Republic of Ireland Team Talk/News/Rumours 2020/2021 - see Mod Note in OP [18/11/20]

noodler

Girly Gal wrote: »

Check UEFA.com, they list all the play off games for Euro 2020, Slovakia v Ireland is listed as part of the play off games; it states that 16 teams took part in play off matches for 4 places, so if UEFA are calling it a play off match I'll go with them.

The point is we did not get the playoff from finishing third in the group. We had it in the bag automatically from the convoluted way the NL works.

So essentially McCarthy's performances had no bearing on us getting a play off.

I'd still argue he had us one goal away from qualifying automatically though.

Girly Gal

noodler wrote: »

The point is we did not get the playoff from finishing third in the group. We had it in the bag automatically from the convoluted way the NL works.

So essentially McCarthy's performances had no bearing on us getting a play off.

I'd still argue he had us one goal away from qualifying automatically though.

Had forgotten about that tbh, my point in my original post was that Kenny should have been given the job directly after O Neil, shoehorning in McCarthy as an interim manager set up both managers for failure McCarthy was only worried about the short term and it showed that the FAI didn't fully believe in Kenny.

tastyt

Another point , people saying Kenny needs time to get his message across to players.

These guys are all professional footballers in their 20”s that play the game every single day and have done for years . Do you honestly think they have never worked for a manager who wants to play football ?

Kenny is not doing anything revolutionary, he is trying to play a slow possession game with players that aren’t good enough to then inject a bit of pace and quality in the final third .

He also has 10 days every few months with them , he’s not going to improve players to any great extent .

The best managers see who they have available and make a plan around that and suit the players they have , they don’t let their ego and “ style” get in the way . Ferguson , Ancellotti, you never hear any bull**** about style of play from them .

Kenny was brought in and billed as the saviour and he said himself he would change the perception of the rest of the world of Irish football and players, which in itself was a huge insult to the managers and great players we’ve had in the past .

He’s a dead duck

pjohnson

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Because not finishing third makes the task harder in the next qualification campaign. Results matter, and he’s incapable of getting them.

Seems some just want us to take an NBA-esque tanking approach.

DeanAustin

tastyt wrote: »

Another point , people saying Kenny needs time to get his message across to players.

These guys are all professional footballers in their 20”s that play the game every single day and have done for years . Do you honestly think they have never worked for a manager who wants to play football ?

Kenny is not doing anything revolutionary, he is trying to play a slow possession game with players that aren’t good enough to then inject a bit of pace and quality in the final third .

He also has 10 days every few months with them , he’s not going to improve players to any great extent .

The best managers see who they have available and make a plan around that and suit the players they have , they don’t let their ego and “ style” get in the way . Ferguson , Ancellotti, you never hear any bull**** about style of play from them .

Kenny was brought in and billed as the saviour and he said himself he would change the perception of the rest of the world of Irish football and players, which in itself was a huge insult to the managers and great players we’ve had in the past .

He’s a dead duck

Klopp and Guardiola, arguably the two best managers in the world today, you hear a lot about their philosophy and style. Ditto Pochettino and Bielsa.

Kenny obviously isn't in their league and you have a point but we had results managers, the best we could afford, and people gave out yards about them.

LuckyLloyd

pjohnson wrote: »

Seems some just want us to take an NBA-esque tanking approach.

I think the psychology behind the trenchant absolution of Kenny's sins is quite fascinating. It's a culmination of years of frustration:

- with the FAI
- with the struggles of the LOI
- with the pragmatism of approach under Trapp and O'Neill

and it seems that people don't care. Kenny will get unlimited time to have unlimited bad results to reduce our seeding to complete rubble because at least he represents the greener grass far off yonder.

There's also at least some obstinance from certain Kenny supporters. They hate the joy the national team has brought over the years while the LOI suffered, and they resent it. And they think we "deserve" last night on some level. Misery loves company.

Time to cut the ****. Kenny needs to be moved to the side and replaced with someone who will meet the players where they are and will continue to be. Our approach should leverage their strengths, not magnify their weaknesses.

sterz

I'm watching the highlights of the other games now on VM and saw Malta going 2 up away vs Slovakia and ended up drawing the game. For those harping on about rankings and trying to put stock in them, Slovakia are 34th and Malta are 176th (one place behind the mighty St. Lucia).

There's not a whole lot between some of these sides (clearly going by yesterday's performances) so I don't think we should be that surprised that the worst Irish squad over the past x number of years were outplayed. I'd also question Coleman mentioning it being an embarrassment as it suggests that they went into this game believing in that supposed gulf between the two teams. Dose of reality for the lot of them.

gormdubhgorm

if I was to bring in an Irish manager instead of Kenny. If he does finally get fed up of it or is sacked.

I would go for Brian Kerr a pragmatic manager who mixes his football. Plus I feel he was hard done by being sacked by the FAI the last time. Who knows? At least the man has motivational skills.

Mick McCarthy must be sitting some saying 'I told you so. I was doing the best with what I got'. MON the same as the Irish technical players got older. War of attrition became the only way. Trap looked on his management like a missionary helping a backward country get organised and who would find it impossible to play productive possession football. The key word here is productive. Penetrative passes and so on

I wouldn't go for the likes of Roy Keane because the man is not a motivational manager. The Irish players confidence is at such a low now. They would only get more upset if Keane came along.

So if Brian Kerr does not want the job what other choice is there on the cheap. Duff/Keane lads with no experience at all with coaching. The FAI tried that with Stan and it basically tarnished the rep of an Irish legend. I would argue that Stans results were worse than Kenny's because of the standard of Irish player and how International football was then,

After all of that I would say stick with Kenny. But someone needs to have a word in his ear and tell him to get a settled formation. Make the team harder to break down and go slightly more direct to try and unsettle the opposition. I am not saying lamp it for the sake of it though.

At the moment even the most casual watcher can see how easy Ireland is to play against zero threat. Sdieways pass sideways pass in their own half. No penetrative pass short or long and they lose possession.

Stuey Byrne even pointed out that Ireland did not even switch the play and concetrted down one side. Leaving Doherty on his own 'scratching his @rse'

Poor fella looked like he wanted to cry. And this was just a pundit. At the rate things are going the whole Irish squad, manager and pundits will have to go to psychologists - never mind sports ones. I can't remember an atmosphere in an Irish squad that seems to be as flat. It can't get any lower than this.

.

celt262

sterz wrote: »

I'm watching the highlights of the other games now on VM and saw Malta going 2 up away vs Slovakia and ended up drawing the game. For those harping on about rankings and trying to put stock in them, Slovakia are 34th and Malta are 176th (one place behind the mighty St. Lucia).

There's not a whole lot between some of these sides (clearly going by yesterday's performances) so I don't think we should be that surprised that the worst Irish squad over the past x number of years were outplayed. I'd also question Coleman mentioning it being an embarrassment as it suggests that they went into this game believing in that supposed gulf between the two teams. Dose of reality for the lot of them.

I thought he was been disrespectful to Luxembourg we have no right to think we should be beating anyone.

TheCitizen

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Why move Kenny on now? Leave him there for this campaign then re assess

Because it might do more harm than good to leave him in charge. Doesn’t do players confidence any good when they can’t win any games even against the likes of Luxembourg

siblers

celt262 wrote: »

I thought he was been disrespectful to Luxembourg we have no right to think we should be beating anyone.

It's the manner of the performance which is more worrying. Didn't look closely like scoring apart from Collins chance. Wasn't even surprised when they scored

Deeper Blue

I don't care about the style of play he's trying to implement, the fact that he's trying to bring through youth, who he's managed before or what he's done in the past, any Ireland manager that loses at home to Luxembourg in a competitive game HAS to be sacked.

gormdubhgorm

celt262 wrote: »

I thought he was been disrespectful to Luxembourg we have no right to think we should be beating anyone.

Yeah it was almost equivalent to the English players reaction, when Iceland beat them.

There are very few 'walk over 'teams left in international football these days. I was trying to explain that to my auld fella. But he was going on about Luxembourg been full of postmen etc. Thinking like it was 20 years ago.

Yer man that is managing Luxembourg has been developing that side slowly for 10 years along with the Luxembourg's FA centre of excellence revamp 10 years prior. They seem to have done it right and took their time with it.

The FAI hired a Dutch performance director 8 years ago now

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/dokter-who-fais-performance-director-ruud-dokter-29639487.html

How come there has been no improvement underage even?
They appointed some other Dutch fella as well who's name escapes me.

Something is wrong somewhere, when even the Dutch can't help.

yohan the great

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Yeah it was almost equivalent to the English players reaction, when Iceland beat them.

There are very few 'walk over 'teams left in international football these days. I was trying to explain that to my auld fella. But he was going on about Luxembourg been full of postmen etc. Thinking like it was 20 years ago.

Yer man that is managing Luxembourg has been developing that side slowly for 10 years along with the Luxembourg's FA centre of excellence revamp 10 years prior. They seem to have done it right and took their time with it.

The FAI hired a Dutch performance director 8 years ago now

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/dokter-who-fais-performance-director-ruud-dokter-29639487.html

How come there has been no improvement underage even?
They appointed some other Dutch fella as well who's name escapes me.

Something is wrong somewhere, when even the Dutch can't help.

There has been an improvement at underage. Two Euro u17 and u19s semis in the last few years and probably would have qualified for the Euro u21s only for Covid. These players need to go out and get first team football now and Ruud Dokter can't help them with that

Girly Gal

It's all very well having a progressive style of play if you have the players to do that, simple fact is we don't. No point going on about Guardiola or Klopp having a certain philosophy, they have some of the best players in the world playing for them, plus they can buy players to suit whatever style they want to play, we can't. We have a limited group of players with a limited skillset, no word class players, most are either not playing regularly or at a lower level than required, it's naive of the manager to think they can play this progressive style and expect to be successful, we need a more pragmatic approach obviously not as dour and defensive as O Neil and Trapp, but, at very least make us difficult to break down and a little more direct to create some chances. We're struggling to even create chances, if you're not creating chances you can't score.
Don't think anyone expects us to be world beaters, but, we should be more competitive and at least still have a chance of qualifying for tournaments after 2 matches, losing to teams like Luxembourg at home really is unacceptable regardless who the manager is, we'll struggle not to finish bottom of the table at this rate.

BorneTobyWilde

I just saw the score, we lost. Geez, thought it was 0-0 . This is first time ever I don't even watch Ireland play, they've drifted so far. I don't know who the manager is, yes I could google it, but should I have to. Same with 90% of the players, never heard of them of, nor have I seen them play before.

~Rebel~

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I just saw the score, we lost. Geez, thought it was 0-0 . This is first time ever I don't even watch Ireland play, they've drifted so far. I don't know who the manager is, yes I could google it, but should I have to. Same with 90% of the players, never heard of them of, nor have I seen them play before.

This sounds more like a ‘you’ problem than an ‘Ireland’ problem though...

simongurnick

Girly Gal wrote: »

It's all very well having a progressive style of play if you have the players to do that, simple fact is we don't. No point going on about Guardiola or Klopp having a certain philosophy, they have some of the best players in the world playing for them, plus they can buy players to suit whatever style they want to play, we can't. We have a limited group of players with a limited skillset, no word class players, most are either not playing regularly or at a lower level than required, it's naive of the manager to think they can play this progressive style and expect to be successful, we need a more pragmatic approach obviously not as dour and defensive as O Neil and Trapp, but, at very least make us difficult to break down and a little more direct to create some chances. We're struggling to even create chances, if you're not creating chances you can't score.
Don't think anyone expects us to be world beaters, but, we should be more competitive and at least still have a chance of qualifying for tournaments after 2 matches, losing to teams like Luxembourg at home really is unacceptable regardless who the manager is, we'll struggle not to finish bottom of the table at this rate.

Agreed. We need to play to our strengths. And the argument of not having the players is true in regards of challenging the top elite teams , but we do have decent enough players to beat the likes of finland, Bulgaria, wales, slovakia, serbia and Luxembourg. You beat those kind of teams frequently then you qualify for euros at least.
After this campaign we'll be seeded with the Armenia's and Estonia of the world.

yohan the great

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I just saw the score, we lost. Geez, thought it was 0-0 . This is first time ever I don't even watch Ireland play, they've drifted so far. I don't know who the manager is, yes I could google it, but should I have to. Same with 90% of the players, never heard of them of, nor have I seen them play before.

You are part of the problem

Fr Tod Umptious

yohan the great wrote: »

You are part of the problem

Can you explain why that poster is "part of the problem" as you put it ?

Francie Barrett

One thing we haven't considered too much is how the current run of poor results is damaging our ranking. Some people are suggesting that we "write-off" this qualifying campaign with the goal of qualifying for Euro 2024. Well, if we continue on the path we're on, we could end up damaging our ranking to the extent that we end up in pot 4, as opposed to pot 3 where we currently are.

The Luxembourg result was extremely harmful (as is any defeat to a country ranked so far below us). Norway, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Iceland have all gained positions over us and we now find ourselves ranked 28 of all European nations. To retain pot 3 status, we realistically need to remain ranked in the top 30. Greece, Finland, and Bosnia occupy the 29th, 30th, and 31st positions and are only between 10-20 points behind us. With such fine margins, any further slips against Azerbaijan and Luxembourg would have a very big impact.

There's obviously a long time to go until the Euro 2024 draw (December 2022), but there's only 12 competitive games between now and then assuming we don't somehow qualify for the World Cup (6 remaining WC qualifiers + 6 Nations League games). The scoring for rankings for WC qualifier games is 25, for NL games is 15, and for friendlies is 5 (the two Qatar games are treated as such). Between now and then, the next 6 WC qualifiers are our most important games in determining what pot we end up in.

Outside of the two Qatar games which won't be significant to rankings, I hope it's clear from the above just how important these last 6 WC qualifiers are. I hope people are aware of this before they start making calls for more experimentation, or just playing the kids.

ben.schlomo

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I just saw the score, we lost. Geez, thought it was 0-0 . This is first time ever I don't even watch Ireland play, they've drifted so far. I don't know who the manager is, yes I could google it, but should I have to. Same with 90% of the players, never heard of them of, nor have I seen them play before.

So you've never heard of 19/23 man squad. Never heard of Coleman, McClean, Long, Hendrick, Brady, Robinson, OShea, Stevens, Clark or Doherty. All premier League players who regularly play against Liverpool. Really? Thought not.

Adamocovic

Considering how tough this last week was I can only imagine when we play Portugal, Azerbaijan and Serbia in a 7 day spell!

BorneTobyWilde

Appointing this manager who ever he is was all about money, O neil was top fourth highest paid manager in Europe when he had the job. They bring in this GAA guy and he's on burger flipping money.

Bring in Rafa, give him 4m a year.

DM_7

Yesterday was awful and I am not going to defend Kenny as I thought he made awful choices during the game that had no positive impact on the pitch.

In terms of team direction the senior team is genuinely in a development phase and any Ireland manager as part of their mandate now has to have a focus on player development. Ireland do not have the pick of players that was there in the past and will need to select players with a view to getting them international experience and used to playing with each other.

Previous managers did not have that mandate so I don't blame them for overlooking younger players but Ireland can't have a scenario where an Alan Browne, who has played senior football at club level the last 6 years in England gets to 25 and has 13 caps. John Egan at 28 has similar number of caps but playing at a good level in England the past 7 years. Even Ronan Curtis after three seasons of league one should be well up the cap numbers.

Ireland's manager, either Kenny, or if things keep going as they are, the next manager is going to have to blood and develop a group of players together, some of whom may not be doing that well at club level but they can still be strong options for the international side as their experience grows. Players like Idah, Knight, Cullen, Connolly, Browne, O'Shea, Molumby are all experiencing differing levels of success at club level. At international level Ireland just have to utilise them and turn them into international players, hopefully some players become really high quality and Ireland will have the wider squad to support them as a result of the focus on getting players the experience they need.

It is also important to consider when we talk about stregths that the English system we rely on so much is looking to develop players of a more technical ability than in the past so the Irish players strengths are not like they used to be.

It is going to be a tough time regardless and the focus will have to be on Ireland and what it can do to improve. There is no room for looking at the opponent and just think we should be better, Ireland have to focus on just getting better.

Adamocovic

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Appointing this manager who ever he is was all about money, O neil was top fourth highest paid manager in Europe when he had the job. They bring in this GAA guy and he's on burger flipping money.

Bring in Rafa, give him 4m a year.

Joachim Löw will be free soon. I’d say we should bring him in.

Done wonders for Germany.

BonnieSituation

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

I'd stick Robbie Keane in until the end of the campaign. At least has experience of full time football. No idea why Kenny thought he was qualified to tell such a legend under contract that his services were not needed. Kenny seemed to want to only work with people at his level

And with that...

Time for a break from this thread.

BorneTobyWilde

ben.schlomo wrote: »

So you've never heard of 19/23 man squad. Never heard of Coleman, McClean, Long, Hendrick, Brady, Robinson, OShea, Stevens, Clark or Doherty. All premier League players who regularly play against Liverpool. Really? Thought not.

I know these players. They are from previous times. That team that played last night, nope, Coleman only one, Doherty I heard of, but could not pick him out of a lineup.

BorneTobyWilde

Adamocovic wrote: »

Joachim Löw will be free soon. I’d say we should bring him in.

Done wonders for Germany.

Doubt he'd want a project at his stage after so much success with Germany. Rafa is free, based in Liverpool, knows they players.

Bob the Seducer

One thing which keeps being trotted out as if it were fact is that the players won't/don't respect Stephen Kenny because of his football background.

It's worth remembering that of the current squad, Gavin Bazunu, Seamus Coleman, Enda Stevens, Ryan Manning, James McClean, Daryl Horgan, Shane Long and Ronan Curtis are ex League of Ireland players, Alan Browne and Matt Doherty both went over to England at 18 from the league and of the players currently unavailable, both Kevin Long and Jack Byrne have also played in the League of Ireland. That's a solid wedge of players with the same background as the manager.

gormdubhgorm

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Appointing this manager who ever he is was all about money, O neil was top fourth highest paid manager in Europe when he had the job. They bring in this GAA guy and he's on burger flipping money.

Bring in Rafa, give him 4m a year.

A GAA guy when has Kenny being involved in the GAA ??? Whoever he is?

Bring in Rafa 4m a year ? Who is going to pay it? You? The FAI are broke.

You sound like you really have your finger on the pulse. And are financial guru.
I suggest you start with wikipedia learn players names, learn the managers name, and read newspaper articles.

yohan the great

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Can you explain why that poster is "part of the problem" as you put it ?

A Liverpool fan who doesn't watch us play and then thinks we have a god given right to have good players

People love blaming the FAI for stuff when in reality the Irish public are the biggest problem

gormdubhgorm

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I know these players. They are from previous times. That team that played last night, nope, Coleman only one, Doherty I heard of, but could not pick him out of a lineup.

You sound like a 'massive soccer fan' it is wonder you knew how to do an internet search for the game at all. Kudos for that. Yet you said in your initial post 'jeez we lost'. You seem very mixed up.

sterz

Bob the Seducer wrote: »

One thing which keeps being trotted out as if it were fact is that the players won't/don't respect Stephen Kenny because of his football background.

It's worth remembering that of the current squad, Gavin Bazunu, Seamus Coleman, Enda Stevens, Ryan Manning, James McClean, Daryl Horgan, Shane Long and Ronan Curtis are ex League of Ireland players, Alan Browne and Matt Doherty both went over to England at 18 from the league and of the players currently unavailable, both Kevin Long and Jack Byrne have also played in the League of Ireland. That's a solid wedge of players with the same background as the manager.

Yeah I'm not buying that the players are not behind Kenny. They've appeared up for it in every game with the exception of last night - I'm not sure why there was such a distinct lack of energy compared with the game on Wednesday night. Coleman wasn't having any of it in his post-match interview (as in blaming the manager). Putting the blame solely on himself and the rest of the players.

Oat23

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

You sound like a 'massive soccer fan' it is wonder you knew how to do an internet search for the game at all. Kudos for that. Yet you said in your initial post 'jeez we lost'. You seem very mixed up.

He/she has almost 12,000 posts in this forum. Most of which seem to be in the Liverpool thread.


They typify the type of Irish fan who sat back and let Delaney run wild for the past 15 years and run us into the ground, but when it comes time to reap what they let his FAI sow they are full of nothing but complaints.



And I'll stop there. I'll be banned if I were to actually reply to that person seriously.

Zico !

Kenny wants us to play a passing game but we don't have the players to do it so either he goes or we magically find 11 players to suit his style.

~Rebel~

sterz wrote: »

Yeah I'm not buying that the players are not behind Kenny. They've appeared up for it in every game with the exception of last night - I'm not sure why there was such a distinct lack of energy compared with the game on Wednesday night. Coleman wasn't having any of it in his post-match interview (as in blaming the manager). Putting the blame solely on himself and the rest of the players.

Think part of the problem is the basic thing of a lot of the lads not playing enough club football to be sharp and in shape enough for back to back games. All our worst performances have come in the 2nd or 3rd game in these tight windows.

Looked alright against Bulgaria with the score draw, looked slower against Finland a few days later. Looked alright against Slovakia, looked tireder and against first Wales and then (even slower against) Finland in the few days after. Looked quite good and high energy against Serbia (for 60 mins especially), looked drained last night.

Makes a certain amount of sense when you look at how few lads we have used to playing 90 minutes regularly - and the guys who do are generally the ones who have looked alright. I don’t know how we fix that beyond the players getting their club careers going, and we don’t have the depth to make wholesale changes to freshen things up.

Bob the Seducer

sterz wrote: »

Yeah I'm not buying that the players are not behind Kenny. They've appeared up for it in every game with the exception of last night - I'm not sure why there was such a distinct lack of energy compared with the game on Wednesday night. Coleman wasn't having any of it in his post-match interview (as in blaming the manager). Putting the blame solely on himself and the rest of the players.

I've been of the opinion for a while that of all the football teams I've watched over the past year, Ireland have suffered most from the pandemic restrictions.

I know the whole concept of fans being the 12th man is a bit glib, but I think it's a real thing for Ireland. When you have players struggling for game time, out of form at club level or engaged in relegation battles, the chance to get away from all that, pull on the green jersey and run out in front of a crowd of 40,000+ backing you means you can shelve the problems for a couple of days at least.

In an empty stadium, 11 v 11 just turns into a training match and they've at time struggled to get fired up and reach the level of intensity required to put on a decent performance. The fans coming back won't solve all our problems as we have much deeper issues to contend with, but I notice that David Forde (who's currently head of psychology at Crystal Palace) has been added to the background team in the past week. While the initial explanation is that he's there to help out the players who have been the target of online abuse, I wonder if he might have also been brought in to try and get players in the right frame of mind for matches while fans are still MIA.

Fr Tod Umptious

Bob the Seducer wrote: »

I've been of the opinion for a while that of all the football teams I've watched over the past year, Ireland have suffered most from the pandemic restrictions.

I know the whole concept of fans being the 12th man is a bit glib, but I think it's a real thing for Ireland. When you have players struggling for game time, out of form at club level or engaged in relegation battles, the chance to get away from all that, pull on the green jersey and run out in front of a crowd of 40,000+ backing you means you can shelve the problems for a couple of days at least.

In an empty stadium, 11 v 11 just turns into a training match and they've at time struggled to get fired up and reach the level of intensity required to put on a decent performance. The fans coming back won't solve all our problems as we have much deeper issues to contend with, but I notice that David Forde (who's currently head of psychology at Crystal Palace) has been added to the background team in the past week. While the initial explanation is that he's there to help out the players who have been the target of online abuse, I wonder if he might have also been brought in to try and get players in the right frame of mind for matches while fans are still MIA.

You would not have 40k there last night.
Crowds were already down pre COVID.
No way would you get 40k for a team that has not won in 10 and only scored 3 goals in the last nine games.

FixdePitchmark

Bob the Seducer wrote: »

One thing which keeps being trotted out as if it were fact is that the players won't/don't respect Stephen Kenny because of his football background.

It's worth remembering that of the current squad, Gavin Bazunu, Seamus Coleman, Enda Stevens, Ryan Manning, James McClean, Daryl Horgan, Shane Long and Ronan Curtis are ex League of Ireland players, Alan Browne and Matt Doherty both went over to England at 18 from the league and of the players currently unavailable, both Kevin Long and Jack Byrne have also played in the League of Ireland. That's a solid wedge of players with the same background as the manager.

To turn that point on its head - does that not precisely make them more aware - they are at another level in the UK.

Worztron

Is the Lux game our worst ever result? The last result I recall to be so appalling was a 0-0 with Liechtenstein back in 1995.

~Rebel~

Worztron wrote: »

Is the Lux game our worst ever result? The last result I recall to be so appalling was a 0-0 with Liechtenstein back in 1995.

I think it’s one of those things where it’ll take the fullness of time to really tell. Perhaps our worst home result though.

But for me both Macedonia and Cyprus are still much worse, particularly when you look at the players available for those Irish sides back then.

BorneTobyWilde

Zico ! wrote: »

Kenny wants us to play a passing game but we don't have the players to do it so either he goes or we magically find 11 players to suit his style.

I find that really weird that a pro footballer can't pass the ball. I can pass the ball ffs.

Being determined to retain ball, and to 100% be sure to pass it to a team mate is not difficult. For the most part passes are easy, the final pass is the one you might or might not complete, that's okay, but in general play losing ball or passing it willy-nilly to the opponent is not on.
I'd be pulling that player off at half time.

Neeson

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Appointing this manager who ever he is was all about money, O neil was top fourth highest paid manager in Europe when he had the job. They bring in this GAA guy and he's on burger flipping money.

Bring in Rafa, give him 4m a year.

GAA guy! What’s Jim McGuinness at these days? Failed in America. But his charisma might have more impact on the players than miserable monotone Kenny. He’d start out making them hard to beat anyway. Seamus Coleman should go rogue and give Jim a call.

Neeson

sterz wrote: »

Yeah I'm not buying that the players are not behind Kenny. They've appeared up for it in every game with the exception of last night - I'm not sure why there was such a distinct lack of energy compared with the game on Wednesday night. Coleman wasn't having any of it in his post-match interview (as in blaming the manager). Putting the blame solely on himself and the rest of the players.

Players are never going to slate the manager to the media though. Especially the captain. They know time and public opinion will see him on his way but they back him while he’s there.

topmanamillion

Worztron wrote: »

Is the Lux game our worst ever result? The last result I recall to be so appalling was a 0-0 with Liechtenstein back in 1995.

The 5-2 against Cyprus is a serious contender. We were battered that night.

The 2-1 last roll of the dice win against San Marino would be up there too.

Considering what other teams in our group did to them afterwards the 1-0 win in Gibraltar was pretty poor too. Very nearly drew that game.

The San Marino and Gibraltar tight wins were against part timers and amateurs ranked 150 odd places below us.

Bob the Seducer

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

You would not have 40k there last night.
Crowds were already down pre COVID.
No way would you get 40k for a team that has not won in 10 and only scored 3 goals in the last nine games.

That run of 10 without a win, only scoring 3 happened without fans, no-one can predict what results might have been with fans there. The point I made is that not having the fans in appears to have had a bigger impact on the Irish team than most others I've watched.

Crowds were down for the friendlies before COVID, from what I can see our last two competitive home games with fans (Switzerland and Denmark) had attendances of 44,000 and 50,000.

Richard Hillman

Worztron wrote: »

Is the Lux game our worst ever result? The last result I recall to be so appalling was a 0-0 with Liechtenstein back in 1995.

Id say Cyprus 5-2.The 2-1 Win against San Marino was pretty low. I was withdrawn to hoping the plucky underdog could hold out for a famous 1-1 draw and then when we scored it was case of "ugh". When you're cheering for the other team,you know things are bad :pac:

mikeym

You cant polish a turd. And thats what some people are doing here.

briany

topmanamillion wrote: »

The 2-1 last roll of the dice win against San Marino would be up there too.

The most galling thing about that result was that the next day, I think, an ailing Bobby Robson had to go on Liveline to explain the result and answer the questions of irate callers. It seems ridiculous now. I'm sure it seemed ridiculous then as well, but a bit less so because people still expected a bit more of the Irish team.