Stephen Kenny

[SkStu]

As expected. TBH a managerial name doesn’t matter too much but I’m more interested in your thoughts on the team and squad selection (who’s missing) and the tactics that would best work with your team so we can start climbing back up the groups (what’s missing).

PS - it just takes too long to type your name out!

[Stuttgart88]

Or "we don't have the players to compete"

Next breath

"Luxembourg and Azerbaijan have really good players".

what?

[tetsujin1979]

Boomer - in the interests of arguing in good faith, who would you like to see in there? Who would you pin your flag to? Give us a name… and what would he have to do differently? In terms of team selection and on field tactics?

Agreed, 24 hours to respond with a name
Clock is ticking

[CraftyToePoke]

Agreed, 24 hours to respond with a name
Clock is ticking

And some kind of sketch of how it should be done, in his opinion, some actual input of value.
As opposed to the frothy mouthed swivel eyed ranting, would be nice.

[CraftyToePoke]

At the moment, I'd take just about anyone instead of Kenny. Even if that means going back to route one ball

And there we have it, up & at 'em, Ole Ole Ole Ole, big days out, pints, Hail Marys before the match, aren't we a great little country and isn't this great for it.

[mypost]

So no manager was sacked after the world cup or European championships.

I haven't had the chance to ask every manager about their interest in taking over but it's a well paid international job, we'll have no problem finding a replacement and let's be honest, it's almost impossible to do a worse job than what Kenny has done.

It very much is possible. Our players are playing at ever lower levels of football, and in so doing, falling further behind the quality and depth that other sides have. Even 5th seeds have top quality players in the best leagues in Europe to choose from. I know you expect this team to be as successful as the Jack era, but you have to recognise where we stand in the pecking order these days, and you don't unfortunately. The money we pay to manage this team is loose change to what an English club is willing to fork out to take him away from here.

While no manager was sacked after a tournament, that didn't stop people wanting it to happen. We now have a 50% win rate and a draw in the last 6 games. Which is comparable to any of the best parts of the reign of previous managers over the past 10 years. Sadly it's not good enough for you.

At the moment, I'd take just about anyone instead of Kenny. Even if that means going back to route one ball but I hope it doesn't come to that. This opportunity was handed on a plate for Kenny, it couldn't have been set up any better but he blew it with complete incompetence.

Now I know that won't satisfy you and you'll demand names, Kenny supporters are very predictable. I don't care though, the most important thing is getting rid of Kenny.

The most important thing is that we bring through new players and develop them, so when we do qualify the next time, we're able to compete and contribute when we get there, rather than get thrashed by better players playing better quality football in every game in the group.

You won't take just about anyone to do this job, everyone has their criteria. I presume you have yours. You still haven't said the name of anyone who wants to turn up and do the job where if he wins he needs to be sacked and if he doesn't win, he still needs to be sacked.

When Kenny got the job, he was handed a ragbag bunch of over the hill footballers, who had failed to qualify again for a major tournament, and only had one way of playing which didn't work. Kenny was, and still is the only one willing to overhaul the squad and style of play. And if we're serious about doing that, then results and qualification will have to take a back seat during the transition. If we're not serious about it, we can throw another few million quid at management, still not qualify for tournaments, and still rely on players not good enough at international level.

[SkStu]

I've already said, I believe we should be playing a system similar to what we thought Kenny would introduce but he turned out to be a numpty. We already had a solid, organised squad, just mix that with a more attacking approach. Not trying to play like Barcelona, combining passing with our direct game in places. Then pick the squad based on form but favour youth. It's simple really. I might put my name forward to replace Kenny.

BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!!!

That is actually pretty disappointing though maybe I just gave you too much credit. But you don’t have anything of substance to offer other than “Kenny must go”. Just a troll.

[SkStu]

It doesn’t take much to read into what I asked and why I was asking for it. It was a simple request for something substantive from you, that others joined in on. But no matter what the motivation, it doesn’t change what you came back with. Nothing. You are little more than a one trick troll. And you get your jollies out of it so good for you.

As I said above, a managerial name isn’t that important. Offering a little more substance than “Kenny is sh!te and anyone else isn’t” is.

[ontheotherhand]

It is tiresome, but we're not going to change manager after winning a game. We continue on the project that we're on, whether we win or not, without demanding that we either qualify or sack the manager.

It's going to be impossible for a new man to come in with a clean slate. He's going to have the likes of me on his back from Day 1, hounding him for parking the bus and not winning games, and eventually everyone else will see through him. Then he gets sacked, the next man is appointed and the cycle repeats itself. It's a toxic environment for any manager to work in, and doesn't allow him any leeway to see what works and what doesn't, or any long term plan. The demand is either win or find someone else who will try to get Championship level squads that we have, to tournaments against the superstars of the sport.

I agree with your take on the current state of things. We say basically the same things on this topic at least.

But where I've changed a bit over the last few games is that I'm not seeing Kenny using the leeway he has to see what works and what doesn't. He looks like he thinks his job is on the line and it is. That's not conducive to making progressive, long term focused decisions and that's what our manager needs to be doing now. That means not playing Jeff Hendrick in a friendly against Malta!

But look it was always going to be rough and I'm still all for the type of project he talked about. I'm just not sure we are seeing it in motion. Maybe it's all just happening a bit slower than I expected. It is international football after all. He gets very little time with the players.

[John83]

Is it really so difficult to imagine someone who could direct the team's attacking patterns a little more capably than Kenny did against Malta? Does that really require a candidate, resume, and a tactical analysis fit for a pro licence? The leaping all over Boomers is a little desperate. Yes, he's gotten tiresome. So have the rest of you.

[paul_oshea]

There's a little bit of school yard bully boy bring out the weak tactics going on here again and has been for a while on this forum, I think there needs a little more progressive admining.

We're not seeing any of the things mentioned here about a different style under Kenny. It's boreball just the same as it was under trap. Death by boomerang passing.

Oh and Id be pretty sure all Belgians tonight would be more than happy to reverse the possession stat for the goal stat today.

[SkStu]

Is it really so difficult to imagine someone who could direct the team's attacking patterns a little more capably than Kenny did against Malta? Does that really require a candidate, resume, and a tactical analysis fit for a pro licence? The leaping all over Boomers is a little desperate. Yes, he's gotten tiresome. So have the rest of you.

There's a little bit of school yard bully boy bring out the weak tactics going on here again and has been for a while on this forum, I think there needs a little more progressive admining.

I assume you’re both referring to my posts and your representations of them are way off the mark.

There’s only so long that “Kenny out, he’s useless and you’re all stupid for thinking otherwise” that’s remotely bearable. It’s been going on since Day One.

Good debate, good discussion, good exchange of ideas -all essential for a healthy forum - requires a bit of balance and reasonableness and there’s none of that evident in this guys style or substance. It’s not asking too much for an alternate candidate or a bit deeper perspective on what could/should change - it’s nothing close to what you’ve represented, John. And it’s not “bully boy” either, Paul.

Just because you both agree with his base premise, doesn’t mean this guy isn’t a one trick pony with nothing valuable to add to the discussion. And it’s not unreasonable to call that out. I don’t think you can accuse most of “the other side” of being similarly inflexible - or tiresome (how exactly is that accurate?) - a reasonable review of the posts here would support that.

“A tactical analysis fit for a pro license” FFS give it a rest.

[John83]

Fine. Show me your last post that meets the bar set by tets for Boomers. You have 24 hours.

[SkStu]

No. You accused me of requiring a tactical analysis fit for a pro license. Produce the evidence. Should be easy enough to quote. You have 24 hours.

[SkStu]

Fine. Show me your last post that meets the bar set by tets for Boomers. You have 24 hours.

Here you go though.

https://foot.ie/threads/279296-Repub...t=#post2130609

What do I win?

[John83]

No. You accused me of requiring a tactical analysis fit for a pro license. Produce the evidence. Should be easy enough to quote. You have 24 hours.

Only one of us is a mod.

[John83]

Here you go though.

https://foot.ie/threads/279296-Repub...t=#post2130609

What do I win?

As expected. TBH a managerial name doesn’t matter too much but I’m more interested in your thoughts on the team and squad selection (who’s missing) and the tactics that would best work with your team so we can start climbing back up the groups (what’s missing).

Go on. Show me that one?

[SkStu]

How dare you demand tactical analysis fit for a pro license?! How tiresome! What a bore! Stop using bully boy tactics!

Give it a rest.

“Only one of us is a mod”… jaysus, get over yourself John-boy.

[samhaydenjr]

OK, a couple of quick thoughts about what we should be looking for in a manager. First a very basic observation - international football management is different from club management in that you can't recruit players to suit your tactical philosophy and you don't have as much time to convert players to your style (yes, I know, I'm a pundit genius). This is particularly pertinent for a team with a small pool of international-standard players, like us. So let's look at our current and future strengths going forward - we have a solid looking defense which has the potential to become really good over the next couple of years; we're still light in terms of midfield creativity, though hopefully this will improve if two or three from Coventry, Hodge, Ronan, Smallbone, Moran, Connell and Devoy make the grade over the next couple of years. Up front, we have the potential to have a really fast frontline between Obafemi, Ogbene and Armstrong - but for that to work we need to get them into foot-races against defenses, not have them jogging around with deep-lying defenses, waiting for us to tiki-taka the ball through a press, as seemed to be happening against Malta. If Idah recovers, he provides a mix of big target man and speed-merchant, while Ferguson also has the potential to be an aerial threat.
So yes, we come back to tactics that some fans did not like - inviting teams onto us to create space behind them and then hitting long balls for our forwards to chase (a la Shane Long vs Germany) and knocking balls for a big target man to knock down to a fast/skillful forward (a la Quinn and Keane). There is scope for passing as well but more in terms of breaking quickly.

In terms of managers, we need to look first at what level we should be looking to attract - as I said before, the last three times we have had a successful LOI/underage manager or someone with no track record, it has ended poorly, with no qualification (notwithstanding a major turnaround by Kenny), whereas the last four times we chose managers with track records from the English second tier or above, we were more competitive and qualified at least once. So we need somebody of that calibre, or close to it, if we can't afford an elite manager. But we should believe that there would be some prestige in potentially managing a team in a major international tournament. We could do with somebody who can find innovative ways to help a team punch above its weight. Given what I said about our central defence, would that open things up for Chris Wilder and his overlapping centre-backs - he had success at Sheffield united with that over a couple of years - eventually teams were able to adjust to his style, but with fewer international games, opponents might not be ready for it.

Alternatively, I think we should keep a close eye on Jim Goodwin's progress with Aberdeen - after a bad start, he's got them into third place, only eight points behind Rangers. If we can afford a bit more, Scott Parker has done well in The Championship, even if he hasn't had success in the EPL.

There's probably more I could say, but it's now late here so I'll leave these thoughts for discussion

[CraftyToePoke]

Only one of us is a mod.

Seriously ?
If only you were the place wouldn't have descended into the troll & spam fest it these days is. Stu engaged the guy on substance after months of making a solitary point & it's then you decide to " mod " it John ?

Have you noticed the place is lifeless even on match days of late ? Try modding that addresses that maybe.