Hard to disagree with Malachy Clerkin in today’s Irish Times:
But it’s hard not to arrive at the conclusion that something was broken in Athens last Friday. It wasn’t the defeat – God knows Ireland have had defeats before under Kenny. It wasn’t even just the performance either. It was the fact that Kenny got schooled by his opposite number, Gus Poyet. He was comprehensively outcoached in the full view of everyone.
The thing about losing the benefit of the doubt is that even the good you do gets questioned. Kenny changed things around at the break, bringing on Johnston for Collins and reconfiguring to a 4-3-3. And it worked – Johnston was terrific in the 45 minutes he spent on the pitch, scoring the first goal and constantly beating Gibraltar defenders to make space and create danger. By any cold analysis, it was the winning of the game.
But the stink of the Greece game hangs in the air still. And so instead of being hailed as having pulled off a managerial masterstroke with his in-game substitution, Kenny has to answer the question of why Johnston wasn’t in the team from the start. This game obviously needed a dribbler – everyone could see it. Why couldn’t the Ireland manager?
Something has shifted. It’s going to be so, so hard for Kenny to shift it back.
Oh dear.Originally Posted by EalingGreen
Here’s a timeline of Southgate’s managerial credentials (what he did as a player (did he ever win anything?) is irrelevant. 1. Relegation with Boro. 2. Sacked by Boro. 3. Unemployed for 4 years. 4. Appointed U21 manager. 5. Finished last in England’s U21 Euro finals group, the highlight of three (long and successful?) years in charge.
And despite the above "he was still only given the England post on a caretaker basis". Madness. :-)
Let’s not ignore the circumstances of his appointment, eh? His appointment was a convenience to the circumstances as Tets has correctly pointed out to you.
Kenny hasn’t worked out for us, but a change of direction was needed, and he had the managerial merits to warrant a punt. He won everything in LOI football multiple times, had relative success with LOI teams in Europe, did well with the U21s, and knew the players to make a needed generational change at senior level. In hindsight, maybe we should have gone with another manager who knows what a bus looks like, how to drive it and where to park it. And we'll probably revert back to such which would be a mistake imo as the issue with such managers is that they are bus drivers. They know how to drive their same old repetitive route over and over again. They’ll get you from A to B, but if you want to advance onto C, say beating a Kazakhstan at home, they are lost as they do not know that route. And C is where you want to go, and not stuck going back and forth between A and B. :-)
I actually think Kenny has to a certain extent and in a certain context been successful (a bit like the Tories saying they'll break international law but only in a limited and specific way!). The side is now a fairly settled side of fairly young players with a few crusty veterans like Duffy to be called upon if needed, and with Coleman and Doherty to come back in if fit / match fit.
And the team has entered the 21st century in terms of ambition on the ball. We may not be very good and there’s no harm at all in mixing it up or being defensive if needed but I think there has been a permanent shift in the mindset.
A new manager can make good use of both. Somebody had to do what Kenny started imho. Others may have done it better, sure.
This is a fair take. id be in favour of Kenny going now as i think the complete absence of results bar the odd moral victory in losing is unforgivable at this stage.
The number of well coached exceptionally talented players coming through the National underage leagues is huge.
I am very optimistic that we have several more Ferguson and Bazunus coing through.
We need a manager that can turn this talent into results at the same time.
Kenny is a good manager but maybe his man mangement and motivation which was much talked about when he was at Dundalk just doesnt work at the more remote National level where accesss to players is limited
I wonder if the 3-5-2 was Anthony Barry’s idea that Kenny has chosen to continue but doesn’t have the backroom staff now to successfully implement it? 3-5-2 is coaching heavy to implement and it doesn’t feel like there is full comfort and positional understanding to play it at the moment, the couple of times Gibraltar got forward last night seemed to make us collectively very uneasy when we have the individual competence to deal whatever threat they had to offer. Can be corrected on this, but Kenny’s U21 team always played a 4-5-1/ 4-3-3 as per the start of his tenure as senior manager – perhaps that’s where his true competence is.
I would love to pick a team for a friendly, the world will disagree with me, but hey ho here goes.....
Bazunu
Coleman Egan O'Shea Doherty
Smallbone Collins Knight
Ogbene Ferguson Johnston
4.3.3
I was actually thinking along this line in general last night. SK has a very specific way he wants his teams to play, he turned a bunch of journeymen LoI players, by and large written off as being good enough for LoI never mind any higher level, in to back to back league and cup winners, dominating for near a decade from rock bottom. He got them progressing in Europe and a good few got moves to England and Scotland as a result. The Irish squad are or should be a higher calibre of player so why do they seem to struggle with the maagers style? I think that to really change a players and teams mentaility, really build confidence and belief in a system it takes a lot of contact hours when starting from a low base/limited players/a complete change in philosophy. There are not enough contact hours in international football to do this quickly, it is never easy. SK is an eternal optimist and may have over estimated the time needed, indeed maybe it really needs to be done from early underage sides coming through to the senior setup. The point on 3-5-2 coaching observation compounds the lack of coaching time and by extension results.
By comparison to previous squads under differnt managers, player quality meant adapting wel enough but then look at how a decent squad was all over the place under Staunton, and midfield of Whelan, Brady et al bypassed by Charlton, we could become like a Gibraltar/Trap/O'Neill side and park the bus and hope for a long ball punt and occasionally nick a goal against a Germany that we have bored in to a late lapse. ts is getting harder to see the positives and progress right now but I also cant see how much of a difference change will make unless there is an outstanding option to replace Kenny. So the options are still patience and take setbacks on the chin knwoing that there will be players coming through and at minimum there is continuity, or we tinker with managerial changes that may not work and waste money and time in the process.
Last edited by Nesta99; 20/06/2023 at 10:58 AM.
Don't post much, but most of the post match dialog on this really ground my gears. The reason for the narrow defeat (just one goal away from home remember) is almost nothing to do with Kenny and everything to do with the players at his disposal vs those that Greece have. Ireland as a nation are totally deluded when it comes to who we thin we should be beating in International football. We assume everyone outside of the big 7 or 8 teams should roll over easily. Greece are a serious footballing country with a good domestic game and annual participation in European competitions - they are also twice Ireland's size. We're not a serious football country - the manager makes almost no difference. The benchmark for footballing standards in the modern game is the Champions League. -I've counted seven champions league players in the starting lineup for Greece. That's set against Matt Doherty on our side. Any algorithm you were to put those team profiles into come up with would come up with a Greek win....wouldn't matter if they were managed by John the Baptist.
Player Club Champions League? Europa League Odysseas Vlachodimos Benfica 2023 George Baldock Sheffield Utd Konstantinos Mavropanos VfB Stuttgart 2022 Pantelis Chatzidiakos Eredivisie club AZ - Konstantinos Tsimikas Liverpool FC 2023 Dimitrios Kourbelis Panathinaikos 2023 Petros Mantalos AEK Athens 2019 2022 Giorgos Masouras Olympiacos 2023 Anastasios Bakasetas Trabzonspor 2023 Dimitrios Pelkas Hull 2022 (fenerbace) Anastasios Bakasetas Eredivisie club AZ 2023
My new screen saver
"the manager makes almost no difference"
Good post, fair points and I don't disagree with any of it really. The bit i cant get past is whether or not SK is making the best out of the crop. Did we play as well against [insert lesser seed/ranked team as appropriate] as we should have with the players that we had available? Were tactics, selection, in-game management all that they could have been? The body of evidence is growing that he's not optimizing things and progress has stalled almost 3 years in.
Could someone else do better? "It depends" is the not-very-satisfactory response to that...
Further to Del Carroll's important comment this afternoon, a friend had shared with me some data from EireAnalytics. Only one (Baldock) of the Greek starting XI hadn't played in European club competition; eight of the Ireland XI hadn't. Median minutes played by the Greeks in these competitions: 2661; Irish median: zero. Total minutes played by the Greeks: 26,497; Irish total: 3150.
The Irish squad has been affected by injuries, but managers with experience at a higher level than S Kenny and almost daily contact with Doherty, Idah, Parrott, Obafemi, Connolly, have failed to get consistent effective form from them in 2022/23. We don't at present have a Premier League standard keeper - and may not have for the foreseeable future. We may or may not have one EPL midfielder in Cullen. Some of the Ireland panel are sinking into League One (e.g. McClean, Keane, ? Hendrick, ? McGrath). We can't expect to seriously challenge the for the top two places in a qualification group including France and the Netherlands with a squad composed of Championship and League One players.
I attend almost all the home games at the Aviva and at Windsor Park. Many, many times in recent years I have wished that Steven Davis was a BIG rather than a GAWA. Notice what has happened since he slowed down and then was injured?
A different manager could probably squeeze 2-3 points more out of this Republic squad. When does the crowd funding campaign start, assuming we can find someone brave enough to take on the job?
eg. Steven Gerrard's Aston Villa vs Unai Emery's Aston Villa.
No difference at all...
Bring Back Belfast Celtic F.C.
I'd be wary about stats like minutes played in European competition - otherwise we'd be bringing back in Daryl Murphy and calling up Jack Byrne, Ronan Finn, and so on. Similarly, Olympiakos got two points in the Europa League (not Champions League) this season, which is fairly crap. But then the Greek keeper was starting for the Benfica team that beat Juve home and away in the Champions League groups, drew home and away against PSG, and ultimately reached the quarter-final - again, a big difference between those that mere minutes doesn't capture.
There's a valid point there but it needs to be couched carefully!
I do agree with the rest of your post though. Ultimately I think we need a new manager, but have to be realistic as to how much that would achieve.
Lets drill down on this.
Odysseas Vlachodimos - 0 Champions League appearances.
George Baldock - 0 Champions League appearances.
Konstantinos Mavropanos - 0 Champions League appearances.
Pantelis Chatzidiakos - 0 Champions League appearances.
Konstantinos Tsimikas - 21 Champions League Appearances. 1355 mins.
Dimitrios Kourbelis - 0 Champions League appearances.
Petros Mantalos - 0 Champions League appearances.
Giorgos Masouras - 0 Champions League appearances.
Anastasios Bakasetas - 0 Champions League appearances.
Dimitrios Pelkas - 0 Champions League appearances.
E. Pavlidis - 0 Champions League appearances.
Hmmmmm, I think you need to crack the abacus out again.
It reminded me of this classic
"This Ronaldo fella is a cod"
Not sure where you're getting your data from weldo but Vlachodimos played every minute for Benfica this season as they got to a champions league quarter final - and the same last season (again to the quarter final) and the two seasons before that (group stages)
I'm not gonna go any deeper than that on the list but he's played 32 champions league games
Last edited by elatedscum; 20/06/2023 at 4:20 PM.
I think he meant "has appeared in the Champions League/Europa League in his career", not just the past season. Have a look at their wikipedia entries
Odysseas Vlachodimos
George Baldock
Konstantinos Mavropanos
Pantelis Chatzidiakos
Kostas Tsimikas
Dimitrios Kourbelis
Petros Mantalos
Georgios Masouras
Anastasios Bakasetas
Dimitrios Pelkas
Vangelis Pavlidis
No, he meant in the season indicated. So partly weldoniho is wrong (as elated has already pointed out) and partly Del Carroll is wrong. So for example Bakasetas played CL qualifying last year, where he scored as they were knocked out by Copenhagen. That dropped them into the EL groups (he scored three times), and then they came third there to make the Conference League knockouts, which he didn't play.
So not really right to say he was a CL player
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