The Steve Staunton Discussion thread

[shakermaker1982]

As said above I'm not going to stop buying tickets.

Same here, plus I'd to lose out on flights/hotel bills. Home games now cost me more than away games because of the bloody prices of Dublin hotels!!!!

[youngirish]

I also think Staunton deserves better - he's doing his best - but Delaney doesn't.

I'm tired of Staunton Stutts to be honest. He's not doing his best. The job is beyond him and he is too stubborn to admit this glaringly obvious fact so he is hanging on and continuing to drag our team further into the hole we now lie. If he wanted to do his best for his country and its team he should admit his reign was an abject failure and resign as an infinitely more successful Kevin Keegan did with England instead of continuing to claim his undeserved salary at your expense.

On the subject of buying tickets if you continue to pay for a sh*t product then that product will never improve. That's business for you and that's what the FAI are, just a laughably badly run business with a monopoly on soccer in this country, ony interested in protecting itself and its directors.

[Thomo]

you'll have to excuse me if someone has already mentioned this, and i'm not saying its an effective portest, just an idea, potentially flawed, but direct. evryone write one letter. print 5 copies, each letter explaining the reasoning behind the dissapointment, and anger and send them to the 3 biggest newspapers in the land, one to eircom, and one to the fai themselves. now a couple of hundred letters per newspaper is certain to rile the media, and the sponsors, perhaps combined with, if do-able a several thousand strong petition for stans resignation. Ive always thought the key to a decent protest is to hit as many bases at once. just an idea, perhaps when combined with those mentioned above.

[John83]

would we be allowed to bring placards/signs into Croke Park? Or would security object to "Delaney and Stan MUST GO NOW!!!" signs?

There was a red card protest before. Security was confiscating them at the turnstiles - bag searches and everything.

I'd be amazed if the black shirt idea took off - if would need major support from the tabloids to be truly effective.

That's true of most ideas - the march idea is about the only thing we could pull off on our own, but the foot.ie team wasn't able to get ten people for a kick around a few weeks ago. We'll hardly get a few thousand for a protest.

[Metrostars]

I don't see what the problem is with Stan. It is all part of the master plan. After all, John Delaney just told us that we will mirror France's achievement of not qualifying for the World Cup in 1994 and then winning the next one. So if we go by his statements of "mirroring France", having failed for 2006, we will not only qualify but actually win the 2010 World Cup.

[Stuttgart88]

After all, John Delaney just told us that we will mirror France's achievement of not qualifying for the World Cup in 1994 and then winning the next one. So if we go by his statements of "mirroring France", having failed for 2006, we will not only qualify but actually win the 2010 World Cup.

"mirroring" France. So we'll be hosting the next World Cup and won't even have to qualify? In 2010 we'll be lucky to have one ground in the whole country fit to stage a full competitive international.

And failure to qualify in 94 was from a spectacular implosion with 2 games to go (Israel at home and Bulgaria last minute goal I think). I'd take a spectacular implosion right now as at least it'd involve being in contention until the end.

[carloz]

Also a point to make. i know we were4th seeds and probably didnt have much leeway in our fixture selection but agreeing to play Germany and Cyprus away in the first two games was stupid particularly under a new manager. We needed points on the board staright away. i know there was the issue with lansdown road/Croker but playing two away games early in the campaign has worked once for us under mcCarthy. I really wish we would give up on the idea.

[NeilMcD]

Good article in my view. A few errors, Mc Carthy did not play long ball etc.

Good points in particular are the comparison to Scotland and Poland.

Little enough is being learned on the job

Nothing about Stephen Staunton's time at the helm is comparable to the reigns of his immediate predecessors, argues Tom Humphries .

Come to our bracing desert,
Where eternity is eventful
For the weather-glass
Is set at Alas
The thermometer at Resentful
- WH Auden, For The Time Being

Alas. Alas. Alas. We have three games left in this European qualifying campaign and nothing left to look forward to but Stephen Staunton's seething resentments of all and any criticism which comes his way. Nothing left but the uncomfortable and unfamiliar spectacle of an Irish team playing out fixtures for the right to finish third, fourth or even fifth in a group.

That's what happens when you appoint an international manager on the basis of impressions rather than credentials. Nobody, even those among the besuited posse who led us to think that they were engaged in the search for a world-class manager, ever believed that an assistant at Walsall ever fitted the bill.

There was an impression out there, though, that Stephen Staunton, who was a heroic player and a nice enough fella in the years when he played, might somehow grow into a job he was clearly too small a fit for.

He hasn't. The appointment smelled of decentskinmanship, that debilitating old condition of which the FAI has never quite cured itself.

Ultimately, though, the business has been cruelly unfair, if lucrative, to Staunton. He has been asked to submit himself to on-the-job training under the klieg lights of intense public scrutiny. He obviously, and painfully, isn't ready. It is time to end his misery.

It has been said this week that Staunton is the latest in a line of rinky dink or yellow pack managers and that he needs to be the last. It has been claimed also that there must be a measure of consistency from those of us who felt that Brian Kerr was shabbily treated in the manner of his departure but who feel that Staunton should be cut free at this stage.

Neither statement stands up. The appointment of Stephen Staunton, whose managerial experience was so minimal as to be essentially zero, was a wild gamble far more reckless than the appointment of Mick McCarthy, who had tasted a little of everything at Millwall, or of Brian Kerr, whose coaching qualifications and long-term contribution to the future of Irish soccer made him a viable candidate.

There were calls all the way through Mick McCarthy's first campaign as Irish manager for him to be cut loose, particularly after high-profile incidents involving Roy Keane and John Aldridge, but the FAI, justifiably, resisted the temptation to reach for the knife because the improvement between McCarthy's opening experiments and nights like the Romania game in Bucharest suggested a facility to learn. Ireland reached a two-legged play-off against Belgium in that campaign, and, although there were blips and the final Saipan debacle, McCarthy grew steadily in authority and confidence.

In the aftermath of Prague, the FAI's decision to bolster Staunton's standing with references (prompted no doubt by Merrion Square's squadron of spin doctors) to France's situation in the years between winning the European Championship in 1984 and winning the World Cup in 1998 seems designed to invite ridicule.

The French analogy also leads us to Brian Kerr, this country's most assiduous student of the French underage system and the man best placed to implement its applicable lessons.

At the end of Staunton's first campaign, is his position directly and precisely comparable to what Brian Kerr's was at the end of his first full campaign? Those of us who believed (and still do) in Kerr would argue that, as Irish manager, he was attempting to bring us to a new level of maturity and technical appreciation on the pitch. Whether the players under his tutelage had the habits, the intellect or the talent to operate at that level is a moot point: several seemed to find being asked to think about the game to be an unwarranted intrusion on their sparse intellectual property. Yet Kerr took over a shattered team and presided over just one loss (to a stunning Thierry Henry goal) in 16 competitive games.

Critics missed the up-and-at-'em style of Charlton and McCarthy teams, fans yearned to watch Irish sides who had obviously just been exposed to some top-class table-thumping in the dressing-room. But if we were ever to evolve into a side playing the sort of cerebral football which the FAI claim this week to be building towards, then Kerr was moving us in the right direction.

Unfortunately the comparisons with Staunton's reign are thin. The last seven days have brought the eighth and ninth competitive matches of his tenure and we are dead in the water as regards qualifying from a group which looked less than daunting.

More critically, team selections are incoherent, substitution policy is baffling and the legendary motivational skills have been exposed as nothing more than a prolonged exercise in entrenched siege mentality.

It isn't necessarily true that what is being squandered right now is the future of a golden generation of young Irish footballers - the evidence to hand suggests some solid and committed talents but nothing world-class - but those players have the right at international level to expect the best coaching and the best management available.

The Irish squad are at a stage where they need a coach who can make them more than the sum of their parts. In that respect, Scotland, to whom we collectively advised just three or four years ago to stick to kilts and shortbread and give up on soccer, would have been a better example for the FAI to clutch for this week. With decent management Scotland top a qualifying group which contains France and Italy.

We, on the other hand, face Germany at home, a Cypriot team who dismantled us in uniquely distressing circumstances and an improving Welsh side in a run of games which though essentially meaningless could see us finish fifth in Group D.

Since the grim comedy of our loss in Cyprus, the run of results which the FAI claim presages the dawn of a new era include the landmark farrago against San Marino, a win over an abysmal Welsh side, two draws in the Mickey Mouse tour to the US and the late surrender of two points to a mediocre Slovakian side last weekend.

The names that linger from this campaign are not just those of young players like Aiden McGeady and Paul McShane, both of whom have shown enough flaws to suggest that at the moment international football is too much too young, but also names like Caleb Folen, Sean St Ledger and Joe Lapira. Meanwhile, this week's soap opera with Stephen Ireland leaves Staunton in an embarrassing and further weakened position.

The FAI have bought themselves a manager who shows little sign yet of knowing what his best team is or being able to think on his feet when the nature of a game changes. His changes against that dismal Welsh side worked in Croke Park. But on evenings in places like Nicosia, San Marino, Bratislava and even Prague (when change for the better was forced upon Staunton, not instigated by him) he showed a faltering hand.

There is the lingering difficulty, too, of Staunton's inability to talk a good game, a handicap which would be less distressing if results suggested a greater fluency within the dressing-room. And there is the memory of his embarrassing sending off for petulance in the game against Germany.

With three games remaining it is unlikely that those calling for Staunton's dismissal are doing anything other than talking into a vacuum. The Irish squad face a year of friendly games when this group campaign is over, and, if there is a lesson from both the Kerr and Staunton eras, it is that our glittering record in friendly games is meaningless when it comes to what happens in qualifying groups.

We will head into a World Cup qualifying campaign led by a man who needs to learn far, far more than he can learn in the next 12 months. He won't have his Uncle Bobby Robson to hold his hand. We will fail under him, and it will be the qualifiers for Euro 2012 before we have the wit to employ a manager who has done his learning elsewhere and who can bring that learning to the job. Poland brought in that sort of expertise when they employed Leo Beenhakker last July. They top Group A.

Alas, the FAI isn't an organisation which can move with enough alacrity to remove Staunton in time for a replacement to be in place before the end of this series.

In fact, the FAI won't be sacking Stephen Staunton at all because John Delaney's future is intricately bound up with the fate of the man he hand-picked on the basis of his several weeks experience helping out on the Walsall training ground.

C'est la vie, as they say in France. Alas. Alas. A

[Paddy Garcia]

There is a real lack of gravitas about Stan.

I'm not sure of what qualities he was engaged for: leadership, intelliegence or experience?

Leadership - he was never one of our leaders, a very solid performer though. The leaders (his peers) were the likes of Moran, McCarthy, Keane, Townsend, O'Leary and Quinn. So few points there when it comes to inspitational qualities. Natural leaders don't necessarily make good managers, but I can understand the rationale for trying it.

If you are not a natural leader then you need to balance that weakness with something extra which really needs to be intelligence. Coppell would be an example. There is nothing to suggest that Stan has much to offer there. His interviews are painful, for me & him, suggesting only a rudimentary understanding of the game.

And no experience. Or self awareness.

If he was a natural leader he would have done the right thing and walked by now. To be fair to Keegan, not very smart but some leadership qualities. It was this aspect and pride in his country which led him to do the right thing by England.

Stan seems bereft of the usual qualities you would expect to find in a manager in any profession. I hope he has enough respect for Ireland, ala Keegan, to serve his country now by leaving.

[RogerMilla]

stan is not going to resign , he is completely pig-headed , delaney will eventually fire him when it becomes a "him or me" issue.

[Paddy Garcia]

http://www.fai.ie/index.php?option=c...k=view&id=2408

Decided not to quote these pundits - but these English lads instead. They must think the Irish fans are as thick as Stan.

[keano for mgr]

I dont agree with giving stan the great another chance, he needs to go, he's had his chance. We're not going to qualify. The FAI need to dig deep for a change and pay a proper wage to get a proper manager with some sort of expierence. I also think its time for robbie keane to hand over the captains armband to a player who is actually going to turn up and play for his country like richie dunne, robbie keane has been a disgrace in the last couple of games for ireland and its about time that someone had the balls to drop him

[OwlsFan]

robbie keane has been a disgrace in the last couple of games for ireland and its about time that someone had the balls to drop him

Yes, that dummy for the first goal against the SLovaks was a disgrace If there is anyone who worked harder out there for both games, please point him out. Doyle's goal apart, what did he contribute more than Robbie. Forwards need service from midfield. We'll see the best from Robbie when Reid plays (e.g against Denmark).

[tetsujin1979]

I dont agree with giving stan the great another chance, he needs to go, he's had his chance. We're not going to qualify. The FAI need to dig deep for a change and pay a proper wage to get a proper manager with some sort of expierence. I also think its time for robbie keane to hand over the captains armband to a player who is actually going to turn up and play for his country like richie dunne, robbie keane has been a disgrace in the last couple of games for ireland and its about time that someone had the balls to drop him

Ironic that your user name is keano for mgr and you're looking for someone with experience!

[Stuttgart88]

Any functional central midfield will free Robbie up to do what he dies best, we just don't have one.

To a degree Staunton can't be faulted for not having resources in this department, but at the same time what he has proposed to patch it up has been foolhardy.

Andy Reid ran the show for Charlton last night. He hit the bar at least once and scored 2 penalties. Pardew said this of him

"We penetrated at will at times. The captain Andy Reid was brilliant, he was driving us on all night.”

Andy Reid may not be the "saviour" as some have chrurlishly suggested here recently, but he is our BEST natural central midfielder. The Championship is very physical and fast and if he can excel there he can be expected to at lesat do pretty well in places like Slovakia.

[NeilMcD]

Spot on Stuttgart, the most ****ed off I was over the whole trip was the fact that Reid did not start in Slovakia. From that point on, I knew Staunton had to go as he was not learning the lessons of Cyprus or of Denmark. Stephen Ireland is a good player but does not control the game and is not mature enough to play central midfield. Get Beenhaaker in and player Reid in the middle.

[Scram]

Spot on Stuttgart, the most ****ed off I was over the whole trip was the fact that Reid did not start in Slovakia. From that point on, I knew Staunton had to go as he was not learning the lessons of Cyprus or of Denmark. Stephen Ireland is a good player but does not control the game and is not mature enough to play central midfield. Get Beenhaaker in and player Reid in the middle.

Once I saw that team selection V Slovakia, any optimism I had was drained.

[HolylandsMan]

The FAI need to dig deep for a change and pay a proper wage

In fairness, I think the wage is more than adequate. One thing that I've never really understood is why the hell Staunton was given a contract for 2 qualifying campaigns. Given that anybody with so little experience is a bit of gamble and Stan was desperate for the job, surely the sensible approach (I see where I'm going wrong here) was to hand him a contract until the end of the 08 campaign and agree to see where both sides stood at that stage. At least in that situation we would be fit to get rid of him without either the FAI bankrupting itself or another qualifying campaign being irreperably damaged.

Also I believe that Stan has a much improved contract to what Kerr had. Given that experience and past record is an indicator in an employment of reasonable starting salary, how the hell can this be justified?

[bennocelt]

So a campaign should be put together now to boycott the Brazil game.

yeah agree 100%
any other form of protest just wont work, Delaney will have people on the lookout for banners, etc

Hit the FAI where it hurts...........in the pocket.............

but unfortunately a lot of Irish fans talk and talk but when it comes to the crunch will still sing and clap,..and complain afterwards in the pub

[tetsujin1979]

Even if the entire membership of the board boycotted the Brazil game, that's only 4,200 out of a crowd of 80,000, and those tickets will definitely be snapped up, especially against a massive draw like Brazil