QuoteIt's far from the weakest in 30 years. Unless you expect our players to play to their potential under a terrible manager, defeating the purpose of a manager.Originally Posted by Thunderblaster
Sorry to interrupt the Foot.ie Kama Sutra debate, but anyway here goes...
Once you see the words "Unrealistic expectations" in an Ireland article, it immediately invalidates it.
Beating Cyprus and SM before the 95th minute with a team of 9-10 PL players, is unrealistic expectations, is it??Not when you've paid several hundred €'s to watch it, it isn't.
It's far from the weakest in 30 years. Unless you expect our players to play to their potential under a terrible manager, defeating the purpose of a manager.
A far point. However this should not invalidate the reasonable criticism that can rightly be made about Stans decision making, leadership, technical know how, selections, interviews and broken promises.
tbh in some ways the Irish fans were pretty tolerant, many on this board gave him every chance before withdrawing support.
His less than honest evaluation of his time in charge is not going to win fans over either.
The treatment of Stan was a disgrace. 102 caps for your country and 100% commitment over 15 years obviously matters nothing. I find it very difficult to understand the logic these days. If you dont have natural football/management ability, like 99% of us in this country, and have the cheek to want to lead the country you love, you are abused like a rapist in the street. There was horrible things thrown at Stan during the Cyprus game at Croke Park, as well as the obligatory 'f**k off Stan ye muppet' from the stands every few minutes, morons clearly manipulated by their daily rag. I dont blame the media, they are simply businesses catering for a market. If people would refuse to use those papers as bogroll (as I would since the 'muppet' headline) they wouldnt print such filth.
You and other 'reasoned posters' (I suspect translating as anyone who agrees with you) have been reduced to labelling the oppostion as a WUM and sh1te spewer, and to consolling yourself in your greater numbers, to conceal the fact that you have nothing left to back up your arguments.
<insert witty remark>
But here's the thing lads.... His retirement wasn't about the squad or the ninety minutes. It was peripheral factors that dictated his retiremant. Fans attitudes was a factor.. Undeniably.. But why??? It's easy to say it's a sign of the times, but that's rubbish... It's because clowns like Delaney made a bold gamble with someone elses chips two years ago that's why. It was a rediculous decision to hire staunton (much as we all respected his playing contributions)... But what did we do?? Fell in behind the set up out of what in hind sight was misplaced efforts of supporting our team.. So what happens when we're proved right?? We're sheep of the media!! We're disgruntled dundalk fans!!! We've unrealistic exptectations.. All eventually cited as factors by Finnan when he retired (in so many words obviously)...
We were right when we were dissapointed at stans appointment... And proved right.. And our support of the team at the time was seen as a vindication of a crazy appointment.. And our eventual voicing of dissapointment was portrayed as anything but football support... F'kin Delaney and the FAI are the reason Steve Finnan thinks Ireland fans aren't what they are.. This isn't 20 20 vision in hind sight. This is perceptive objective football fans being proved right and being portrayed as tabloid sponges...
(I shouldn't drink read this board...It gets me going)....
Anyone think that the move to Croke Park has had a negative effect on the team. I know it was probably our only option but every game we played a Croker had a big amount of fans who were probably never at a game in all their life.
McCarthy was booed off in his last match in charge fella.
Maybe I was in the wrong section but I didn't see any personal abuse hurled at Staunton or any objects thrown. I personally don't think he was that badly treated by the fans. The tabloids did treat him badly, but I wouldn't expect any different from them. In fact, I'd say the fans were actually quite patient with him (remember the great reception the team got at the Czech home game after the Cyprus debacle a few days earlier).
I'm afraid it means nothing when it comes to management. 6 wins from 17 games tells it's own story. Many PL bosses (with experience) would be sacked with that record.
If anything, his treatment of the fans, and his contempt for the media was a disgrace.
Stan was an utterly incapable manager , Anyone who defends him is doing it out of sympathy not respect. Hopefully we get someone who can mastermind a 6 point or at least a 4 point haul off the cyprans in the next qualifiers,
Was he crazy!! Yeah , in a very special way , an Irishman.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
True, the weakest team in 30 years IMO was probably around 1997 when McGrath, Aldridge were gone and the likes of Townsend, Houghton, Cascarino were about 35+, still managed to get to a playyoff though
i'd probably go as far to say that Kerr, out of all of the managers post-Charlton, had the weakest pool of players and time and again had to rely on the likes of Gary Doherty to throw up front. Funnily enough I really think that if Kerr had all of these young lads coming through when he was in charge then we would have definitely be challenging for the playoffs....
"Well I think they'll be a little disappointed with that" - Matt Holland on TV3 after 5-2 drubbing by Cyprus
One thing that surprised me about Kerr was that despite having made his name with young players he never really trusted young players in his senior teams. He was very conservative in his selection. I know you can rattle off the number of players who made their debut under Kerr but I think this disguises the reality.
That said, it's a manager's prerogative to decide whether a young player is good enough and maybe he got it right. Staunton seemed to think that anyone in his late 20s was too old and that playing promising kids before they'd even forged a meaningful club career was more appropriate.
Yeah I think Kerr certainly did have a weak pool of players, the players we had for the qualifiers for 2004 were very weak.
In Trap we trust
Stan was one of the worst ireland managers of all time, a hapless idiot with no charisma or tactical nouse.
The fans booed him and rightly so under his almost comical tenure we manged to achieve 3 of the worst results in Irish international football history San marino, and Cyprus twice..not to mention the 4-0 capitulation to holland at home(granted it was a friendly, but worst home defeat in 70 odd years).
Do you think despite these horrendus results he should be exempt from media criticism? If I was on 400,000 grand a year, id be big and bold enough tio take it on the chin..!
I think everyone agrees the kermit thing was a disgrace..
'How can I hate women, my Mums one!!!' Chris Finch
True that was an utter disgrace, the fans(I use the term loosely) who booed Mick deserved the Staunton era, not all of us wanted Mick gone though, I certainly didn't and was ****ed when all the Roy Keane sheep got their way
Last edited by Morbo; 24/01/2008 at 12:25 PM.
I wasn't too sad to see Mick go. I liked him but he himself had hinted that a club job was preferable at that stage and was happy for his name to be linked. Booing him was the act of total eejits and morons though. In many ways we've turned into England-lite, or certainly some amongst us have.
Mick deserved to get axed for a multitud of reasons two bad defeats in first two games..he had lost the team after the world cup..sabotaging our world cup campaign..his position was untenable...
The fans got behind the team all the way, I remember being at the czech game after the cyprus trashing, the support was unbelievable. Big difference between booing during and after the game!!
Anyway lads, stan is a big boy, if he cant handle booing he is in the wrong industry..
Sure Jebus what do you care if we boo or not, you said you dont care about Ireland anyway, you are more interested in 37 young boys in limerick.
'How can I hate women, my Mums one!!!' Chris Finch
I don't think he had lost the team, 4 months previous to the Swiss game, they were a penalty shoot out away from the last 8 in the World Cup. He had split the fans though, after the performance against Switzerland at home and the booing off the pitch it was always going to be difficult to stay on .
I was there too, there was a strange atmosphere before the game. Hard to describe. Almost angry. There was a big backlash against all the negativity in the press, the muppet pictures, etc and after the encouraging performance on the pitch, there was just a massive release.
Typical EB has them on file. Andy Reid, Liam Miller, Alan Lee, Alan Quinn, Paddy Kenny, Martin Rowlands, Aiden McGeady, Stephen Elliot, Jon Douglas, Clive Clarke, Joe Murphy, John Thompson, Jason Byrne, Michael Doyle and the one and only Jon Macken. Off the top of my head Paddy McCarthy, Graham Stack and Kevin Doyle got their first callups under Kerr but they were only breaking through at that stage.
Joey O'Brien had started 1 game for Bolton by the time of Kerr's last game. Stephen Ireland had started 2 for City. Wayne Henderson had just started his loan spell at Brighton. Stephen Kelly had a bit of experience by then and maybe could have got a call up.
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