Stephen Kenny

[seanfhear]

Graham Potter is available now ~ ~ If we can find a rake of money ! !

[Razors left peg]

It certainly helps his case, but to judge him entirely on that one game (which you seem to be doing) doesn't make sense.


Why did you compare it to a qualifier so?

We've had too many games against smaller countries where we've performed quite badly (you can add Armenia to my list) and very very few where we've performed well. In that regard, it was an extension of a bad run that needs to change.

Of course the poor results against weaker teams need to improve. I disagree any team in Nations league were weaker teams though, the are in same group as us precisely because they are similar level to us.

However moving forward we need to see where we are really at. France was a decent start, in a defeat. We need to follow it up in rest of games now. I don't think Greece away is a game we should win, I think it's one we could though and I expect a good performance. People will expect us to beat the Dutch because of their game against France. But again it's not we should win, but we could...

At the end of the group we'll see where we are. In the meantime talk of getting Rogers or any other Premiership manager in their prime on top wages should be kept to the comment section of the RTE Sport Facebook page where it'll fit in with the rest of the idiocy

[JR89]

Graham Potter is available now ~ ~ If we can find a rake of money ! !

Jaysus, we'll have both the lads fighting amongst themselves about who'll be the one to take a 95% pay cut to manage Ireland.

[pineapple stu]

I disagree any team in Nations league were weaker teams though, the are in same group as us precisely because they are similar level to us.

Ah now. Armenia were clearly weaker than us, partly because they were promoted from a lower division which had had no strong teams relegated into it (North Macedonia, Georgia and Estonia), and partly because they're about 250 points lower-rated on Elo.

We can't judge Kenny just on France alone.

[Razors left peg]

We should have been relegated, twice

[pineapple stu]

Certainly could have anyway. I'd be building that into my judgement of Kenny.

[Razors left peg]

I've said plenty of times on here that I don't think Kenny the man to move forward, but I seen enough last week to make me think he's learned from mistakes.

[pineapple stu]

Certainly the France game seemed better managed than previous ones, but that's still no reason to judge him entirely on that one game.

[Razors left peg]

I'm not judging him entirely on that, as I've said multiple times, but I'm saying let's see how we do in next few games and the Rogers stuff is LALA land

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Why wouldn't the French game have something to do with getting a different manager, It's the most recent qualifier we have against a top side. You don't want to give an answer because we did very well and were set up absolutely correct for the game

Is Kenny going to be sacked before the Greece game? No. He'll only be sacked if we lose to Greece because it'll be his 5th failure as Ireland manager. So the France game is irrelevant. Hopefully Rodgers is still available and within reach if Kenny gets the boot.

[Eminence Grise]

Let's hire Rodgers right away! And a select few visionary fans can can form a guard of honour mounted on unicorns when he rocks into Landsdowne Rd for his first game in charge.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Suggesting alternatives for the Ireland job has not gone down well with some Kennyites. Rodgers may be unlikely but his philosophy would be along the same lines as Kenny's except he has shown he's capable of implementing it. He's basically what we hoped Kenny would turn into but have been left very disappointed to date. Let's hope the FAI have a chat word with Rodgers anyway.

[samhaydenjr]

So after all the debate about the Kenny reign, is there actually a case to be made for him potentially being replaced should the next few results not go our way? I was OK with him getting the contract extension as he seemed to be turning things around towards the end of the World Cup campaign - but then came the Armenia games, the insipid performance at home to Ukraine, the Norway defeat and the very laboured victory against Malta and I went back to worrying that this will be another lost campaign, particularly when the draw came out. Now, if the performance against France is repeated throughout the rest of the qualifiers and is translated into results, then we may well be in a strong position going into the play-offs, if we fall short of qualifying from the group. I think a win in Greece followed by a convincing performance against Gibraltar would certainly justify allowing Kenny to see out this contract. But a bad defeat followed by a scraped three points should surely mean that we need to make a change and give a new manager time to prepare for the play-offs. Or should he stay for the full term no matter what?

Of course then there's the entirely plausible scenario of a draw in Greece followed by a victory at the Aviva - what should happen then? Would it depend on the nature of the games - Greece clinging on for a draw plus a big victory against Gibraltar vs us being lucky to come home with a point and then putting in a poor performance in Dublin? Or should he go or stay either way?

[elatedscum]

I’d like to see him get the full campaign. I think my opinion could change if we were ever really uncompetitive in a non-friendly.

The England game is the only one I remember where we were soundly beaten. The loss to Serbia, we were knocking on the door at the end. The same with France. Portugal got a 94th min winner.

I don’t think we’ve lost a competitive game by more than a goal. If I got a sense that the players weren’t playing for him - or that we were all at sea, I’d probably want a change made. But otherwise, I think we’ve had poor luck in a number of scenarios and considering the group of death, I’d like Kenny to be afforded the chance to qualify both via group and via playoff.

[Razors left peg]

Personally I think a draw in Greece is a good result. To finish a minimum of 3rd in this group with a hope of pushing the Dutch 4 points against Greece is a must, but they will think the same against us.

I think the nature of the performance in Greece will be a good barometer on if we really are making progress or was France performance based on the occasion of having world cup finalist in town.

I think historically we've not been good in June, but I do expect us to put in a good performance in Greece and hopefully it'll be enough. The Gibraltar game being just 3 days later will probably be a bit of a damp squib that we'll win but it'll be flat.

But let's be positive and say we are on 4 or 6 points after June. Our Sept games are Paris and home to the Dutch 3 days later. What do we do in Paris? You don't want a hammering so you have to put a good team out but surely we'd have to keep something in reserve for the Dutch game that we'd have to win to qualify.

Barring a total disaster in Greece I think Kenny is going to see out this campaign, but with our squad improving all the time with the likes of Smallbone, Johnston and Ferguson introduced recently and Cannon possibly next, we are on an upward trajectory and less reliant on players that have been poor in the past. Kenny hopefully has learned from his mistakes too so let's see if we really have moved on in summer.

I'm kinda sick of ever game being a referendum on the manager but he has brought it on himself

[John83]

I also don't think a draw in Greece would be a bad result. People put too much stock in individual games - and of course I do it too, as it's hard not to in international football with so few games - but the decisive factor for me is whether we're actually better than Greece over a full campaign. I think it's little better than 50:50 right now. I hope I see more cause for optimism over the coming games. A win in Greece would be a huge boost in that regard. Even a draw with us the better team would be (weakly) positive, just as the good performance and narrow defeat to France was weakly positive.

[Eirambler]

It really is something to see two and a half years of failure being whitewashed based on us apparently being set up correctly for one game - and we lost the game! And I don't even know that we were set up to maximise our chances of a result in the game. It's incredible stuff to read.

A few issues with that...

Firstly, we already knew that we could be set up reasonably well against stronger opposition. We saw that against Portugal in the last group (and we actually got a result against Portugal). So there's nothing new there, losing this time is a step back if anything. It's the games against teams our level and weaker teams that have been the persistent issue, so a borderline commendable performance against France doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

Secondly, France never beat anyone anyways decent away from home by more than a goal or two in qualifiers anyway so the result isn't particularly impressive. It was our first home loss in the Euros qualifiers in a long time. It was also a game we badly needed a result from in the context of the group. We should never be happy with a defeat, but in particular we should never be happy with a home defeat. It just shows how low the bar is now being set that many are happy with that result, but the only team that actually had reason to be happy was France.

And thirdly, were we actually that well set up? Out of possession we were nice and compact at the back alright. But what was the game plan on the ball? Pass it around a bit? It looks nice I suppose but we didn't create much from general play. As usual our one big chance came from a header from a corner right at the end. Which seems to be the story of Kenny's time in charge. So if we're relying on that for a goal anyway, why are we bothering tapping it around at the back? As usual we didn't score from that approach, but we did concede from it. It would have made more sense to be a bit more direct and try and get more set pieces, as that was likely to be the only way we would have scored anyway. And it would have reduced the likelihood of us gifting them the chance for the goal.

In all honesty how anyone could think that France game was something worth whitewashing everything that has gone before over is beyond my comprehension. People just seem to be searching for anything at all they can find to defend the management with, even when there's absolutely nothing new there.

Meanwhile a must win game against Greece has been reduced to "a draw would be good", the campaign which Kenny was finally to be judged on results has been reduced to "finishing third would be good" and Kenny's disastrous management of the Nations League campaign and the subsequent impact of that on our group seeding and our playoff prospects has been wilfully forgotten about.

[pineapple stu]

Good post, though I don't agree Greece away is a must-win. I think Austria and Wales in 2017 are about our only away wins of note in the last dozen years; to suggest Greece is a must-win with a poorer squad is harsh. Greece at home could well be described as a must-win though.

And a Norway/Scotland-type defeat in Greece would be a poor result.

[Real ale Madrid]

It really is something to see two and a half years of failure being whitewashed based on us apparently being set up correctly for one game - and we lost the game! And I don't even know that we were set up to maximise our chances of a result in the game. It's incredible stuff to read.

A few issues with that...

Firstly, we already knew that we could be set up reasonably well against stronger opposition. We saw that against Portugal in the last group (and we actually got a result against Portugal). So there's nothing new there, losing this time is a step back if anything. It's the games against teams our level and weaker teams that have been the persistent issue, so a borderline commendable performance against France doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

Secondly, France never beat anyone anyways decent away from home by more than a goal or two in qualifiers anyway so the result isn't particularly impressive. It was our first home loss in the Euros qualifiers in a long time. It was also a game we badly needed a result from in the context of the group. We should never be happy with a defeat, but in particular we should never be happy with a home defeat. It just shows how low the bar is now being set that many are happy with that result, but the only team that actually had reason to be happy was France.

And thirdly, were we actually that well set up? Out of possession we were nice and compact at the back alright. But what was the game plan on the ball? Pass it around a bit? It looks nice I suppose but we didn't create much from general play. As usual our one big chance came from a header from a corner right at the end. Which seems to be the story of Kenny's time in charge. So if we're relying on that for a goal anyway, why are we bothering tapping it around at the back? As usual we didn't score from that approach, but we did concede from it. It would have made more sense to be a bit more direct and try and get more set pieces, as that was likely to be the only way we would have scored anyway. And it would have reduced the likelihood of us gifting them the chance for the goal.

In all honesty how anyone could think that France game was something worth whitewashing everything that has gone before over is beyond my comprehension. People just seem to be searching for anything at all they can find to defend the management with, even when there's absolutely nothing new there.

Meanwhile a must win game against Greece has been reduced to "a draw would be good", the campaign which Kenny was finally to be judged on results has been reduced to "finishing third would be good" and Kenny's disastrous management of the Nations League campaign and the subsequent impact of that on our group seeding and our playoff prospects has been wilfully forgotten about.

Yes we played pretty well against France so now I've decided to whitewash everything that has gone on since we qualified for Euro 2016. A one goal defeat in the searing heat of Athens in June is now something all Kennyites aspire to also. What absolute drivel.

[Stuttgart88]

I think it’s very selective to say “it’s our first home Euros defeat since x years ago”, like our home form has been in any way impressive for some time. Euros groups and WC groups are interchangeable. They’re always against European teams and often the same teams. We’ve had one amazingly good home qualifying result since 2010 qualifying, two shockers (Germany and Russia, though we nearly salvaged the latter). We shipped 9 goals in those two games under a manager famous for his defensive organisation. We lost 5-1 to Denmark. Even under Trap I think we only drew at home with Bulgaria and Montenegro and were blessed to beat Georgia 2-1. Stan's was probably the best home campaign in the last 15 or so years - draws with Germany, Czechs and Cyprus, wins over Wales and Slovakia.

Who of the sides we were trying to qualify against have we actually beaten at home? Bulgaria, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Wales, Switzerland, Scotland…all no. Bosnia play off was probably the only notable win other than Germany.

And have we beaten any of the lesser sides convincingly?

So, let’s not pretend that losing to France was some kind of outlier.

And Greece hasn’t suddenly been demoted in importance. We all know how these groups work. It used to be draw away, win at home, but that plan stopped working years ago. Now it’s get whatever we can wherever we can. I’d certainly hope to win in Greece but a draw would be ok if we win at home and we at least match Netherlands in our head to heads and their results against Greece. Under Trap we got 18 points in a 6 team group in WC10 qualifyng, 4 wins against seeds 5 and 6 and draws against everyone else. So I’ll judge the Greece result and performance on its own merit and after the group picture becomes clearer.

I think Greece are probably tougher than Georgia who we’ve struggled against. I don’t know the rankings but in terms of club strength and infrastructure I’d say they have more about them. I think it’d be a really good one to win, bad one to lose and a draw is “it depends”.