Football's all about opinions.......

[Jamjar]

which explains a lot about Irelands current predicament. Stan thinks an opinion is one of those brothers who plays hurling for Cork.

[Rory H]

football is all about opinions and my opinion is that staunton is not good enough but i dont wish to wear a t-shirt to show my opinion..and i dont wish to pour petrol over myself to show how angry i am that my opinion isnt heard..and i dont want to sign a petition..

i thought about all the stuff on here over the weekend as i read all the sunday newspapers at work..the one that stuck out among the character decifiying articles was the one in the sunday mirror..steve staunton playing with his kids in the snow...journalists approach him in his garden and stan threatens to call the police.....the sunday mirror write about how "staunton doesnt have a care in the world as he frolics in the snow".the man is spending time with his kids and he gets publically spat on....every journalist/guest writer attacks him as a person..not on his inexperience..its disgusting..its english mentality...steve mc claren faces the sack cos they might not qualify[they will] and staunton gets abused day after day because he is not good enough..he knows that,we know that..but i admire the way he wont abandon his team..and i admire the way they wont abandon them

i dont admire the way irish fans have changed....no more patience...no more time....give the man a chance..let him learn...i just said he isnt good enough i know..but who is?david o leary...let him in the job for 3 years..we will go nowhere..and he will be worse!when croke park fills up in 4 weeks time for the big game expectations and pressure will go higher..good luck mr staunton..you may need it because its one hell of a challenge when lee carsley is your roy keane replacement and the brighton goalkeeper may be shay givens replacement...and ian harte is still alive..god ****ing help you..he wont have much support..in fact many hoped we would draw with san marino to get rid of him...could be the same again...maybe not inside the ground but around the country..if we lose people will moan...if we win people will moan to get him sacked cos we didnt qualify[ya,we wont qualify]...no matter what happens i hope the past 2 weeks events arent repeated...for any manager...brian kerr got off lightly in hindsight!good luck stan...in a time of transition theres only one way to finish it....delaney out

[RiffRaff]

Good post Wild Rover and i agree with everything you said. The Jack era seems to have spawned a generation of fans who expect us to qualify for everything and adopt the english fans mentality if anything goes wrong. I am sure the constant criticism affects the players performances and confidence.

[galwayhoop]

i'll agree that the personal stuff is over board - definately

but surely managing the national team should be given to someone who is capable of doing it. surely it has to be the top manager job in the country? surely if it's clearly broken it needs to be fixed?

teams in the mayo junior league have to have managers with at least their old 'level one' coaching cert. thats junior football lads. stan is our international manager and he has no coaching qualifications at all or any experience.

whatever about that there is a myth that the team now is crap compared to them that came before. it is of less quality than the late 80's - early 90's one but for the WC 94 we started with a kilmarnock player, sheff wed player, coventry player and a striker from motherwell! we have always had to supplement decent players with lesser players and indeed that 94 team was class but like most irish teams MUCH BETTER THAN THE SUM OF IT'S PARTS nowadays the team is not even near the sum of its parts. that is the real worry

[Lionel Ritchie]

You can't blame Irish supporters for the fact that we have a scumbag tabloid media or that it's minnions step over the line looking for stories.

Irish supporters are every bit entitled to be very, very annoyed at what's gone on with THEIR team and it's day to day running.

Adopt the English fans mentality? Are you kidding me? If Ireland supporters adopted the "English fans Mentallity" that I think you're alluding to there'd have been a need to baton charge them and chuck in some tear gas for good measure ...there wouldn't be a functional piece of beer garden furniture to be had in Rimini, Nicosia or Dublin.

Ireland supporters aren't annoyed because they're aping English reactions -I'd sooner say they're annoyed because they see comparable size countries like Sweden and Denmark with comparable standard of player playing at comparable level CONSISTENTLY being there or thereabouts in qualification tournaments while we're being served thinner and thinner gruel by an association that wants it all -provided it can get it in LIDL.

Give the man a chance, give him time?!?! ...fcuk him off back to Walsall (where we know now that he didn't so much as cut a friggin orange slice much less coach anyone) and he can have all the time, patience and chances he wants. Not in the most senior footballing job in the country mind.

[RiffRaff]

The first Ireland teams i remember had players like Grealish and Langan who were somehow inspired when they pulled on a green jersey and seemed to surpass anything they achieved at club level. I'm not sure if it was a reason, but i'd like to think it was the crowds support that had something to do with that. By english fans mentality, i meant the fact that we seem to give more abuse to players nowadays for not being good enough. Its frustrating, but its not going to make them play any better, and i think its had a bad effect on some players confidence and form.

[galwayhoop]

i meant the fact that we seem to give more abuse to players nowadays for not being good enough.

i don't think we do really. we only give out because it appears that some are not giving it their all. no one really gives out if players are not up to the standard but when they do not give it their all we are fully entitled to complain. we have had countless players over the years who were multiple times better when playing in the green than anything the produced at club level. that is all we want a return to. if they are not good enough we can accept that quite easily but we cannot stomach lack of effort or the seeming flippant disregard to us supporters. we do not want to be sold short.

i will agree that the media coverage has got steadily worse over the last few years - and some rags have gone way overboard but in fairness stan and those that put him there (who are worse IMO) do not deserve the support we give them. but i like many others will continue all the while hoping for radical overhaul.

[Wolfie]

Any personal hounding of Staunton is unacceptable. Full stop.

Much of the frustration surrounds the fact the FAI have hired a bloke who is laughably under-qualified and has failed to reignite the "team" into a cohesive, united bunch of players that will burst a gut before leaving the pitch. Pride in the jersey etc etc.

Where has this lethargy come from in their play?

The old chestnut of "greater than the sum of its parts" is just as relevant and necessary an ingredient today as it has ever been.

There is still potential in this team that needs to be brought out.

[ramondo]

I agree personal insults and attacks are out of order.

But would someone, for the love of Jaysus, get that man away from that job.

Someone, please.

[Noelys Guitar]

football is all about opinions and my opinion is that staunton is not good enough but i dont wish to wear a t-shirt to show my opinion..and i dont wish to pour petrol over myself to show how angry i am that my opinion isnt heard..and i dont want to sign a petition..

i thought about all the stuff on here over the weekend as i read all the sunday newspapers at work..the one that stuck out among the character decifiying articles was the one in the sunday mirror..steve staunton playing with his kids in the snow...journalists approach him in his garden and stan threatens to call the police.....the sunday mirror write about how "staunton doesnt have a care in the world as he frolics in the snow".the man is spending time with his kids and he gets publically spat on....every journalist/guest writer attacks him as a person..not on his inexperience..its disgusting..its english mentality...steve mc claren faces the sack cos they might not qualify[they will] and staunton gets abused day after day because he is not good enough..he knows that,we know that..but i admire the way he wont abandon his team..and i admire the way they wont abandon them

i dont admire the way irish fans have changed....no more patience...no more time....give the man a chance..let him learn...i just said he isnt good enough i know..but who is?david o leary...let him in the job for 3 years..we will go nowhere..and he will be worse!when croke park fills up in 4 weeks time for the big game expectations and pressure will go higher..good luck mr staunton..you may need it because its one hell of a challenge when lee carsley is your roy keane replacement and the brighton goalkeeper may be shay givens replacement...and ian harte is still alive..god ****ing help you..he wont have much support..in fact many hoped we would draw with san marino to get rid of him...could be the same again...maybe not inside the ground but around the country..if we lose people will moan...if we win people will moan to get him sacked cos we didnt qualify[ya,we wont qualify]...no matter what happens i hope the past 2 weeks events arent repeated...for any manager...brian kerr got off lightly in hindsight!good luck stan...in a time of transition theres only one way to finish it....delaney out

I don't think Johnny Giles or Eoin Hand would agree with you about abuse from the fans and press. But I do agree about the 'new' tabloid type scum of the earth stuff. And I would blame an Australian for that.

[youngirish]

Wild rover your admiration of Staunton is flawed. Why should he abandon his team when he knows if he gets sacked he's entitled to a multi million euro payout? I wouldn't abandon them either.

[citizenerased]

He isnt good enough, he took the job, knew what it entailed, he is gettin half a million a year to do it..if he has any respect for the country he should quit, he is way out of his depth

[EalingGreen]

The first Ireland teams i remember had players like Grealish and Langan who were somehow inspired when they pulled on a green jersey and seemed to surpass anything they achieved at club level. I'm not sure if it was a reason, but i'd like to think it was the crowds support that had something to do with that. By english fans mentality, i meant the fact that we seem to give more abuse to players nowadays for not being good enough. Its frustrating, but its not going to make them play any better, and i think its had a bad effect on some players confidence and form.

There's no doubt that a supportive crowd can help and a critical crowd can dispirit, but in my opinion, this isn't the major factor in the ROI's current underperformance.

From having observed something similar in the NI team in the years following our success under Bingham, I think the problem is twofold.

First, the present crop of players simply isn't as good as in previous years. That is not to say that they are bad (or at least not capable of much better than they are currently showing). However, they have struggled since Jack Charlton's era to keep reaching the heights to which he led them. This was exacerbated by the appointment of managers (McCarthy and Kerr) who were not so experienced as Charlton. Further, any decline was not immediately obvious, since it was only very gradual and there were still some fine individual players.
However, expectations (media and fans) remained as high as ever. An example of this was to be seen (imo) in the disappointment, even anger, expressed at failing to qualify for the last World Cup. People need to realise that the likes of Switzerland and Israel are no mugs, even if the ROI might have done better against them. And as for drawing in France and only losing at home by a single goal, I'm sorry, but much better and bigger teams than the ROI would not feel too shamed by that!

Anyhow, I imagine that deep down, the players knew this, even if those outside the camp didn't recognise it. Which is containable, until the second factor kicked in.
Generally, you might expect even a moderate group of players to hold things together if they have good leadership. However, soon after they lost Roy Keane on the field, they had imposed upon them the "Catastrophe that is Stan" to lead them off the field.
Now I've never held a very high opinion of footballers' intellectual qualities, but neither are they stupid; indeed, they tend to have a "street smart" that can spot a bluffer a mile off, and that's surely what they see in Stan.
It's bad enough going out to play when you know the opposition is liable to be better than you as often as not. It's worse when you have the weight of past expectations on your shoulders. But it must surely be worst of all when you just know that the guy in charge simply doesn't have a clue, whether it be regarding team selection and formation, tactics, analysis of the opposition, substitutions or anything else. And not only that, but he's got the support of the guy at the top, so he's not going to be shifted anytime soon.

Which is why I do not believe that the players lack passion or motivation (with one or two possible exceptions, who a smarter or more confident manager would kick out). Instead, it is that they lack conviction i.e. "it doesn't matter how hard we try, we might as well be playing blindfold with Stan in charge".

Looking back at NI in the time of Sammy McIlroy, we faced pretty much the same, just not so stark, or so sudden. When Sammy took over, he at least had respectable managerial experience, albeit at a very lowly level. Also, like Stan, he was a legend as a player, and personally very popular and well-liked. Expectations of the NI players weren't so high as with the ROI, nor did anyone really question the appointment of Sammy (unlike Stan).
Consequently, results at the beginning were OK, if hardly earth-shattering. However, as time went on, I think the players began to realise that he was out of his depth and morale began to fall.
Results were eerily similar to some of those seen under Stan e.g a bad performance against a poor side might be followed by a fighting draw against decent opposition. Strangely enough, although we were regularly beaten, we rarely got hammered or humiliated like Nicosia or San Marino; I can only think this was out of affection for the boss, plus a certain pride that even if we couldn't score, at least our defence was OK.
I can't see that Stan can even engender that small confidence - especially in the absence of Given in goals.

Anyhow, few people in the fans or press blamed the NI players particularly for lack of effort or pride, but looking back, I think most of them were just going through the motions.
Which is why, when Sanchez was appointed, he had the leadership, the presence and the obvious managerial ability to spot the players who couldn't or wouldn't put in the effort and get rid of them immediately.
Which meant that those that remained gradually regained their confidence, such that the same players are almost unrecognisable in terms of morale, effort and commitment, from their former selves less than three years ago.

Anyhow, that's my opinion.

[Billsthoughts]

yeah some good points but would you stop calling us the ROI. its bloody annoying. there is no such place.

[gustavo]

Listen if he wants to call us the ROI let him as long as he doesnt get narky when we call it Ireland

[OwlsFan]

Some well thought out comments in a lot of the above posts.

a) Expectations are too high. I agree but that said surely we should have expectations of stuffing San Marino. Personally though, I would have thought that the team wouldn't even have needed a manager to beat SM. Send out the 11 players picked with a basic formation and they should have won comfortably. One then has to ask is the manager actually having a NEGATIVE effect on the team?

b) Media. A media pretty much represents its people because if the people didn't like what was written or said, they wouldn't buy the print or tune in.

c) Contract. No doubt 4 years was too long but I would be prepared to give Stan until the end of the campaign before joining the clamour for his resignation. Pay him off then if there is no sign of improvement. 5 games in to a campaign is too early

d) Change in the fans. Not really. I was there at Lansdowne when Eoin Hand's team was booed off after losing 1-4 to Denmark in his last game. I remember the terrible criticism of Giles' managership when the ball kept just getting played sideways all the time until Mick Martin would eventually lose possession in front of the goal and the opposition would score. The fans's patience however is shorter.

[Paddy Garcia]

Listen if he wants to call us the ROI let him as long as he doesnt get narky when we call it Ireland

Yeah, he calls us Beggars on his other site, so it could be worse.

[Lionel Ritchie]

Listen if he wants to call us the ROI let him as long as he doesnt get narky when we call it Ireland

Exactly. Context context context people.

A few on here should dry their eyes. He's juxtaposing the fortunes of two teams with "Ireland" in the title and some of it is quite useful dispassionate insight too. Though I disagree about the relative fall in quality of players available to the two teams over the years.

I think Mick McCarthy would've taken the hand off you if, in 1996, he'd been offered some of the talent that is NOW available to an Ireland manager ...particularly up front.

Meanwhile I recall a stat from a Tom Humphries article that said that 20 years on from beating Spain in their own yard at the WC and having five of their players start for Manchester United on the opening day of the 82/83 season ...five NI players started in the entire Premiership on the opening day of 02/03.

No such collapse has happened with us -though I acknowledge we don't have Man Utd and Liverpool players in their threes and fours anymore.
Though during the era of what was probably the strongest pound-for-pound contending squad of recent years -the backbone of the team played for Aston Villa! ...who's European exploits at the time would've been scarcely more remarkable than the likes of Spurs or Newcastle today.

Nor do I believe the expectations of Irish supporters is too high. I refer back to my comparison with Denmark and Sweden. While the premiership is hopelessly over-rated our team is built 90% on premiership players who have the ability to do well for us.
Israel are for sure no mugs -but of their entire squad only Yossi Beniyoun (spelling) would make anyone in ours sweat on a place.

[EalingGreen]

yeah some good points but would you stop calling us the ROI. its bloody annoying. there is no such place.

Bill, do you get equally annoyed when FIFA call you that? Or the firm which prints your match tickets, programmes etc. Or indeed the FAI (on its website)?

Anyhow, I find "ROI" saves time to type and avoids confusion with my rugby team*.


* - "Ireland", in case you're wondering

[gustavo]

Bill, do you get equally annoyed when FIFA call you that? Or the firm which prints your match tickets, programmes etc. Or indeed the FAI (on its website)?

Anyhow, I find "ROI" saves time to type and avoids confusion with my rugby team*.


* - "Ireland", in case you're wondering

We say Ireland. You dont.Neither side will be able to convince the other side of the merits of using the others terminology so lets just leave it at that.