Totally agreed! I actually think Travers is better as a keeper, while Bazunu may have better footie skills, but the almost penalty rush nonense. Travers will come better and strongerOriginally Posted by seanfhear
Yeah. I would have tried another keepers I think he overexposed them. would have tried Doyle, McDermott and Danny Rogers and Lawlor (who was a Man city keeper ) tbh, these 3 are the future with Kelleher we are covered there
I make it 9 of the starting 11 from this match who have not started for their club since (maybe i have missed one?). 6 of the 11 Championship or lower, so really should be. 3 of the 6 subs not getting starts either, one (Parrot) bombed out of squad down to u23s. They probably over performed getting a draw against Qatar.
Not sure that's entirely accurate -
Bazunu started the first game after Qatar (but hasn't played since).
Coleman started Everton's last two having recovered from injury.
Duffy hasn't started since
Christie is a regular starter
O'Shea has started WBA's last two games
McClean hasn't started since (O'Neill was annoyed with him playing this game as I recall because of a niggle he had)
Horgan hasn't started since
Brady of course was injured in this game and hasn't started since
Hendrick hasn't started since
Molumby hasn't started since
Long hasn't started since
So "only" 7 of the 11 haven't started a game since. Still, that's a seriously worrying stat.
Yeah missed Christie and that Bazunu started after the Qatar game before being dropped. In general our squad is in a v poor place at the moment, hopefully next season they will fare better, or it is v difficult to see how Kenny improves results.
Just having a quick glance at how the Luxemburg squad has gone since our game with them. I can see players who have started in the Portuguese, German, Swiss and Ukrainian top divisions. They have players who have scored since in the Swiss and German top division. We have lads who are getting bombed out of championship and league 1 teams. Yet a lot of people expected us to turn up and beat them comfortably. Ukrainian top division may not be as competitive as ,say, the championship, but i would hazard a guess it would prepare a player for international football much better.
Union SG
New York City
FC Lviv
Young Boys
Waasland-Beveren, on loan from Norwich City
Dynamo Kyiv
Nacional
Vorskla Poltava
Mainz
Standard Liège
Casa Pia A.C
v
Rochdale, on loan from Man City
Everton
West Brom
Newcastle
Spurs
Sheff Utd
Anderlecht
Derby
Preston
West Brom
Luton
Were you saying that Cyprus had players scoring for Olympiacos and the like when they beat us 5-2?
Michael Constantinou, and Okkas were both in Olympiakos CL squad at that time. Constantinou in particular was on a serious run of form those couple of years
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
Yes and I don't remember that being used as an excuse for Staunton. If it was it would have been laughed at. Talking up Luxembourg shows how bad things have become under Kenny.
Talking up Luxembourg I think puts in perspective how bad the squad has become in general.
Maybe Kenny could be getting more out of them, but it's a ****-poor squad in fairness. No Dunne/Given/Duff/Keane that Staunton had.
It's virtually the same squad McCarthy had. Clearly not the most talented squad but it wasn't the squad people were blaming when we drew away to Georgia or when we failed to qualify. Why is the current manager getting a free pass with a horrendous record since he took over?
I don't think he is getting a free pass. There's a thread on here as to whether he should be sacked for example.
I know what you're saying about having the same squad aa Mick, but those players are 18 months older now, and it was an old enough squad as it was.
He's having to bring through a lot of players who aren't ready yet. But our problems go way beyond the manager right now, and I don't see a feasible option that'll change things significantly tbh
He's getting a far easier ride than any recent managers, that's for sure. Despite doing a far worse job than any of them. Actually, statistically, he's the worst manager we've ever had. Now, I agree that there are huge issues elsewhere but having an inept senior manager does not help things. We're flying down the World rankings, slipping down the seedings can take a long time to recover from. We have some decent players coming through, potential only at the moment but being introduced to our senior team under a manager who's out of his depth is not going to help with their development. He still has a chance to turn it around but how bad does it have to get before we have to put an end to it? He could be doing serious damage that will have negative effects for a long time.
Maybe someone can put together the list of clubs that the Gibraltar players play for to compare them to the Luxemburg team. Im not sure they even had any full time pros. McCarthy was poxed to beat them so lets not pretend that he was far better with the same squad
As for away to Georgia, do you think Randolph made the decision to time waste on a goal kick 20 minutes into that game?
Last edited by Razors left peg; 14/04/2021 at 9:33 PM.
I'm not defending McCarthy, he oversaw some awful performances. He was heavily criticised and I believe rightfully so but compare his record with Kenny's and it's undeniable that he did far better with the same squad. He had 10 games in charge, won 5, drew 4 and only lost 1. He came very close to qualifying us for the Euros. Kenny hasn't won a game, got knocked out of the Euro play offs, came 3rd in a weak Nations league group and has us joint bottom with Azerbaijan and out of World Cup qualifying after 2 games.
You seem to think McCarthy did a poor job? If so, how would you describe Kenny's reign so far?
Yep I think McCarthy was terrible. Every game we went out it looked like we had never been coached.
As for Kenny I think the results have be a disaster, I gave him a pass for some of the earlier games because of the Covid stuff and all the ins and outs that were happening in the squad. The Luxemburg result cant be defended at all. What I will say is that we are creating far more chances under Kenny than we were under McCarthy. It actually looks like we are working towards something, if we could get a few players actually convert some of the chances we are creating the results would be far better. Under McCarthy and last few years of O'Neill the only time we ever looked like creating a chance was from a set piece.
That being said, if Kenny doesnt pick up a few wins soon he will have to go, I just dont have any idea who Id replace him with.
We are playing more football and creating more chances, but we don't have the personnel to fully execute the plan.
I hope I'm wrong
Folding my way into the big money!!!
If McCarthy was terrible and Kenny has performed far worse than him.............
I don't see where you're getting that we're creating far more chances under Kenny? We basically scored our only chances v Serbia and still lost. Apart from a set piece goal from Duffy, was it another 7 games until we scored under Kenny? Don't forget, we have mostly played very average teams. We played England in a friendly and it was embarrassing. The way things are going, the only thing it looks like we're working towards is being demoted to League D in the nations league and trying to qualify that way.
It's been an utter shambles thus far. Some of the stuff under McCarthy, O'Neill and Trapatoni was hard to watch but I'd take that any day of the week ahead of the dross that's been served to us for the past year.
Was it Trapattoni who pointed out that a third of all international goals came from set pieces?
In the eleven games Kenny has been in charge for, we've scored four goals
In the eleven previous games to him taking over, we scored thirteen goals, so while we weren't scoring many, we were putting the goal in the back of the net. McCarthy didn't play good football, and I'm not for one minute arguing he did, but he was pragmatic enough to get a goal by any means necessary. Kenny hasn't shown yet that he can change his team, either the formation or the tactics, when it isn't working. In all but one game where we conceded in his tenure so far, we lost.
Pragmatism was giving us about 30% possession in most games. There was no future in conceding the ball for most of the game, putting 11 behind the ball and hoping to nick a lucky goal. That was where we were with McCarthy and later part of O'Neills tenure. Did we have something like 20% possession away to Wales when we won with the McClean goal? Possession is not everything but it at least gives us some sort of gameplan and a base to start from.
Kenny is trying to chance the entire culture of how we play, the problem is that he's probably trying to do too much too quickly with a brutal bunch of players. He does probably need to be a bit more pragmatic but again I go back to the likes of thr Slovakia game where we were very good and had more than enough chances to win the game comfortably if the players didn't make a balls of it, especially Hourihane at the end of the game. If we had won that game and had qualified there would be a very different opinion of Kenny by a lot of people.
I'm still in the camp of thinking he's right for the job but I absolutely admit he needs to see a bit of luck change and get some wins.
Under Kenny, we've managed to win the possession duel against some of the average teams we've played against but as was pointed out in the post before yours, we've only scored 4 goals under his tenure. That tells you that the game plan has been ineffective. You can use luck as an excuse only a limited number of times, luck shouldn't come into it a year later after 11 games in charge and losing to teams like Luxembourg. Let's not forget, Kenny had virtually a full selection to pick from against a weak Slovakia team who were missing players, luck was on his side there but he failed to take advantage.
I think the biggest problem is that previous managers can now claim vindication in their theory that we don't have players capable of playing a passing and possession style. And they may be right but I don't think a more progressive style has been given a fair go because we have a manager in place who's completely out of his depth at this level. This most likely will lead us to hiring a manager with similar philosophies to previous regimes. It'll be back to long ball and keeping things tight. The aim of changing the culture of how we play is being seriously damaged by Kenny, not the other way around.
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