That is a bit blinkered, lets be honest. If we won 4-0 away to Gibraltar, we had the right approach.Originally Posted by Jolly Red Giant
It seems that even when his team wins 4-0 against Gibraltar with a completely dominant performance, Stephen Kenny cannot win.
End Apartheid Now! One Team in Ireland!
That is a bit blinkered, lets be honest. If we won 4-0 away to Gibraltar, we had the right approach.
Yeah, it's a team game, not a game of "Give the ball to Ferguson"
It was comfortable - certainly easy better than the home game. That's fine. It doesn't change that he needs to move on after next month, but I'm glad he didn't end up with another shocking result on his CV
We should have won by a lot more - if Kenny had any tactical understanding then Ferguson should have easily had a hat-trick last night.
Now - a 4-0 win even against the 198th ranked team is not to be sneezed at. But given how early we scored, how dominant we were and how poor they were throughout the game (particularly their goalie) - we should have run up a cricket score. But the real issue was - how slow the Irish play was, the lack of crosses when we got down the wings, and the lack of serious attempts on goal. Yes we had 24 attempts - but an awful lot of them were miss-hits, rebounds off knees, ricochets etc. There was few cleanly hit shots and I don't remember a single header where an Irish player actually attacked the ball in the box (unlike the Greek goal on Friday).
It was clear that Ferguson was incredibly frustrated from the very start of the game - even when he scored you could see it on his face. When you have someone of his talent you have to use him to the maximum - instead he was an afterthought in everything that happened on the pitch.
is there any videos of the highlights? I only saw snippets but can't find any full highlights of the game
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The goals were only published on FAITV a short while ago. Normally longer highlights follow in a day or two.
In fairness, unless you completely balls it up against Gibraltar (like we almost did under McCarthy), its hard to read too much into any performance against them. My point was that I still seen signs of the things that cost us against better opponents.
Its really not that complicated!!!
Possibly, but I can’t help feeling that some people’s view is being coloured by the overall performances in the group. That’s probably understandable in a way, but as a one off last night was fine. If we were going ok in the group there wouldn’t have been a peep about last night. It would have been viewed as job done. I don’t think many are hitting cricket scores against Gibraltar. Remember the last time we played them away it was 1-0.
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
One of the support staff didn't make the flight home on time. Forever known in FAI circles as "Left at the Gibraltar"
I wasnt overly happy with the performance either, dont get me wrong. I just think that it doesnt matter who gets the goals, as long as you get them. I had moments last night, too, where i wondered if Kenny knew how to get the most out of Ferguson as he was very quiet but then he's been quiet since his injury too so dont want to put the blame firmly at Kenny's feet.
What bothered me most about the performance yesterday was how there was a lack of urgency or maybe directness in the approach play. In addition to what you identify, there were a lot of sideways and backwards passes when a quicker and more assertive pass was on. It just seemed a bit too lethargic at times. But, we did score 4 so it worked and we won.
On your last point, Duffy, Knight and (I think) Molumby all had very decent headed opportunities that should have been put away and, of course, Doherty and Robinson's goals were headers so...
The way Gibraltar play, with two banks of five when out of opposition, means getting the ball forward is difficult. Johnston is probably the best dribbler in the squad, and was the difference maker in the home game, and player of the match again yesterday.
It was also the first time Gibraltar conceded four goals since March 2021
You wonder too is there an extent that, once you go 2-0 up against a side like Gibraltar early doors, thoughts turn to not returning to your club injured.
I think there's plenty of sticks to beat Kenny with without making a facile 4-0 away win be one.
I was happy enough with it. Lot's of passes slid behind, around and over their stacked lines of defenders, lot's of chances created and we got our most dangerous player, Johnston, into good positions. It's always brutal playing sides like that. We did fine.
I also don't mind that Ferguson wasn't the only outlet. He's been struggling a bit and we shouldn't be relying on any one player. He still scored.
21 leagues and 25 cups.
Kenny tried to move on from Duffy in the early days, in recent times he's bottled it and brought him back. Invariably Duffy is primary receiver of ball from Keeper as we try to play out. He's not good at that and it causes immediate problems.
It's not the sole reason of course but it's one symptom of what's obvious and not being corrected and was on full display against Gibraltar
Its really not that complicated!!!
I think it just demonstrated that Gibraltar really is the no win fixture its spoken of as being. We weren't note perfect but we were an awful lot better than other recent games against them under other managers. That about fair ?
Also in the post match, he should have just taken the win, spoken about the win but he decided to go on about how we are disadvantaged by having so many players in the Championship and two games a week causes hamstring injuries. He then listed our hamstring injured players in his time & how when playing other countries with players in better leagues they only have one a week. This just seemed to occur to him & he hadn't factored in European competitions, which of course the French & Dutch lads to a majority all play in, and even several Greeks. So there's your two games a week. The studio immediately pointed this out & to be fair it was obvious.
Just take the win, talk about the win, and for God's sake don't do an improvised ramble full of holes off the top of your head man.
Stephen Kenny Saviour, Leader, Winner, An Autobiography - In All Good Bookstores Now
I'm not sure it's true to say that Kenny ever "tried to move on from Duffy". I'd be confident in saying that Duffy, along with Matt Doherty, has probably played most games of the Kenny era (maybe tets can confirm) and there is a reason for it - they are among our best players. Duffy played most games in the early days as first captain in the absence of Coleman (scoring crucial goals too) and only really dropped out of the team when he wasn't playing last season at Fulham, which was entirely reasonable, but he has been straight back in since he got regular club football again. He performed well during this window, too, with the only mark against him being that he probably should have scored. Kenny is not afraid to hook or drop any player, as evidenced by how he dropped team captain Coleman in the early days and hooked star multi-million pound youngster Collins against Greece. He wouldn't be playing Duffy if he didn't think he was good enough, simple as.
As I see it, Ireland's problems aren't with playing out, because the defence, no matter who plays, is clearly capable of getting the ball into midfield and attack. The issue is when it is there, we struggle to make clear chances against better teams and when we do get them, we don't take them. That's the long and short of the Kenny era I think: missed opportunities rued. I would also suggest that that we are very vulnerable to counter-attacks nowadays precisely because we commit more bodies forward to help fashion those extra chances, whereas in the O'Neill and McCarthy eras we were a bit more cautious - and thus more defensively solid.
End Apartheid Now! One Team in Ireland!
I thought Duffy was a wasteful on occasion with the ball against Gibraltar. He did launch it long and aimlessly a couple of times. But …
… to add to this
We got the approach right against Gibraltar (i.e. looking to work the ball in behind their defence). However, against stronger opposition as we have seen, the main issue we have - the “disconnect”, becomes visible."And then when you look at us when we're in possession of the ball, I think we're poorly set up if you ask me and you could maybe lean on saying that at times we may be poorly coached.
"Particularly when our two centre-halves have the ball, everything in front of them is so static."
Corry explained that a vantage point high in the stands within the Aviva highlighted the disconnect between the Irish lines on the pitch as the team struggled to go from back to front in a more fluid way.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2023...ds-disconnect/
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