Stephen Kenny

**Stuttgart88** · 03/03/2023, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Diggs246

What gets on my T*TS a bit is his supporters not being able to just say I got it wrong or I made a mistake. He a poor international manager

They list these ridiculous and often hysterical reasons why it hasn't worked

My personal favorite is covid. Followed by the Greek weather

What gets on my T*TS is people who just don't get that it's reasonable to take time to take a view or to react to circumstances as they evolve.

Give me one example of hysteria.

COVID was absolutely a factor in terms of players missing a game because of FAI seating arargments being messed up and an empty AVIVA in his early tenure. How much of a factor is open to debate.

**Jd2793** · 03/03/2023, 12:51 PM

you are completely deluded if you dont think covid was a factor in things early in his tenure.

**paul_oshea** · 03/03/2023, 1:06 PM

Covid was a factor to the same degree it was a factor for every international manager. We just never heard about it anywhere else.

*Caveat i do remember some team we played against missing 4 or so players for various reasons from the squad. But that proves the point more everyone just got on with it and it wasn't an excuse put forward or an excuse by others in the International footballing world - or at least not enough for us to here about it.

**SkStu** · 03/03/2023, 1:15 PM

for the craic... my personal favourite

Originally Posted by Diggs246

Putting covid and player pool aside. No one could possibly think Stephen kenny has done a good job to date. He might, and fingers crossed will do a good job in the future, but 1 goal in 9 games and obviously 0 wins is appalling

**mypost** · 03/03/2023, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

But but - we're the last team to start the group and the first to finish it. And we've France at home first!

How can we possibly qualify then?!

Ah, so you really think we're going to get out of this group, with those teams in it and that schedule? The heat/tired/end of season excuses are already ready to be used for the Greece trip, when the time comes.
The last time we didn't play on the last night of a qualifying group was for Euro 2008. The group was so bad the then manager didn't even see out the campaign.

**SkStu** · 03/03/2023, 1:26 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Covid was a factor to the same degree it was a factor for every international manager. We just never heard about it anywhere else.

*Caveat i do remember some team we played against missing 4 or so players for various reasons from the squad. But that proves the point more everyone just got on with it and it wasn't an excuse put forward or an excuse by others in the International footballing world - or at least not enough for us to here about it.

Does context not matter here? Are there other managers that were appointed a month into covid with a play-off to win and a mandate of transitioning younger players into the squad and trying to turnaround a mentality of "Irish players cant pass short"? If so, lets compare notes.

**pineapple stu** · 03/03/2023, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by mypost

Ah, so you really think we're going to get out of this group, with those teams in it and that schedule?

I don't think we're going to get out of the group because France/Holland being top top sides and we're not.

The schedule and the Euro 2008 comparison - both of which you referenced - are utterly irrelevant.

You may as well say the moon is rising in Aquarius just like it did in 2008 so we won't qualify. As an argument, it holds just as much water.

**Snapshot** · 03/03/2023, 3:09 PM

Originally Posted by SkStu

Does context not matter here? Are there other managers that were appointed a month into covid with a play-off to win and a mandate of transitioning younger players into the squad and trying to turnaround a mentality of "Irish players cant pass short"? If so, lets compare notes.

Engage context all you like, fact is nobody could possibly have done any worse.

**mypost** · 03/03/2023, 3:21 PM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I don't think we're going to get out of the group because France/Holland being top top sides and we're not.

The schedule and the Euro 2008 comparison - both of which you referenced - are utterly irrelevant.

You may as well say the moon is rising in Aquarius just like it did in 2008 so we won't qualify. As an argument, it holds just as much water.

Of course the schedule is relevant. In the event we lose the first game, we'll be 6 points behind the leaders already,. Anyone we're competing against for qualification or even third, knows exactly what they have to do to overtake us on the last night. Holland will beat Gibraltar and Greece will beat the France reserves at home, and we'll probably be still blaming Kenny for when they get the results they need to finish above us.

**SkStu** · 03/03/2023, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by Snapshot

Engage context all you like, fact is nobody could possibly have done any worse.

that's an opinion.

**pineapple stu** · 03/03/2023, 3:54 PM

Originally Posted by mypost

Of course the schedule is relevant. In the event we lose the first game, we'll be 6 points behind the leaders already.

With a match in hand, which you ignore. And we won't be six points off qualification (which is what's important) as France and Holland can't both win their opening game.

The fact we play France and Holland is far, far more relevant than what order we play them in. Sure in 2000, we started with Croatia at home (fresh from a World Cup semi final) and the next campaign we started with Holland and Portugal away, again fresh from the Euro semi-finals. We reached the play-offs both times.

Stop making up nonsense excuses.

**Razors left peg** · 03/03/2023, 4:12 PM

This thread just keeps going around in circles, its become as boring as the eligibility thread in the past. No one here is gonna change anyone elses opinions at this point, the games are the only thing worth talking about or speculating on and I cant wait for them to fxukin start.

The forum is starting to become a bit like US politics, people just seem to get entrenched in their opinions and refuse to change them. Even some of the threads on our younger players, you'd swear people want them to fail just so they can say they were right all along. Im guilty myself of arguing past the point where I should at times, but its becoming tiresome and doesnt seem to be the Irish football fan community it used to be. Its like rival fans who hate eachother.

**zero** · 03/03/2023, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

This thread just keeps going around in circles, its become as borings the eligibility thread in the past. No one here is gonna change anyone elses opinions at this point, the games are the only thing worth talking about or speculating on and I cant wait for them to fxukin start.

The forum is starting to become a bit like US politics, people just seem to get entrenched in their opinions and refuse to change them. Even some of the threads on our younger players, you'd swear people want them to fail just so they can say they were right all along. Im guilty myself of arguing past the point where I should at times, but its becoming tiresome and doesnt seem to be the Irish football fan community it used to be. Its like rival fans who hate eachother.

there's always going to be problems when the team is performing badly. in this case it's been bad for over two years. personally i'm slightly optimistic about the france game - i think we might get a result - but expect to blow it by failing to win other games we could win with the players we have.

**Razors left peg** · 03/03/2023, 4:37 PM

The team has been performing badly pretty much since the Euros in France under O'Neill. That was the last great highlight and its been sour since

**zero** · 03/03/2023, 5:27 PM

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

The team has been performing badly pretty much since the Euros in France under O'Neill. That was the last great highlight and its been sour since

Under Mick we took qualification down to the last game, at home. I'd take that most campaigns. At least put up a bit of fight.

**Razors left peg** · 03/03/2023, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by zero

Under Mick we took qualification down to the last game, at home. I'd take that most campaigns. At least put up a bit of fight.

We were awful in that campaign, that is not in anyway a highlight to point to.

**tetsujin1979** · 03/03/2023, 6:01 PM

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

The team has been performing badly pretty much since the Euros in France under O'Neill. That was the last great highlight and its been sour since

I'd argue it was the Wales game at home, when Coleman was injured, that the decline began. At that point we were unbeaten, top of the group, and had beaten Austria away in the previous qualifier. We didn't win again in that group until the Moldova/Wales double header in October. I don't think there's been a performance like the Austria away game since then.

**Yard of Pace** · 03/03/2023, 6:12 PM

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

This thread just keeps going around in circles, its become as boring as the eligibility thread in the past. No one here is gonna change anyone elses opinions at this point, the games are the only thing worth talking about or speculating on and I cant wait for them to fxukin start.

.

Aye. I know I don't have to come to Foot, but I've been doing it for 20 years or more and this thread is woeful. Especially as it contains a number of my favourite posters.

I don't honestly know how or why yis are bothering to write almost all the stuff in the last 20 pages or whatever.

Bring on the games.

**Eirambler** · 03/03/2023, 6:17 PM

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

The forum is starting to become a bit like US politics, people just seem to get entrenched in their opinions and refuse to change them. Even some of the threads on our younger players, you'd swear people want them to fail just so they can say they were right all along. Im guilty myself of arguing past the point where I should at times, but its becoming tiresome and doesnt seem to be the Irish football fan community it used to be. Its like rival fans who hate eachother.

That's pretty much down to the Kenny cult aspect of it though, isn't it? No more than a Trump type being elected in the US - or a Bernie Sanders type on the other side, the opinions just become too polarised as a result to ever lead to a healthy discourse.

In this case it's a subset of supporters who were so desperate for him to succeed that they're willing to defend pretty much any level of performance, no matter how abject, as long as it allows them to continue to avoid having to admit how badly they got it wrong. We've seen it on this thread again today.

I don't think it will change until the manager does, and hopefully after that things will soften again a bit.