My point is entirely valid Paul. Those two were important p*** or get off the pot games that were lost heavily. I'll start listing off the games under both those where we hung on by our fingernails against teams better than us, no better than us and worse and we'll be here a while if you like.Originally Posted by paul_oshea
I'm not some big Kenny fan either nor someone who thinks the answers to all our problems lie in the league of Ireland. They simply don't. But I'm not for changing him not least because we can't afford to be paying him off and someone else to do it when we've already paid Mick a fortune and the others before him. And the money thing matters. We don't have it and we 've been overpaying managers going back to at least Stans time and possibly as far back as Mick1.
An amount of that is Delaney legacy - the 'Trapattoni Era' should NEVER have happened. There's a reason we were an outlier with that carry on. Its unsustainable, sets a precedent and means everyone who's managed in the PL on a cup weekend is gonna rock up asking "where's MY 2 million quid?"
Turns out it wasn't even Delaneys idea. It just landed on his lap. But it got him over a hump and allowed him do something short term expedient that made him popular and got him on the late late show. It was a disaster for Irish football, a dearly bought qualification for 1 EC and no world cups and if we'd only missed out the whole rotten structure would've collapsed on Delaney. All that might seem a long way from a friendly hiding by England but this all matters because all that money was flushed on people who couldn't a flying one about player development here in Ireland.
Look at what the Welsh and Icelandics have managed in those years. We're not even at the starting blocks in terms of what needs to be done. You can't blame a coach who doesn't have the playing stock and you can't blame players for not being good enough anymore than you can blame your cat for not being your dog. So if Kenny takes a bit more interest in whats going on domestically -be it in the LOI, junior or the schoolboys - great. I've concerns about what he's on as well for his work though. He'll get 300k this year -jumping to half a million next year!?!? That's insane. Ryan Giggs isn't on that. More Delaney legacy.
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
Well if you read what I wrote it's exactly this kind of binary thinking that I am worried about
Have doubts about Kenny, but unless we are being beaten at home by a minnow and losing all our other games heavily, he needs to be given the next campaign.
Kenny has been somewhat lucky that he has had a number of competitive games before the wc campaign. Not all managers get that. I never really saw the purpose of playing England aside from making a few quid. Would have been far better to play Latvia and give the likes of Idah a chance of a goal and get the regime off to a winning start.
We have real talents coming through but the reality is that is likely to be 2-3 years before they are really making a difference. In the meantime, we are utterly mediocre.
There has to be some middle ground. Pep Guardiola and Jack Charlton aren't the only 2 football managers who ever lived. You can try to play the ball without completely standing off the opposition and letting them have their way with you.
If Kenny can do it, great. But it feels like unless he's prepared to change his approach, and the men he's selecting, he's circling the drain. This isn't good enough.
Bring Back Belfast Celtic F.C.
The correct answer for this team is somewhere in between those 2 extreme levels. I meant to quote da bishop there. Bloody phone.
Matches against England aren't what Kenny should be judged on. They have better quality in every position on the pitch. We would have lost no matter what system we tried.
The real issue is that we look no better, and no more threatening, against weaker teams like Finland, whose squad are no better than ours.
Kenny has been unlucky with the absence of strikers, and we are also paying the price for years of neglect of underage work.
As somebody said earlier, it's going to be tough to play this style of football with one of the poorest generation of players we've had.
Everything was too nice. Too often the likes of Grealish, Mount, Winks were allowed to take a touch and progress with the ball without the fear of being tackled. I’m not saying make stupid fouls but the only people who were prepared to make any kind of tackle or put any pressure on were Browne and McClean after he came on.
I'm sorry. No.
The next campaign is for a World Cup. That's biggest sporting event in the history of the world.
I'm happy enough to give him the next 2 games, and bringing through young players is important, but Stephen Kenny has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
We've not only lost games, we've not even looked like a threat.
Bring Back Belfast Celtic F.C.
Thing is some of that tiki taki stuff at barca got well boring after a while, playing sideways for most of the game, plus all the added cheating, nah give me big jack all day long.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020...-right-things/
Not a great thing for a player to be saying , what exactly does he mean saying we gave up a little bit? Did they not believe in themselves, the gameplan or what they were doing?
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
saddest night since I am an irish fan. How much money did we get at least?
bonnner mcgrath moran lawrenson hughton houghton brady whelan galvin aldo stapleton
You must not have watched the away game v Georgia.
There's so many games at the moment it must be hard for the players. This could have been a well earned week off for them and instead we are self flaggelating ourselves against England who could probably field 4 sperate teams to beat us.
Anyway onto the next game in *checks notes* - 3 days time - madness.
I just read the bbc comments from the match, they are celebrating a friendly victory and the hating is still there, friendly bananas. What happened to Egan ?
We were muck after the opening tonight. In a game we didn't need to play, and shouldn't have played. Too many players were muck. But of the 17 who played, look how many need to be transitioned out, or are learning the ropes (and others currently around as well). We had – at best – half a team tonight, out of an entire squad. RAM's right - England could field several teams, all able to play us off the pitch.
Not now/never going to be up to scratch: Christie, O’Dowda, Curtis (add Maguire)
Jury’s out: none playing tonight (add Kelleher, Travers, Manning)
Squad players/last resorts: Horgan, Long, McClean (add Collins)
On the bench/occasional starters: Browne, Brady (add Arter, Clarke, Byrne, S Long)
Need to be challenged/too complacent: Randolph, Hendrick, Duffy, Hourihane (add McCarthy)
First team starters: Egan, Doherty (add Stevens, Coleman, Robinson)
Prospects – need 12 months: Idah, O’Shea, Molumby (add Cullen, Knight, Connolly, Parrott, Obafemi)
Would we have offered more if Coleman, McCarthy, Connolly and Robinson were playing instead of Christie, Hourihane, O’Dowda and Horgan? If Egan hadn’t gone off almost immediately before England began to dominate? (Is that a coincidence? Did it speed up the inevitable?) I think we could have, if only to have made England work harder for a lower score win. The u21scoming through have been encouraged to play ball, not hoof it up the pitch like the seniors have for 15 years. We’ll never improve if we panic and hit reset to puke football every we get a bad run. The style of play needs to be embedded, and the players who aren’t up to it need to eff royally off into the sunset. The only way to maximise the potential of the up and coming players is to drill a consistent style of play into the squad. That’ll take time, and elements will evolve and disappear. To be honest, it’s an indictment of the short termism and results only focus going back to Kerr. International teams re-invented their tactics repeatedly in the time we’ve stayed stuck in a cave throwing our own 5hit at anybody who looked like they could play ball until they stopped and threw 5hit at the next poor f***er with a bit of talent. Rinse and repeat.
Short term pain, long term gain – that’s my hope.
But tonight, I’m mightily disappointed with the application and cohesion on the pitch. The short kick outs are to cover Randolph’s inadequacy, but won’t work as long as Duffy can’t pass the bloody ball. Our defence was outhustled. Maybe that – or the personnel responsible – needs to be looked at long and hard, because every team watching can see that’s a big flaw in our game.
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
The reality is forget about qualifying for the world cup. Irish teams packed with top players missed out on world cups, so I don't see how a team with 2 very good players (Doherty and Coleman), a few decentish ones and the rest a mixture of mediocre players and good prospects can expect to suddenly win a group against a Germany or Spain, or get through a playoff against a Poland or Switzerland.
The best we can hope for is to see Knight, Parrott, Molumby etc come through and be ready for the next campaign. If we are going to think of world cups, 2026 is more realistic.
As I said, Kenny is lucky he has had so many games. If he is a decent manager, during the next campaign, we should begin to see improvements.
Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch
I find that quite concerning. One thing we would never have done under previous managers was let the our heads go down and not give 100%.
Worst I've felt snce Kevin Keegan scored two on us back in about 1979 or 1980.
I cannot see what the Idah fuss is, he moved like a chap in slow motion all night, lacked passion. Would be better off giving Greene a go over that performance. Duffy might be low on confidence but at least he tried his best. Thought Browne and Hendrick worked really hard. Was O'Dowda on the pitch? ; because if so he was invisible. All we found out is we need to work damn hard to get to England's B- team level.
Only plus tonight is that the North tanked.
There is still the Delaney stench over the Kenny appointment. I also think Kenny made a mistake when picking his assistant.
The next 2 games are must score games, or the media will oust him and his backroom team within 12 months.
But what do I know, this is just my stupid opinion. Would love to be proved wrong.
Daryl Horgan of Wycombe Wanderers has become a fixture in our side. Let that sink in. And I think that just about sums our whole situation up at the moment.
What is to be achieved by this course of action? Is Horgan good enough? No. Is he likely to improve? No. Does he improve us as a side? No.
It smacks of Kenny running for cover by picking a player he knows, and is the one player he can call upon from whom he will, presumably, command automatic respect.
Hardly the brave new world some promised.
Surely McClean and, especially Knight, were better options? Even Harness and Curtis would probably offer more.
Collins, our only goal threat on current form, was left on the bench with Curtis, a winger, coming on instead. Again, I struggle to see the rationale.
We don't have the players to play the style of football Kenny wants to play. Our goalkeeper isn't particularly comfortable in possession and our defenders aren't good enough on the ball. And yet we continually attempted to play it out from the back whilst being pressed high up the pitch.
We aren't technically good enough to beat teams like England on their own terms. Even most eastern European 'minnows' are technically far more proficient than us, with a head start on us of decades at playing that kind of football.
We look toothless, defensively shaky, and even a lot of the old grit and fighting spirit that even at our worst you used to be able to take for granted, seems to have been knocked out of us.
I fear a long period in the wilderness awaits us.
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