Don't know enough about SK's games to comment on him, but be assured, NI's early performances under Michael were, with one or two exceptions, MUCH better than the results indicated eg:
“There was no question of us making a change after the first campaign because we could see Michael was generating potentially good results,” says [IFA CEO Patrick] Nelson, a former chief executive at Notts County and Macclesfield Town. “We were never really out of games in that first campaign and there is an interesting statistic to back that up. If the games had finished after 75 minutes we would have got double the points we ended up with. One of the things Michael needed to do before the [2016] European Championship qualifying campaign was instil belief in the players and he told them: ‘You can do it until the 75th minute of a game, so why not do it for 90?’ That made a difference. That is the sort of thinking and analysis we knew Michael had on his first day."
https://www.theguardian.com/football...ff-switzerland
And as well as the 'Blazers' at the IFA, the fans generally stuck by him and not from any particular sentiment of wanting to see a "local" lad get on, as may be the case with some of SK's (LOI) supporters.
Most importantly, the senior players in the squad - Davis, McAuley, Brunt etc - could see where he was going and stuck by him.
As for Michael managing the ROI, that simply won't happen, even if they were to come up with some more MONROY money from Denis O'Brien etc.
If he is to return to international football (a possibility imo), it will only be after he's given club football a right good go, with my suspicion/guess that it will be in a CEO position, ideally with the IFA - tellingly, he's already gained a qualification in Football Directorship.
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