If we lose tonight. Does anyone think kenny should still get the euro campaign.?
I've noticed with some of my own mates who have been militant kenny supporters that they have now moved position..
No matter what the result, he should be gone. There's no point wasting another campaign with him in charge. We have some good players coming through, nothing exceptional yet but better than what we've had for a good while now. We need them to develop, bringing them into a losing culture with a manager way out of his depth is damaging to their progress and obviously Ireland's progress looking ahead.
And there are managers out there who we can afford that are far more capable than Kenny.
I agree with you
but I'm wondering would a defeat tonight be a straw that breaks the camels back for his own supporters
It has to be. It would be an awful result.
Our squad is poor; we know that. Players coming through have stalled, we've no midfield and even at the back, where we had been solid, we've now conceded twice in each of the last three games.
But the Malta squad is mostly domestic-based, and Shamrock Rovers easily beat the Maltese champions in the CL this year, who provide five players to this squad. They don't have anyone exceptional in their foreign-based players who might lift them way up (like Haaland for Norway). This is a must-win.
He's spoken of how there won't be huge changes to the lineup and that's fair I think - if you make ten changes you may as well be putting out a B team, not bringing players into the senior team. I'd give Kelleher or Travers a game, though Kenny doesn't like rotating keepers I think. From the bench on Thursday, Lenihan, Smallbone and Sykes are the obvious ones who might be worth a start. Maybe Coleman for Doherty too, which isn't really experimentation but is still spreading game time around in a friendly window. Plus Doherty wasn't great against Norway
The issue for me is that Kenny has developed this tendency of getting results at the end of windows that put a gloss over his whole tenure. The last game of the last few windows were Qatar at home (4-0), Luxembourg away (3-0), Lithuania at home (1-0), Ukraine away (1-1), then Armenia at home (3-2, admittedly this was as close to losing that a win can be). Now it's set-up again: lousy result early in the window, but if he does what the team should be capable of doing and walk away with a 2-0 over Malta it'll be all roses again for another few months from his supporters and a fawning media.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
I don't think that will be the case this time, unless it's maybe a really good performance and a 3 goal+ win.
Especially if reports of the starting team are to be believed.
Do tell...?
start kelleher , ogbene and smallbone. i dont know where he sees sykes best position but if it was in midfield id chance him there. ogbene at rwb would be decent in this game imo. we need someone with a bit of attacking nous out there who likes to dribble at players. we'll have lots of the ball so i think it would work.
Minimal changes with Kelleher, Coleman and Hendrick to come in to an otherwise similar team to the Norway game.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Hm. Yeah, that does seem a complete waste, doesn't it?
With all due respect to Malta, while someone like Smallbone is only starting off on his career and I don't think he's a ready-made option for us yet, he's still at a higher level than the Maltese top flight and I don't why you wouldn't throw in even one interesting option like that. It's what these games are for.
we learn nothing from these pointless games by starting with hendrick. we need to see what smallbone can actually do
It’s gotten to the stage now that Kennys reputation comes before the team. He can’t afford a bad result, so the future of the team suffers.
I honestly don't think we will win
I know that's hard to believe but that's my view that we draw or lose.
He’s in ~ ~ One game at a time territory again ~ ~ Which doesn’t do much for the future of the team !
To me it feels like, once you get to the point where a win in a friendly against Malta is a necessity to hang on to the job, it's probably time for a change of manager anyway.
Especially when so many of the fans are really worried that ~ ~ Kenny’s team may well ~ Not win.
I don’t think there would be any way around a defeat to Malta. Another conservative, waste of time team selection would possibly annoy me more. I am a Kenny loyalist always will be, love him to bits, best Irish manager in history of course we all know this but the same selection as the other night + Hendrick would fustrate me into accepting defeat.
Of course, statistically, he's actually the worst Irish manager in half a century, since Mick Meagan in the late 60s/early 70s who literally didn't win a single game.
Facts and reality mean nothing to me.
Anyway the above speculation re the changes is wrong. There will be more changes than that and McClean is starting for one.
Yes a little bit of short term memory paralysis going on but thats been going on a long while now, it just moved from "greenshoots" right the way through to "lets see in the next set of games". Its an eternal kick the can down the road. Judge on the now which we should have been doing from about 15 games ago really. If you leave the washing out long enough it will eventually dry. But then it will get wet again.
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