Republic of Ireland V Luxembourg - Saturday, 27th March 2021 - World Cup Qualifier

[tetsujin1979]

Luxembourg followed up that draw with France by losing 8-0 to Sweden in their very next game. Yes, they have improved, but they still concede goals - two clean sheets in their previous twenty games - and we never looked like scoring against them.
I mentioned Kenny's reluctance to use substitutes in an episode of the podcast, the majority under his reign have come after the 80th minute, and again last night when we hadn't scored and didn't look like scoring, Parrott and Molumby didn't come on until the 88th minute.

[seanfhear]

Luxembourg followed up that draw with France by losing 8-0 to Sweden in their very next game. Yes, they have improved, but they still concede goals - two clean sheets in their previous twenty games - and we never looked like scoring against them.
I mentioned Kenny's reluctance to use substitutes in an episode of the podcast, the majority under his reign have come after the 80th minute, and again last night when we hadn't scored and didn't look like scoring, Parrott and Molumby didn't come on until the 88th minute.

Collins was unlucky not to score . Browne should have scored with what was a great chance.

Should Long have crossed that ball very late in the game. The TV did not replay that Long “ effort “ ( which was probably lucky for Long ). On one view it looked awful play from Long. Long and McClean did not produce much. Its a pity that McClean cannot cross a ball ~ he is hardly going to start now ?

Do some of our players get carried away with themselves after reaching a certain level ? I can never understand how Aiden McGeady never got better at crossing the ball or protecting possession. Really, How can a full time professional not improve these sort of weakness’s in their game. I am just using McGeady as an example. Do some of our players just think they have made it and not improve. I would say that Roy Keane’s Passing improved a lot after he went to Man Utd. The truly good / great players keep trying to improve all the time. Is there something in the Irish psyche ( generally, not everyone ) that just does not commit to further improvement ?

[JimEire123]

Serbia lose or drop points away to Azerbaijan, Portugal and we beat them then we’re still in this by a long way.

[Stuttgart88]

I'm not sure Collins could have done much more with that chance. He anticipated the cross and got a good contact. The keeper got a bit lucky as the ball just hit him as he was trying to recover his position. To score Colins would have needed to glance the ball towards the far post which is hard when you're diving in the way he did.

That late Long chance: had he squared it across the 6 yard box for Collins I'm pretty sure Collins was offside.

[seanfhear]

I'm not sure Collins could have done much more with that chance. He anticipated the cross and got a good contact. The keeper got a bit lucky as the ball just hit him as he was trying to recover his position. To score Colins would have needed to glance the ball towards the far post which is hard when you're diving in the way he did.

That late Long chance: had he squared it across the 6 yard box for Collins I'm pretty sure Collins was offside.

A lucky save by the goalkeeper but one that goalkeepers get credit for. I suppose goalkeepers get blamed for a lot so they are going to claim lucky saves as brilliance = they might as well.

Cheers for clearing that up about Long !

[Bungle]

Glad to see names from the past being mentioned by someone earlier - Lawrenson, Beglin, Whelan. Because we really need to go back in history to try to solve the current problems. Hopefully, a few on here can remember back to the Johnny Giles era. I remember standing on the terraces at Lansdowne and cursing Giles. My angst was due to Giles's penchant for playing possession football or trying to at least. We were slow and deliberate and other continental sides were years ahead of us in their development. Giles knew what he wanted to do, but could not implement his plan and no manager since has tried to get an Irish team to play proper football. That is until Stephen Kenny, 45 years later. Looks like Kenny will fail just like Giles. In my opinion, the reason neither man can implement possession football in their teams is that our players have never been taught technique and close control in crowded areas of the pitch, because there was no Irish coach ever taught that himself and consequently he could not teach that to his players. And the 64K question is, what Irish coach today is versed in those methods? Answer there isn't anybody. I have offered a solution on here for many years, and that is for the FAI to employ several developmental coaches for our kids, from areas that have historically played proper constructive football (South America for example). Stephen Kenny may not be long more in the job, but ultimately he is a lot smarter than most fans who keep calling for a change of manager and totally ignore the problems which beset Irish football.

Not sure if you're being a smartarse towards me, but chill out mate.

I mentioned those three players in the context of it being said that it's harder for Irish players to break through now than then. In my opinion, that isn't the case. Bob Paisley and the boot room knew great players, no more than Pep or Jurgen Klopp today would.

We aren't producing players of that quality anymore, but if we had a conveyor belt of Jason Knight quality coming through every year, I would be very happy. That would eventually make us a good side.

We need to look at similar nations and see what they are doing and how we can having something more sustainable than hoping for a decent crop once every decade or hoping that Troy Parrott, Evan Ferguson or Zefi can be top class to keep us competitive. The Shamrock Rovers and Bohs academy looks sustainable, in that the quality of players is very good coming through from what I've seen. That should positively impact the league and ultimately the national team.

[Trequartista20]

Luxembourg followed up that draw with France by losing 8-0 to Sweden in their very next game. Yes, they have improved, but they still concede goals - two clean sheets in their previous twenty games - and we never looked like scoring against them.
I mentioned Kenny's reluctance to use substitutes in an episode of the podcast, the majority under his reign have come after the 80th minute, and again last night when we hadn't scored and didn't look like scoring, Parrott and Molumby didn't come on until the 88th minute.

Wasn't Luxembourg's win last night their first competitive away victory for 13 years? They're only just in top 100 nations in FIFA's rankings.

They also had more shots on target than us.

The more one thinks about at this the worse it looks.

[ifk101]

I mentioned Kenny's reluctance to use substitutes in an episode of the podcast, the majority under his reign have come after the 80th minute, and again last night when we hadn't scored and didn't look like scoring, Parrott and Molumby didn't come on until the 88th minute.

Didn't take long to check this and minority is the word you are looking for. Kenny has made 44 substitutions, of which 33 were before the 80th minute and 11 after the 80th. 25% of substitutions are after the 80th minute.

[shakermaker1982]

I’m still in shock at how bad we were last night.

I think that result hurts me more than the 5-2 versus Cyprus. We still had some good players back in 2006 and there was always a hope that bringing in a better manager could fix things.

Now?

I fear we are going to be in the wilderness for a long time.

The senior players have regressed, the youngsters aren’t really making any waves at club level and we are left with a coaching team that seem to be completely out of their depth at this level. The FAI doesn’t have a pot to pi$$ in so we are probably stuck with them until 2024.

[mark12345]

7 and ½ years ago Norn Iron lost 3 2 to Luxembourg. 2 years later they qualified for the Euros. Did he go 18 games without a win or something after he took over?

My immediate thoughts on waking up this morning is I don't see that changing the manager will help this time. I think this result has been coming for a while. McCarthy got out of jail away to Gibraltar in a terrible performance against a much worse team. Not to excuse it, but this is a Luxembourg team that drew with France in Paris and have players playing at decent clubs around Europe. They are not the butcher, baker and candlestick maker players that they used to be.

That being said I can't get over the substitutions last night. This is where Kenny lost me. But it also shows that we absolutely 100% have to move on from the more "experienced" players. McClean, Brady and Long were all disgraceful when they came on, as was Hendrick against Serbia. We need to cut bait with these players now. This means we are going to have to go with players who are not ready and some who might never be. Wales did this with players pulled from youth and reserve teams in the hope that the international experience will help them at club level. We have a bumpy road ahead but we have no choice now. These so called experienced players have failed under multiple managers.

I

Absolutely correct Razor. This result has indeed been coming for a long time (how many times have we been played off the park by so called inferior nations under Mick, MON and Trap). And changing the manager will absolutely not help because it hasn't helped all those times we've tried it. The barometer for me are two nations of similar ranking - Finland and Iceland. Both came to the Aviva in recent times and played us off the park. How did they improve so much while we regressed? That's the question we need to be asking ourslves. What did they do that we didn't.

[Trequartista20]

7 and ½ years ago Norn Iron lost 3 2 to Luxembourg. 2 years later they qualified for the Euros. Did he go 18 games without a win or something after he took over?

My immediate thoughts on waking up this morning is I don't see that changing the manager will help this time. I think this result has been coming for a while. McCarthy got out of jail away to Gibraltar in a terrible performance against a much worse team. Not to excuse it, but this is a Luxembourg team that drew with France in Paris and have players playing at decent clubs around Europe. They are not the butcher, baker and candlestick maker players that they used to be.

That being said I can't get over the substitutions last night. This is where Kenny lost me. But it also shows that we absolutely 100% have to move on from the more "experienced" players. McClean, Brady and Long were all disgraceful when they came on, as was Hendrick against Serbia. We need to cut bait with these players now. This means we are going to have to go with players who are not ready and some who might never be. Wales did this with players pulled from youth and reserve teams in the hope that the international experience will help them at club level. We have a bumpy road ahead but we have no choice now. These so called experienced players have failed under multiple managers.

I agree with this. There's little to lose now. Realistically, qualification already looks beyond us.

[mark12345]

I’m still in shock at how bad we were last night.

I think that result hurts me more than the 5-2 versus Cyprus. We still had some good players back in 2006 and there was always a hope that bringing in a better manager could fix things.

Now?

I fear we are going to be in the wilderness for a long time.

The senior players have regressed, the youngsters aren’t really making any waves at club level and we are left with a coaching team that seem to be completely out of their depth at this level. The FAI doesn’t have a pot to pi$$ in so we are probably stuck with them until 2024.

A coaching team that are out of their depth? In what way? Stephen Kenny has been successful at most managerial stints he's been involved with and almost made history with the U-21's. Anthony Barry is so well thought of in coaching that Chelsea sees fit to have him train their players. I think you need to turn your attention to the players. Apart from Coleman who has had a great career at Everton and Brady and Long who've enjoyed a modicum of success at their clubs, who on the pitch last night could be tagged as being a success in their playing careers? If you want to say that Kenny does not have the respect of the players, that's another story, but neither he nor Barry are out of their depth with this mediocre bunch of players.

[mark12345]

Not being a smartarse. Just took your cue from players you mentioned in a bygone era to compare Johnny Giles's style and ambitions to what Kenny is doing now.

[mark12345]

I think to go down this route would show we've learnt absolutely nothing from the past 20 years.

We can't rely on other countries to develop our players. Doesn't matter if that country is England or Spain or Luxembourg.

A country our size has to have a proper domestic setup to develop players up to the age of 21/22. Most other countries do. We don't. That's a huge issue.

Rovers in fairness to them are starting to put in a place a proper academy structure and they're starting to reap the benefits of that (as is the national team)

Dundalk, the other big side here at the moment, haven't put anything in place with their Euro millions and are now signing whatever random foreigners they can find. It's their money of course, and unlike most LoI sides they've actually earned it, but it's foundations of sand and will go nowhere in the medium term. Cork have already gone down that route it seems.

Every other country in Europe uses its domestic league to develop players for its national team. We don't. We instead have a 19th-century league structure which encourages big fish in small ponds. The league has no money, the FAI have no money, and the general public have no interest. While that stays, we're going to continue going backwards.

Sending players to Spain instead of England won't change that.

Best post of the lot! You are so right - we cannot expect other countries to develop our talent. We need to do it ourselves. That's the starting point and always has been. Our domestic clubs should have been doing this decades ago but, as you say, we have a 19th century system in place. Think Croatia (population 4 million) Denmark (5 million). It can be done by smaller nations if the coaching system is right.

[boovidge]

Best post of the lot! You are so right - we cannot expect other countries to develop our talent. We need to do it ourselves. That's the starting point and always has been. Our domestic clubs should have been doing this decades ago but, as you say, we have a 19th century system in place. Think Croatia (population 4 million) Denmark (5 million). It can be done by smaller nations if the coaching system is right.

These countries benefit from having relatively well supported domestic leagues with regular qualification to UEFA competitions. It's been said a million times but if Irish people don't watch Irish football we're always going to be dependent on the UK to bring our players through

[shakermaker1982]

A coaching team that are out of their depth? In what way? Stephen Kenny has been successful at most managerial stints he's been involved with and almost made history with the U-21's. Anthony Barry is so well thought of in coaching that Chelsea sees fit to have him train their players. I think you need to turn your attention to the players. Apart from Coleman who has had a great career at Everton and Brady and Long who've enjoyed a modicum of success at their clubs, who on the pitch last night could be tagged as being a success in their playing careers? If you want to say that Kenny does not have the respect of the players, that's another story, but neither he nor Barry are out of their depth with this mediocre bunch of players.

MON and Trap used to blame the quality of the players at their disposal. The likes of Andrews were quick to judge those statements & stick the boot in. I remember him going on a rant after one of our games 2 or 3 years ago- the players didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know their roles etc etc. Well we looked clueless last night.

Good luck to Barry, Lampard brought him into their set up last summer. Tuchel might have other ideas once the season ends. I hope he is a good coach and he improves us. He’s not been long since with the Irish set up so too early to judge but Andrews is the assistant manager & in post from very early on. Based on what has been served up so far do they look like they belong at this level?

[pineapple stu]

These countries benefit from having relatively well supported domestic leagues with regular qualification to UEFA competitions. It's been said a million times but if Irish people don't watch Irish football we're always going to be dependent on the UK to bring our players through

Crowds in Croatia are very similar to here.

What they do benefit from is significant transfer fee income caused by (a) good coaching and (b) not selling players at 16

Both those factors help drive extra European income of course

[Stuttgart88]

Denmark’s domestic TV deal is huge. I don’t know how they afford it. There isn’t GAA to compete with for players, resources etc and pro rugby also for crowds and tv money. And Denmark also plays handball which in my opinion is great for teaching the spatial awareness needed for football. Not to mention an economic model that values public sector and sport.

[Bungle]

Not being a smartarse. Just took your cue from players you mentioned in a bygone era to compare Johnny Giles's style and ambitions to what Kenny is doing now.

Fair enough Mark.

I think the Irish team is a poisoned chalice of a job. Too many fans remember when we were highly competitive with a team full of top class players. Our expectations are inflated so much, although I do think that even with such a mediocre bunch, we should be able to beat Luxemburg. One and a bit good performances in his reign - Slovakia we were very good and maybe a good 20 minutes or so against Serbia just isn't good enough.

[Insidetherock]

Best post of the lot! You are so right - we cannot expect other countries to develop our talent. We need to do it ourselves. That's the starting point and always has been. Our domestic clubs should have been doing this decades ago but, as you say, we have a 19th century system in place. Think Croatia (population 4 million) Denmark (5 million). It can be done by smaller nations if the coaching system is right.

What coaching?

Let's get real. 90% of schoolboy coaching in Ireland, is done by parents who

a. are looking after their own kids

or

b. begged to do it by clubs because they've no one else to do it.

In many cases, a coach gets 1 hr a week for half the year on an astro pitch, where the first ten minutes is putting down cones for drills, and the last five minutes is picking them up again.

Then you have the mini Jose Mourinhos.. lads who watch the Sky Sport analysis on Monday Night Football.. and try to implement it with a pile of under 10's on Wednesday night.

I was at one club, where a lunatic of a coach brought in an u12 girls team, 10/11 y olds remember, to watch a tactical analysis of Real Madrid v Barca the weekend before.

Then we have the Kennedy Cup regime.. players picked on the basis of what club they play with.. or don't

Coaches from bigger clubs getting involved, so they can scout and cherry pick players from smaller clubs. Smaller clubs not sending players to Kennedy Cup trials because they don't want them cherry picked

I'll stop now, because this is probably for a different thread

But cut out talking about underage coaching in Ireland