I wasn't really going on the media's reaction, just on a review of the managers performance. If we're looking at the media's treatment of managers then every single manager including Jack had a hard time. That's everyone except Kenny who has had an extremely easy ride. Especially considering he's performed worse than any other previous manager. It just goes to show how important it is to have pals in the media.
for example our good friend ross ocarroll kelly (aka paul howard) was critical all the time in the sunday tribune during that campaign.
the main photo in the tribune the day after the holland win was the infamous one of the keane / mccarthy handshake!!! talk about missing the mood of a nation!
people were very critical of a number of the performances in that campaign. pretty sure my memory is accurate
For his mistake before was a 1-2 goal, he made a mistake and he risked, but he played a good game. I am more about Hendrick and Knight in second half who werent good and never helped Molumby, who almost got sent off 2-0 one of those 2, play the sitting position next to Hourihane, I agree Hourihane is not a holding mid, he did good with some touches and passes that were lovely, he MADE A mistake but before that was an atrocious mistake for the 1-2
You've made some interesting points.
I think some people - Kennyites in particular - are wont to conflate the dying days of O'Neill's time in charge, when it was clear he'd stayed on too long and the wheels had started to come off, with McCarthy's brief tenure, so making it seem as if Kenny had inherited a complete shambles rather than a tough, organised, hard-to-beat team with some talented young players coming through, a Euro 2020 Play Off place in the bag and an almost guaranteed second place seeding for the World Cup qualifiers. Of course, it was never in Mick's remit to make radical changes to the playing style or personel - he was never given that time - but rather to restore confidence and make us a competitive force once more. And I think he achieved that, despite some less than stellar performances along the way. So, he should perhaps get more credit than he receives.
At the time it felt like disappointing campaign, but, looking back, at least McCarthy took our automatic qualification bid down to the final moments of the final match, and against a very good Denmark side. It feels like like we've fallen a long way, even when considering other previous low points.
Last edited by Trequartista20; 29/09/2022 at 4:38 PM.
This Mick McCarthy guy sounds great. Wonder why Cardiff got rid. So I asked google.
Good summary of his time with Ireland as well really. Less than stellar performances came in games we were expected to win - because we did not have a plan B to break these teams down? Our confidence restoring, to make us a competitive force performances were all draws - with direct, fight for every ball, morale victory stuff."When Mick and Terry came in they did a great job getting us all together and believing in each other.
"But then I think after that there was no real change or way of playing or identity to us which I think was a bit of a problem in the end.
"We didn't really have a plan B. It was all direct, fight for every ball, there was no tactical plan. I think teams worked that out and once they could fight against us they would get on top.
"Without the ball it was OK we were getting into shape trying to press teams. But once we got the ball we didn't really know where everyone was going to be, or what to do.
"I think teams worked us out - it wasn't a nice place to be in the end."
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footb...cking-25485252
people need to come to terms with the fact that the likes of mccarthy + hughton etc are finished. their best days are gone. dyche was mentioned above but hes a PL calibre manger cant see why he'd take a wage cut to come to us. Barry looks like hes comfortable as a coach. Chelsea have had 3 manager changes and hes kept his job under every new manager. Why leave a secure PL job?
I don't think anyone would claim that McCarthy's term was perfect but compared with his replacement he looks like Pep! His last game v Denmark was miles ahead of anything Kenny has offered. We certainly wouldn't be losing to Luxembourg, Azerbaijan and Armenia with McCarthy in charge. In fact, qualifying for the last euros would have been likely in my opinion and we would have got close to world cup qualification.
That said, I wouldn't want McCarthy back in charge when Kenny goes. We need a manager with a modern approach and capable of implementing it. We were all hoping that Kenny would be that man but he has proven to be a dud.
Are you stating that we have to stick with Kenny because there's no one else? That argument has been pushed by Kenny supporters for a while now. It really shows how bad he's done when that's the main defense.
There are capable managers out there that don't have to cost millions. We don't have to hire ex premier League managers. As noted, Celtic looked outside the box and it's worked out well so far for them. A JD free FAI should be capable of scouting for talent. I just hope they have the guts to do the right thing and sack Kenny. They will face a backlash from Kenny's pals in the media but he's driving us backwards and it will be hard to recover from his reign.
that game ment nothing to denmark a complete dead rubber for them. we only started playing at 0-1. we've played well vs scotland (twice) and ukraine (once) and did well vs Portugal too only to get undone by ronaldos freakish aerial ability. those 4 performances were all better than the denmark one.
Am, if Denmark had lost they would have been out of the euros, the one where they got to the semi finals. I think it was more than a dead rubber.
It's all about opinions but those performances you've noted were nowhere near the Denmark display and were all achieved when we were effectively out of those respective groups. Everything was on the line for the Denmark game.
SK's first game in charge was 2 years ago. The bottom line for me, today, as it relates to Kenny was that i was willing to give him a 2 year grace period to transition from our previous age profile to something a lot younger while also trying to play a more attractive brand of football. The two years is up now and the time for green shoots is gone and time to expect reasonable and consistent performances and results is upon us (from my perspective). Whether we are there or not is debatable, we are definitely getting better performances and results than we were in his first year - i think that is not really debatable. But whether we have truly turned a corner is difficult to say with certainty as it still feels like a rollercoaster ride on a rickety machine. Maybe it is just a really long corner All that said, if you are looking into the next year, what is the reasonable expectation? For me... consistency and reliability. Win the gimmes, take 4s off our peers, take points off the elites. Am i confident? Hmmm dunno.
Those who have called for his head in his first year and even up to now are guilty of jumping the gun and not recognizing or appreciating the challenges he has faced. The knives were sharpened far too early, way earlier in some cases than was at all fair. Look at the change in the makeup of our team - age profile - it is staggeringly different than what it was two years ago. And most of those young players are experienced seniors now. This will stand to us, as fans, in the medium to long term. Anyway, as i said, lets see if he can meet the bar that i have set - is how i am looking at things.
For those who are comparing Kenny with the managers that have gone before him and using that as a stick, i think it is worth pointing out that you can only do so if you acknowledge and include the quality of player over that course of time. It has diminished significantly over that time. JC, Mick1.0, Kerr, Stan, Trap, MON, Mick2.0 - - it is fair to say that we have not had an elite player since the Trap era and MON and Mick later had the benefit of a fairly high consistency of player standard and a depth of experience (again diminishing generally over those two tenures). With Kenny he lost the experienced players and transitioned to the best young players and a smattering of seniors - all playing Championship, League One and a couple of EPL players in the lower echelons mostly. Thats a tough enough hand and its unfair to compare managerial performance without recognizing the calibre of players the previous guys had at their disposal.
Again, this is wrong and another failed excuse for those defending Kenny. The squad for McCarthy's last game v Denmark:
Randolph, Doherty, Duffy, Egan, Stevens, Browne, Hendrick, Whelan, Hourihane, McClean, McGoldrick.
Subs: Kevin Long, Clark, Parrott, Cullen, Byrne, Brady, Robinson, James Collins, O'Hara, Maguire, Travers, Judge.
Kenny had all of these players available to him bar Whelan and selected all of them bar maybe Judge? McGoldrick retired not long afterwards but Kenny inherited a squad that ran Denmark and Switzerland very close for qualification. On top of this, a number of young players have emerged and developed at their clubs. Bazunu, Kelleher, Collins, Omobamidele, O'Shea, Molumby, Idah, Obafemi, Knight, Ogbene. Josh Cullen moved to Anderlecht and made great improvements. Kenny fans would claim that McCarthy wouldn't have blood the new players but he had already brought Aaron Connolly on board (he was injured for the Denmark game) along with Parrott. The truth is that Kenny has had a stronger squad available to him than McCarthy! And done far worse.
Previous managers used to get lambasted for claiming we don't have the players, now we don't have the players is one of the many excuses used by Kenny supporters. Despite these excuses, what level of results would have been satisfactory to anyone going into the Kenny reign?
1. Losing to an understrength Slovakia in the play-offs? He didn't get a new manager bounce that even Staunton got and notched up his first failure.
2. Scored one goal in battling it out at the bottom of the nations league group.
3. Again battled it out at the bottom of world cup qualification with embarrassing results against Luxembourg and Azerbaijan.
4. A hatrick of bottom of the barrel campaigns with a humiliating defeat to Armenia.
His reign has been an unmitigated disaster. He deserved to be sacked long before now but we can't go into another campaign with him in charge.
Indeed. It was a straight shootout for a place in a European Championships, that's about as far removed from a dead rubber as is possible.
Of the four 'better' performances under Kenny cited above, only the home performance against Scotland could be credibly framed in that way. We played well on the night against Denmark - clearly a better team than Scotland and Ukraine, and probably Portugal too, given their respective performances at the tournament. Even the Danish manager admitted his side were fortunate to come away with the point they needed.
https://www.extratime.com/articles/2...their-playoff/'We didn?t play well, and we were lucky to get away with a draw. If they play like that they will probably come through their next playoff.'
These are stats from that match.
Possession: Ireland 57% - 43% Denmark
Shots: Ireland 15-3 Denmark
Shots on Target: 3-1 Denmark
Corners: Ireland 9-3 Denmark
https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/match/2026001/
Conversely, in one of the 'better' Ireland performances listed above - our defeat to Portugal - it looks like this.
Possession: Portugal 72% - 28% Ireland
Shots: Portugal 29 - 6 Ireland
Shots on Target: Portugal 7 - 2 Ireland
Corners: Portugal 14 - 3 Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/56103772
Last edited by Trequartista20; 29/09/2022 at 8:18 PM.
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