https://anditscomethroughhere.blogsp...ospective.html
Here's a long read about the Kerr era for anyone who's interested!
Good read SF, would slightly disagree about Morrison's performance against Israel at home in the 2-2 game, he did have a goal ruled out for offside
Good read. thanks for that. I agree with nearly all of it.
Whether some players did or didn't buy into Kerr doesn't excuse some of the negative tactics Kerr used.
We really were awful to watch under him, except for in friendlies for some reason.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
I was pretty young under the Kerr era, so I wouldn't trust my memories on it too much but I always felt the inability to get performances out of Duffer was the reason Kerr failed. I remember him giving him a free role for a bunch of games where he was just lost....
Retrospectively, you'd wonder what a young Wesley Hoolahan could have done in that side but certainly couldn't criticise Kerr for that, I doubt there were many calling for his inclusion until probably Trap's reign...
Oh yeah, I couldn't legitimately criticise Kerr for leaving him out.
But then, you look at how Stephen Kenny called up Jack Taylor for the U21s while he's playing non-league football - he's done well, and now he's being linked with much bigger clubs. That's an example of Kenny having imagination and an eye for a footballer, regardless of the league he's playing in. That's what you want from your international manager.
If Kenny can bring that to the senior game: do what Kerr failed to do, and dig up good players from unfashionable clubs who can bring us something we lack, then great!
For example, I think Connor Ronan could immediately add more for us as an advanced midfielder than the likes of Hendrick and Hourihane, despite playing in League One - but it would be a risk, and Kenny would have to show considerable bravery to pick him.
I don't know if it was, to be fair. King called up a few like Horgan, McNamee and Forrester - Horgan is now a senior international and Forrester was in the wider squad. Fairly sure Coleman played under-21 when he was at Sligo and he's now senior captain, so it's not like there was a lot of tokenism going on.
Last edited by Charlie Darwin; 10/05/2020 at 1:51 AM.
It's a good read but I think it fully falls into the hindsight enhanced, glass half empty catagory, where the author just takes the most negative interpretation with some balance inserted as an addendum.
i read another article recently (somewhere) which took a more positive review about Kerr's 2006 campaign, formation vagaries notwithstanding, the article added more balance
I'd go for a mix of the two articles.
This the one?
https://www.the42.ie/brian-kerr-roy-...95766-May2020/
It makes out that Kerr was simply 'unlucky' which I don't buy. Charlton's team were fortunate in the '88 qualifiers with the Gary Mackay goal, but they'd made their own luck by beating Bulgaria and Scotland, and drawing away to Belgium. O'Neill's team got lucky when Scotland slipped up in Georgia, but they still had to capitalise by beating Germany and Bosnia. We didn't make our own luck under Kerr - he made the same mistake every Irish manager seems to make when things are going badly; keeping faith with limited players on the basis of 'experience' and expecting things to somehow change and improve.
My gripe is that when Kerr took over, Ireland had finished in the top two of every qualifying group since 1986 - eight campaigns. Under Kerr, we finished 3rd and 4th, despite inheriting a team that had out-passed Germany and Spain at a World Cup, and a youth set-up that was consistently in Europe's elite. Trapattoni and O'Neill inherited far more limited squads, and a failing youth setup, and we still reached four playoffs in the five campaigns they presided over. Under Trap, we got ruthlessly consistent results against the lower-seeded 'banana-skin' teams. Under O'Neill, we pulled off some excellent wins against stronger teams. Kerr was able to do neither.
We all expected that Kerr, with his reputation for being knowledgeable, ambitious and professional, was the man to take Ireland to the next level. The period of '03 to '05 was a failure, and I find it difficult to sugar-coat it, despite the fact that Kerr is a likeable man and has served Irish football very well over the years.
Kerr had a stronger squad available to him than any of the following managers - Duff, Given, and Robbie Keane at their peak, Richard Dunne couldn't break into the partnership of Cunningham and O'Brien, Morrison was one of Robbie Keane's best strike partners, but he still had a naturally defensive mindset.
The team never scored more than three goals in a game, and only managed that twice, never beat anyone ranked higher than 80th in a qualifier, and taking off Morrison and Keane in the last game against Switzerland to bring on Doherty and Connolly, when Switerland were playing for a 0-0 draw, was unforgiveable
was at the basle 03 match. we didn't land a single punch on switzerland all game in a match we had to win. after the match Kerr walked down to our end, stood in front of us and shrugged his shoulders as if to say "what more could i do". that campaign was a real waste of the team that came out of the 02 WC with a great reputation. we were entitled to expect far far more from that period with the players we had...
From that article you took one cherrypick and you missed. That was Kerr who was quoted “To this day, I still don’t think we had any luck. It’s still very frustrating.”
Eg, the Benayoun penalty was a total farce, the greek ref was a joke, that 2nd half was another farce. No Roy Keane due to a bogus yellow card picked up in Israel.
Nothing much would have had to change in our favour over that group campaign for us to finish 1st or 2nd. In the end we faced a totally rejuvinated France at home and overall the Swiss were a better team than us, they went on to do well in the play offs and both teams proved themselves very capable at WC 2006.
Of course Kerr made mistakes, I'm just not blinkered, with a total 100% fixation on those mistakes being the determining factors in not finishing in the top two, they are part of the equation.
We may have to agree to disagree here! Any manager, anywhere, will have to carry the can when questionable selections and tactical changes are proved to have weakened the side, or led to failure to achieve its potential. We're always going to have dodgy referees, suspensions and injuries in the odd game, same as any other team.
If we're looking back at Stephen Kenny's tenure in years to come, and lamenting that he kept picking mediocre, washed-up players, picking players out of position, making negative substitutions which resulted in throwing away leads; and had the players looking cowed, demotivated and standoffish in big games, we'll be rightly p*ssed off about it.
Been thinking about this quote from Kerr. I'd never seen Shay Given save a penalty before the away game against Cyprus in October 2005*. Benayoun completely miscued a shot in the box in the 2-2 game. Were those good luck or bad luck? Maybe we didn't have any luck, but say the ref doesn't send Andy O'Brien off against Israel, and we win 2-1 - we'd still finish third in that group. Or if Henry doesn't score a wonder goal and that qualifier finished 0-0, we'd still finish third on goal difference! It wasn't bad luck that dropped points after going ahead in two other games in those qualifiers, and it wasn't bad luck that took off Andy Reid, Robbie Keane and Clinton Morrison in a game we needed to score!
My opinion on luck is that it decides individual instances in games - keeper spills an easy catch, star striker misses an open goal, etc - but over the course of a league, or qualification campaign, you finish where you deserve. We scored 12 goals in the qualifiers - less than France(14), Switzerland(18), and Israel(15), that wasn't because of good or bad luck.
Kerr was given the biggest welcome I've ever seen when he was announced as manager - either at club or international level - and, as I've said above, had a far better squad to work with than any of the managers that followed him, and he underachieved massively with it.
* I'm not saying he'd never saved a penalty before, just that I didn't remember seeing him saving one for Ireland
I always thought this fellows is really great. I love how he explains the football so streetwise yet so like a teacher. I watched what he said on the Portugal match and I agree. Kenny is gonna be at a crossroad today. He needs to deliver results
I agree with Kerr on that. Idah is better on the sides so dar. Center 9 we need someone there in the meantime
I think Kerr's been trading on his success with the underage sides for more than a decade. He was a massive disappointment with probably the most talented collection of players we've had at senior international level since Italia 90, and is coming up on ten years since his last job as a manager.
He said Idah was poor in possession, despite him having a 100% pass ratio
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