsson, Sebastian Larsson and Anders Svensson we aren't going to get anywhere.

We don't have the luxury of selecting an Oliver Norwood, a Kari Arnason or Markus Rosenberg.

Until we do we cannot expect to compete.

[DeLorean]

Eamonn Sweeney
http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-31317357.html

I enjoy Eamon Sweeney for the most part and once he got motoring in that piece, there wasn't a lot you could disagree with. I do think the general comparison to Staunton and the hyperbolic headline are unnecessary and inaccurate though. I'm not defending Martin O'Neill or this very underwhelming campaign, but I think Sweeney (and TOWK!) are lacking perspective.

For a start, Stan was a complete shot in the dark as he had zero experience of football management. It stood to reason that the second things went pear shaped the claws would be out. Things didn't just go pear shaped though, it was utter chaos and a quick resolution was absolutely vital, for the man's own health as much as anything else. Don't let time fool you, it was sad to see him under so much pressure, pressure that he clearly, clearly could not handle.

I don't think it's a simple case of just comparing results and, even if it was, O'Neill would still win out. There have been many disappointments, but no catastrophes under O'Neill. Glasgow was the extreme low point and even in that game we were relatively solid, if completely inept in every other aspect. There has been nothing remotely comparable to Cyprus x2 and San Marino. Hat tip to Stan for the Slovakia result and performance, but that's all he's getting.

Sweeney just ignores the fact that the competitive nature of groups change from campaign to campaign. I mean, nobody in their right mind could argue that Staunton did better than Kerr, yet he did have a stronger group position. This is a similar enough campaign to Kerr's, results wise, just replace the brilliance of Thierry Henry with Shaun Maloney! But I expect better, we should be the ones taking at least four point from Scotland and having a right good chance of beating Poland at home as well. It's been poor, there's no getting away from that... but not Staunton poor.

And we were more competitive against Germany & Czech Republic than we have been against any big team since - particularly under O'Neill.

Why spout nonsense that you know will obviously be contradicted? O'Neill has had one competitive game against a top team and drew away from home, and they are a far superior Germany side than the ones we played under Staunton, even if they were missing a few. It wasn't a dead rubber either! We've drawn with (reigning World Champions) Italy twice as well. It's not like you're unaware of these results so I really don't get why you leave bombs like those without even explaining how you've come to these conclusions.

Staunton managed to wring great performances from inexperienced players like Andy Reid & Paul McShane in that time while the likes of Jeff Hendrick have failed to develop under O'Neill.

This is fierce flimsy stuff, and that's being generous. Andy Reid had produced for us pre-Staunton, he had played well in some important games in Kerr's campaign. McShane had an excellent debut but hardly 'developed' under Staunton. I think Hendrick is a bad example of a player not developing, he started the campaign on the fringes and is (or is close enough to) first choice now. He might not be setting the world on fire (who is?) but his international career is clearly going in the right direction. A better example of a player not developing might have been James McCarthy, who hasn't kicked on like he has for Everton.

Take away the 5-2 loss to Cyprus (for which there were extenuating circumstances) and the Staunton reign looks a lot healthier.

Oh yeah, just take it away, like it never even happened. Even if we did take it away, we were still outplayed by them in the return fixture also and extremely lucky to get a draw. Remind me of the "extenuating circumstances" anyway? Some injuries? We still had our heavy hitters available... Finnan, O'Shea, Dunne, Duff and Robbie Keane all present... there is absolutely nothing to excuse that result and performance. And if you were to go down that road, surely O'Neill deserves some leeway for Glasgow (I don't think he does by the way!).

Sure there was San Marino, but can anyone honestly say that Kazakhstan under Trap and Georgia under O'Neill were any less embarrassing?

Yes, I can absolutely say they were less embarrassing. Austria drew with Kaz in the same group for feck sake, and a win in Georgia is always a really good result. Again, I think you know all this but just like dropping bombs and running for the hills.

[Stuttgart88]

I'm still more than half hoping MON will go though!

[Kingdom]

I don't think the piece by Sweeney was all that good to be honest, and to back that assertion up, I'll use the following.

Sweeney, almost as a "by-the-way:" notes the following:

"Slovakia do have Marek Hamsik, who's had an outstanding season for Napoli in Serie A, but Ireland have Seamus Coleman, perhaps the finest full-back in the Premier League and a player whose inability to produce the same form for his country seems symptomatic of a general failure to get our act together."

If I'd the choice of either, I'd pick Hamsik every day of the week and three times on Sunday. We need brilliance in the middle of the pitch, and competence at full-back. You could argue that we'd have competence in the shape of Christie at right-back, but nobody of Hamsik's stature in the centre of the pitch. That isn't to ignore Hoolahan, but he's different to Hamsik.

[DeLorean]

I'm still more than half hoping MON will go though!

Yeah, I definitely wasn't defending him in general, just with regards the comparisons with Staunton.

I wouldn't be disappointed to see him go either really. I think we need a more dramatic change of approach/philosophy than he is willing to implement, or even capable of implementing.

[back of the net]

Claudio Ranieri has been appointed Leicester City manager ...............................

[Closed Account]

Claudio Ranieri has been appointed Leicester City manager ...............................

[back of the net]

God damn you Claudio!!!!

[shakermaker1982]

Poor old Sean, still in the wilderness then.

[geysir]

We have a chance for 3rd place, a fighting chance rather than a forlorn mathematical hope.
I would have been surprised if O'Neill had walked away.
In our last game there were definite signs of progress with O'Neill and I am curious to see where he will go with it.
Scotland have a tough schedule for their 2 games in September and we have the best possible schedule.
And Poland have the toughest run in, with Germany and Scotland away and us at home.

Of course, finishing 3rd in other circumstances would have been regarded as a dismal failure.

[mark12345]

We have a chance for 3rd place, a fighting chance rather than a forlorn mathematical hope.
I would have been surprised if O'Neill had walked away.
In our last game there were definite signs of progress with O'Neill and I am curious to see where he will go with it.
Scotland have a tough schedule for their 2 games in September and we have the best possible schedule.
And Poland have the toughest run in, with Germany and Scotland away and us at home.

Of course, finishing 3rd in other circumstances would have been regarded as a dismal failure.

We're bloody fickle collectively aren't we. Two posts earlier we have someone cursing Claudio Ranieri for taking the Leicester job.
Seemed like there was a collective anti climax. Then we have this post saying that they didn't think MON was never going to walk away and then outlining all of his pluses.

[Charlie Darwin]

It's almost like we're not all the same person.

[Crosby87]

What the hell is king power? Being really good at checkers? Ah **** it, I don't care.

[back of the net]

We have a chance for 3rd place, a fighting chance rather than a forlorn mathematical hope.
I would have been surprised if O'Neill had walked away.
In our last game there were definite signs of progress with O'Neill and I am curious to see where he will go with it.
Scotland have a tough schedule for their 2 games in September and we have the best possible schedule.
And Poland have the toughest run in, with Germany and Scotland away and us at home.

Of course, finishing 3rd in other circumstances would have been regarded as a dismal failure.

A Chance indeed - unfortunately I havent seen that much in our current management to suggest that we are going to somehow beat Germany in Dublin/Poland and away. Am of the opinion that we will need 4 points from those 2 games.

Not giving up hope - but can only base our expectations on what we have been so far in the group - which has been disappointing



While I saw some good things in the scotland game - i didnt see anywhere near enough that would make me somewhat confident for what MON can do over against the germans and poles


I truly hope, he proves me wrong ...but i dont see it happening

[geysir]

I used to really like Ranieri. Whatever we think about MON he got a draw in Germany and has only lost once. Ranieri lost twice to the Faroes. If I was Leicester's owner I'd take note!

Ranieri only lost to the Faroes once and they just happen to have worked hard for 10 or so years to be a 4th seeded country in the 2018 WC draw, in amongst such luminaries as ........Ireland.

That's just a reality check