Stephen Kenny

[passinginterest]

In terms of the squad and the scale of the rebuilding, assuming the Wiki page is fairly accurate, there's been 51 players called up in the last 12 months.

That seems like a pretty incredible volume of players, covid obviously a contributing factor.

Age bracket wise -
11 - 30+ - Caps - 459 (avg 42)
11 - 27 to 29 - Caps - 272 (avg 25)
13 - 24 to 26 - Caps - 92 (avg 7)
10 - 21 to 23 - Caps - 35 (avg 3.5)
6 - under 21 - Caps - 33 (avg 5.5)

8 of those called up not capped at all oldest being McEneff at 26 and youngest Collins at 20.

Probably only Shane Long as an outfield player at 34 is unlikely to be involved in the next campaign. Randolph is also 34, next oldest are McClean and Coleman at 32.

There's only 4 players 25 or younger with 10 or more caps.

Duffy and Hendrick and Robbie Brady are the only players not yet 30 with more than 30 caps and they're all 29.

I think the lack of caps in the 24 to 26 group really shows the failure to do any succession planning in previous regimes.

Anyway, I've time to kill and though it might interest some. I think it speaks to the scale of the rebuilding and the lack of a shortcut out.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republ..._football_team

[tetsujin1979]

Poll opened here: https://foot.ie/threads/269901-Steph...ond-referendum

[tetsujin1979]

Compiled the passing stats from the three qualifiers here: https://twitter.com/irish_abroad/sta...13083046842375

[paul_oshea]

Shane Duffy completed most passes over the 3 games? Where's Kingdom

What's the definition of three key passes? And where do you get these stats off is it you manually researching or an automated process?

[Diggs246]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2021...kennys-future/

I wouldn't be confident if I was kenny

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2021...kennys-future/

I wouldn't be confident if I was kenny

Honestly, I'm delighted to read that. Maybe some realism might be added to proceedings. It was less than a week ago that we drew with Azerbaijan at home yet the reaction from a lot in the media and some supporters is as if we're after achieving some major breakthrough. We're in a battle for bottom of the table, we can't win a competitive game, our seeding is dropping like a stone. Qualifying for tournaments brings in desperately needed resources. This manager has failed to qualify for 2 tournaments already and is making it so much more difficult for the next manager to qualify for a tournament. The FAI can't let his reign continue unabated with the disastrous results he's delivering. If he fails to beat Azerbaijan and Luxembourg again, he'll be getting the chop.

[DeLorean]

Sounds like a fairly rational approach, one that the RTÉ panel were unanimous on the other night, which is basically to assess the situation at the end of the campaign.

You'd imagine that means he needs to win a game or two. Four points could possibly be enough, depending on the way they come about.

Draw in Azer, narrow defeat to Portugal and a win in Lux to end on a positive note - relatively speaking! To be reasonably safe he'll need six though.

[SkStu]

Yep. No different to what most of us think at this point. The outliers are the ones that want him to stay on no matter what or get sacked now/next game (knife edge) per our poll.

[tetsujin1979]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2021...kennys-future/

I wouldn't be confident if I was kenny

Alternative headline - "employer confirms employee continues to be employed"

[CraftyToePoke]

The way the polls are running, Hill is probably afraid he'll be out of a job himself before Kenny if he doesn't pick his words


#allaboardtheirrationalunwaveringrabidsupportofSK is trending in Termonbarry tonight.

[Diggs246]

Alternative headline - "employer confirms employee continues to be employed"

FAI boss Hill gives Stephen Kenny little public assurance over the security of his position (the42.ie)

Its hard to know, what Hill is saying here!

[paul_oshea]

Alternative headline - "employer confirms employee continues to be employed"

If there's nothing to be said, then nothing is said. If there's support required then that's not support. If it's positive then it's positive speak. I'd be more worried than I thought I'd be if I were Kenny

There's no point in this stage in the campaign to get rid of him now before the last set of fixtures. And I guess those fixtures become even more important for him now. He needs a minimum 7 points to stay on by the sounds of that. It's sensible to wait now and retrospectively look back over the whole campaign and nations league /euro2020 playoff and judge as a whole.

[passinginterest]

There's noting in what Hill has said at all. Employee is subject to regular performance reviews and these will contribute to decision on whether to extend contract or not. I'm not sure what else he can say? It's widely known Kenny's contract is up in July, he's hardly going to commit to renewing it or start waxing lyrical about the superb results so far. There's 10 people on the board and no different to the public and every other forum there's probably at least a couple who'd happily see Kenny gone, while the majority are in the lets see how the remaining games go camp.

[Diggs246]

There's noting in what Hill has said at all. Employee is subject to regular performance reviews and these will contribute to decision on whether to extend contract or not. I'm not sure what else he can say? It's widely known Kenny's contract is up in July, he's hardly going to commit to renewing it or start waxing lyrical about the superb results so far. There's 10 people on the board and no different to the public and every other forum there's probably at least a couple who'd happily see Kenny gone, while the majority are in the lets see how the remaining games go camp.

I would say your right, my guess is any dropped points v Azerbaijan or Lux and its goodnight irene ( unless we beat Portugal)

[paul_oshea]

Interesting different take on it, perhaps that's why hill sounded the way he did. Perhaps Kenny had done a solo run

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/...-40600472.html

[DCWA]

Interesting different take on it, perhaps that's why hill sounded the way he did. Perhaps Kenny had done a solo run

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/...-40600472.html

Commercial partners were surely aware of this. The entire footballing nation was.

There was never a likelihood of making Qatar and everyone I know have never seeiously fathomed us making there, most willingly writing it off before it even began.

There hasn’t been many things about the Ireland camp that have been clear for a while now but one of that has been is that we were looking beyond 2022.

[pineapple stu]

Kind of sad if sponsors' unrealistic corporate visions trump a genuine squad rebuilding project that needs to happen to be honest.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Commercial partners were surely aware of this. The entire footballing nation was.

There was never a likelihood of making Qatar and everyone I know have never seeiously fathomed us making there, most willingly writing it off before it even began.

There hasn’t been many things about the Ireland camp that have been clear for a while now but one of that has been is that we were looking beyond 2022.

Who was looking beyond 2022? Where was it said that we're writing off an entire campaign? This is revisionist bullsh1t. Kenny was picking what he thought was the strongest squad and side available to him. Look at the squad picked for the first two games. Things have only changed since then because we lost to Luxembourg and were effectively knocked out of contention after 2 games. Then the Kenny narrative was all about building a side for 2024.

I'd say not many would have said we were going to qualify for the World Cup but why wouldn't we be able to give it a good go? For the last World Cup qualifying we came second only 2 points behind Serbia and ahead of Wales and Austria, then had a disastrous play off. For the Euros we almost qualified from a group with Switzerland and Denmark, teams who got to the quarter and semi finals at the Euros and then Kenny got us knocked out by Slovakia. Serbia didn't make the euros and Portugal only got to the 2nd round.

We should be giving this group a good rattle. With the current manager driving our rankings backwards, the next groups won't get an easier. Are we just going to give up before we begin because some teams look scary? The narrative being peddled by Kenny and his backers is pathetic and I hope the FAI don't buy into the nonsense.

[passinginterest]

I think there's a lot of reaching here to try and make a story out of nothing. Of course it was never a discussion with the CEO or anyone else to say we're not going to try qualify for Qatar. That's not what's happened either. The team and manager have tried to win every game, that's been clear. The manager has made some selections that may have come with some risk of lesser performances in the short term, but that's any managers prerogative, he's putting his own position on the line in the process. If any commercial sponsor entered a deal on the expectation that the team would be qualifying for the world cup then they should be asking serious questions about their own judgement. If they're having doubts about the public support for the manager making the selection choices he has, then they should probably have a look at the second half of the Serbia game and the crowd response to the performance of Bazunu and the other youngsters.

[passinginterest]

In terms of the squad and the scale of the rebuilding, assuming the Wiki page is fairly accurate, there's been 51 players called up in the last 12 months.

That seems like a pretty incredible volume of players, covid obviously a contributing factor.

Age bracket wise -
11 - 30+ - Caps - 459 (avg 42)
11 - 27 to 29 - Caps - 272 (avg 25)
13 - 24 to 26 - Caps - 92 (avg 7)
10 - 21 to 23 - Caps - 35 (avg 3.5)
6 - under 21 - Caps - 33 (avg 5.5)


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republ..._football_team

Just looking at this again and tweaking the age brackets it's even more stark. If you use players age 29 and up for the first category there's 16 of them with 666 caps between them. All have more than 10 caps and only 4 have less then 20 (Collins 13, Horgan 16, Kevin Long 17 and Arter 18). There's not too many nailed on starters left for one reason or another but the ones that are probably strongest placed now are Coleman at 32 with 61 caps, Stevens at 31 with 21 caps, Doherty at 29 with 23 caps and arguably Hendrick at 29 with 64 caps. The fact that Stevens and Doherty have such a relatively low number of caps again serves to show how slow we've been in introducing younger players in the past.

If you make 24-28 the next category, where you'd be hoping to see some key players becoming the experienced leaders, there's 19 player, 3 are uncapped (McEneff, Talbot, Szmodics). There's only 157 caps between the other 16. There's 6 with more than 10 caps (Christie 28, O'Dowda 23, Robinson 20, Egan 17, Cullen 12, Maguire 12). Only Robinson Egan and Cullen look like they have a future as high value squad players. The rest don't seem to offer much hope, of them Ogbene with 1, McGrath with 3, Byrne with 4 and Manning with 4 may be the only ones who have the potential to offer much in the future. That's a very worrying lack of quality and it's the biggest problem area for the squad. Probably only Robinson, Egan and Cullen look like certain starters.

The leaves 23 and under where we have another 16 players, 5 of whom have not been capped, and the other 11 already have 68 caps between them. The uncapped are Coventry, Mandroiu, Taylor, Scales and Colllins. Coventry and Collins probably the most likely of those to be capped in the near future, I'd forgotten about Taylor and he could potentially offer something, as could Scales if the Celtic move works out. The other 11 are the great hopes I suppose and the caps they're gaining at this stage can surely only aid them in their development; Molumby 12, Idah 10, O'Shea 10, Connolly 8, Bazunu 7, Knight 7, Parrott 7, Travers 3, Omobamidele 2, Kelleher 1, O'Connor 1. The fact that 3 are keepers limits the impact they can make to an extent too. Idah, O'Shea, Knight, Bazunu and Omobamidele, look like the ones who are almost nailed on starters at this stage.

With all the options and the caps, the midfield still looks like the biggest conundrum, closely followed by a reliable goal scorer in any of the groups.