How bad is Mick McCarthy??

**Declan_Michael** · 27/03/2004, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Dublin Bhoy

Unfortunately we will never know how great the team under the Charlton era could have been. He certainly never got the best out of them.

In no way did Roy disgrace his country. He stood up for himself while having his character assassinated by, surprise surprise, one of Charlton's lapdogs McCarthy. Nuff said.

Character assassination? You mean standing on the Porto keeper, the Haaland tackle, getting sent off in his first game as Irish captain, the 'I don't do friendlies', meeting with kerr and then saying he isn't coming back. What did McCarthy have to do with any of that? He threw his dummy out the pram because the football's turned up late, went on state television even Ahern tried to intervene. Meanwhile the world had a good laugh at Ireland's expense. Disgrace is an understatement.

**Declan_Michael** · 27/03/2004, 1:03 PM

Originally Posted by Dublin Bhoy

Talk about selective memory. The man has been the best midfielder of his time in my opinion. As an international carried the lads around him on his back on countless occassions. Most notably when we were down to ten men against the Dutch. The stuff of legend. Then for Man U against Juve in '99. Say no more.

True the man has his flaws. He'll be the first to admit it. By the way the Haaland injury that ended his career is in the other leg...

Not doubting Keane's ability. I had stood on the terraces enough times hoping keane would be playing. I was gutted when he was sent home from the World Cup but it was his own doing. If he hated the set up so much he should have waited until after the WC. He didn't and it disrupted the team and upset eveyone. It just looked like arrogance when he left taking a United jet home, walking his dog, RTE interview, messing kerr about. He's been gone 2 years and still it rumbles on.

**Declan_Michael** · 27/03/2004, 1:59 PM

Originally Posted by Dublin Bhoy

I'm sure if Roy had his time again he would have maybe bit his tongue re Saipan but that in no way excuses McCarthy, and the other moral cowards who kept their mouths shut such as Quinn, Staunton and Kelly, setting him up in that meeting and accusing him of feigning injury so he could miss out on the away leg in Iran...

I heard that Keane didn't tell the players he wouldn't be travelling to Iran. Hardly a great captain. Quinn, Staunton et al got behind the manager. The minute Keane launched his verbal tirade on McCarthy he was a gonna. What manager is going to keep an employee who tells him to stick it up his ********?

**gustavo** · 27/03/2004, 5:04 PM

ah PHUCKS SAKE LADS!! not another pro /anti keane thread . itll get ye nowhere!

**Slash/ED** · 27/03/2004, 5:38 PM

Originally Posted by lopez

Apologies! I should have said 'narrow minded bigot.' Still waiting for this mysterious article.

Tell you what I found in the Observer of April 21 2002, though.

...As Eamonn Dunphy, the scourge of the previous incumbent, observed the day before the match, McCarthy has been allowed to develop in the job because the nation has given him time and space. He started poorly and, as Dunphy says: 'He would have been sacked a long time ago if he were in charge of the England team.' But it is not just the impressive run of results that has made his job safe; it is the calmness he brings to the task. He combines humour and directness (leprechaun meets Tyke?) and gives the media what they want and little more...

Dunphy's very public argument with Charlton about tactics and what he regarded as the Englishman's waste of good players has almost faded out of earshot, but it had a profound effect on the development of Irish football, and was all the more beneficial for that.

As he says, McCarthy's team 'is much more than the sum of its parts', which you could hardly say about some of Big Jack's teams. 'If you break [this team] down to individuals, you would wonder how on earth they were to compete. But they are playing football now. You could put that down to Roy Keane and the team ethic, also the contributions of Staunton and Quinn. Robbie Keane also is obviously very useful. 'They have an advantage in that expectations are lower than elsewhere too. Coming into the England team for instance can be an ordeal [for a young player]. Getting into the Ireland team is not like that.

'The level of expectancy, the media hype is totally different here. Just look at the way Keane and Beckham have been treated, both captains of their country, both playing for the same club side. The Prime Minister here is a football fanatic, a huge Manchester United fan too, but he has not asked questions in the House.

'This Ireland team is like a very good club side. And the very best club sides always punch above their weight, which Ireland have been doing.'

There are other factors contributing to the calm that attends Irish football. There are very few off-field scandals, for instance - which is not to say there are no shenanigans. It is just that the Irish have more a French attitude to what is sometimes erroneously called 'scandal' than an English outlook.

Dunphy, who is writing Roy Keane's biography, regularly meets McCarthy and some of the players at Dublin's classy night-spot, Lillie's, and says this is a side at ease with itself. They just don't get caught up in trouble...

The 'gob****e' McCarthy's interview 'in which he castigated...the Irish media' wasn't complaining about the backstabbing that goes on in the country, was it?

http://football.guardian.co.uk/world...687842,00.html

That kind of article is what really, really ****es me off. Such uninformed drivel, you'd swear we were 10 confrence players + roy keane taking in the world ffs. All of this "**** team, trys hard", "punching above their weight" and "more then the sum of their parts" rubbish really really annoys me.

**lopez** · 27/03/2004, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by Slash/ED

That kind of article is what really, really ****es me off. Such uninformed drivel, you'd swear we were 10 confrence players + roy keane taking in the world ffs. All of this "**** team, trys hard", "punching above their weight" and "more then the sum of their parts" rubbish really really annoys me.

What's your point? We're Brazil?