Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236048#Comment_121236048

The delusion is that changing the manager will fix it without even trying to understand the real problem.

And England were not romping groups. They were sweating about teams and struggling against teams that the other top national would bat aside.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236299#Comment_121236299

Changing manager wont fix the FAI problem no.

Changing manager WILL fix the shíte manager problem.

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236299#Comment_121236299

I can't remember England not qualifying for a tournament so whether they romped or not theres no comparisonto us nor has there ever been.

Plenty needs to change within Irish football for us to be within an assess roar of a tournament not least Irish people's obsession with English football. As evidence by this conversation.

If we want to compare let's do it realistically against other minnows with small populations and $hite home leagues.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236320#Comment_121236320

England didn't qualify for 94 and also missed one under Steve McLaren. Nobody is saying Ireland are at the same level as England just that both have/had problems relative to expectation. You are just being facetious with those comments.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236314#Comment_121236314

Not if the broke and useless FAI hire another shte manager.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236335#Comment_121236335

Be fairly hard to find one as shìte as Kenny again.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236363#Comment_121236363

I have faith in the FAI surpassing your expectations on that one 🤣

WesternZulu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236259#Comment_121236259

You don’t think that England have a massive football structure?

They have the greatest number of domestic professional leagues in the world with a huge number of academies to boot.

Football is embedded into the fabric of life there that simply doesn’t translate to this side of the Irish Sea.

Our football structure is minuscule in comparison.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236390#Comment_121236390

Again nobody is comparing Ireland to England.

We are comparing England's position amongst its peers and Ireland's position amongst ours.

I'll give you a quick example. The French set up Clairfontaine in 1988. It took England until 2013 to set up St. Georges Park despite everything talking about the benifits of such a place for years.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235982#Comment_121235982

When someone plays for Ireland from u14 to u21 and then chooses England. That’s definitely defecting.

JeffKenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236320#Comment_121236320

I thought everyone would remember the Wally with the Brolly

pavb2

After watching that interview last night It’s not fair to anyone to keep Stephen Kenny. All things considered I’d like to see someone like John Eustace take over he’s got a lot of experience and spent a few months with Ireland prior to taking the Birmingham job. He’s proved he can get some measure of success with limited resources.

Either that or your probably looking at McCarthy, Bruce or ONeill.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236410#Comment_121236410

You're right - I should have thought a little more about what I was saying previously - but, what I should have said was that I don't find that decision to defect particularly aggrieving because, like I said, they were raised in England, played their regular football there, and England was evidently their first choice. In the pie chart of player development, international weeks can't be the majority of it since that's only an occasional thing, so we can be disappointed that they didn't declare for Ireland, but we can't really feel too aggrieved or short-changed even if they did make use of our underage setup to get some international experience.

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235721#Comment_121235721

You forgot a key point the Rugby provincial system has worked wonders for Rugby. As a bridge between the club and country. The provinces have become the defacto large clubs. The Irish players can then be enticed to remain in Ireland because of it. Irish Rugby fans now attach themselves to the provinces. There is real sense of community, with players playing locally. Not a manufactured one like those who follow the EPL brands.

Most Irish soccer fans mostly say "we" for Liverpool/Man United/Celtic or which ever English soccer team was winning when they were 10. In some cases the Irish soccer fans even put on the accents in chants, aping the English soccer fans. Calling each other "Mancs" or "Scousers" in Irish pubs!

Then Irish soccer fans wonder why there is no decent Irish club academies for Irish soccer, it is because the domestic league is not supported rinse and repeat.

But somehow this is now used as an excuse for Kenny. All other Irish managers had these constraints and they worked around it as best they could. Trap and MON still managed to qualify for tournaments under these constraints. Making the best use of what they have.

Kenny has done the exact opposite, he has managed to make Ireland an easy side to play against. Side to side backwards, no real threat for much of his 'philosophy' which many said was nicer to watch. Which was people codding themselves in my view. Dreamland stuff.

Ireland's strengths are high energy, pressure pace, making it uneasy for the opposition, The excuse use to be for Kenny he had no Robbie Keane. Well Ferguson was just nominated for the Golden Boy. Look at how Luton use Ogbene direct quick football - pressure, energy. Kenny also has EPL defenders Collins, O'Shea, Doherty, Coleman albeit injured. Even Festy in Serie A. Cullen an EPL midfielder.

And then a scattering of Championship level players. Ireland has nearly always had that sort of level of player. Yet managers achieved beyond the sum of their parts. There still seems to be a cohort of Irish support looking for excuses for Kenny. When there is any chance of some vague positivity Kenny is talked up, when it does not work the players or the FAI is blamed.

And no, the choices are not passing it for the sake of it or hoofing it for the sake of it. Football played correctly is done with purpose and structure. A clear plan from the manager. A good manager also makes tactical changes in game where one strategy is not working. Kenny does not do that, he stands passively slow to react, only when it is too late.

I only caught up on the match last night. But for me the funniest part was prematch Darragh Maloney desperately talking up the age of the squad on screen and the number of caps. Says he "ignore the goals scored for a minute".

Edit - Cullen midfielder not defender typo.

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236408#Comment_121236408

Well maybe I've misunderstood the premise but personally any mention of England to me is redundant.

There's zero to compare. So why they're mentioned at all is beyond me.

It's blindingly obvious we can't go toe to toe with the top teams but that doesn't mean we can't be tactically aware at the same time. Performances up to and including last night show Kenny can't do the latter. We have a mainly Championship standard squad with a sprinkling of EPL players as well. They're intelligent enough to follow a plan that a competent manager would be capable of providing for them. Kenny should save what's left of his reputation and walk now rather than waiting to be officially shown the door later on. I shudder to think what the attendance will be for the New Zealand friendly next month. They'll have to offer crates of free beer or something to entice people to attend.

I think most fans know we won't beat the top teams. However the teams below we should be beating at home, not to mention being competitive against better teams. Kenny has turned us into a soft touch, no fight, easy to play against, rudderless and poorly coached.

Armenia

Luxembourg

Azerbaijan

Bulgaria

Greece

Stephen Kenny has brought us to a new low. Fighting it out with Gibraltar for bottom place. What a time to be alive.

briany

I'll say something which may be a little bit controversial and that is that the team would do well to revert to the defensive organisation of the MoN era. Not because the team cannot play, but because if you start with that discipline and you marry it with the possible edge the team will have in Ogbene and Ferguson, you'll have a team that is hard to score against as well as being dangerous on the counter attack. The Greek team of 2004 has often been cited as the kind of thing Ireland should strive to be, and that's how they played. They had an ability to absorb pressure before hitting a sucker punch.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236615#Comment_121236615

That's not controversial at all. SK isn't fit to lace Mons boots.

LuckyLloyd

Yeah it shouldn’t be controversial to say the priority is becoming hard to beat again. Denying space, denying passing lanes and playing with speed and aggression. Our players will respond to that, there is a competitive bunch there that are being held back by incompetent coaching.

McFly85

I’m fine with being hard to beat as long as that’s not the sum total of our ambition. We’ve seen under Trap, MON and Mick how badly it goes when they actually have no choice but to try and win a game.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236751#Comment_121236751

As opposed to Kenny.

Easy to beat and uncompetitive.

johnnyryan89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236439#Comment_121236439

Ireland job is probably beneath Eustace at the moment. Linked with Rangers and championship teams will have one eye on him at the moment. To get someone like Eustace you'd want to be appointing them before they start making a name for themselves in club football.

Think the FAI will be shopping in the Steve Clarke territory. Experienced manager whose looking for a job to bounce back in. If I was a betting man I'd be throwing money on Chris Hughton.

FAI won't be in a rush to announce a new name ASAP once Kenny's contract isn't renewed in November and AFCON is on in Jan/Feb. Don't think Ghana will step in his way if he wanted to walk away in February. Calling it now that Chris Hughton with Steven Reid as his number two will be in the Irish dugout next year.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236769#Comment_121236769

So because being difficult to beat is better than Kenny in your opinion, that’s what we should be aiming for?

We can be defensively organised but that’s not going to qualify us for tournaments - we’ll need to win games. All of the managers I mentioned above have struggled at some point with that because the teams were generally set up with a must not lose mentality.

Kenny hasn’t worked out and needs to go, but going back to managers who struggled to qualify with more experienced players isn’t the answer imo.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236565#Comment_121236565

Funny enough we did go toe to toe with top teams like France and Portugal. It's against the other 3rd/4th seeds we are found out.

LuckyLloyd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236880#Comment_121236880

There’s a middle ground

We’ve tried both ends of an extreme. We need to be well organised but intentional when we have the ball. We need to be willing to prioritise the Mike Johnston / Wes Hoolahan / Andy Reid when playing lower seeds and needing to beat a low block.

If you think of how Ireland played in the 2002 and 2016 Tournaments - that should be where we are trying to land.

Being in a low block and hoofing it away is every bit as aimless as slow build ups and disjointed pressing.

And it all doesn’t work if we lack the necessary nous on the sideline to make impactful subs and change the shape to counter what the opponent is doing.

Hopefully all ends of this conversation have seen enough to realise that compromises are required and we can get back to the vast majority of the fanbase being engaged and supportive. You have to be positive that it can be better.

LuckyLloyd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236900#Comment_121236900

We went toe to toe for long stretches of those games but didn’t get the results. 2 points from 21 against 1st and 2nd seeds, probably ending with 2 from 24.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236495#Comment_121236495

Some good points but one thing is missing. We have not seen the same emigration from Irl to England since the 90s that there used to be so we are not getting as many good second generation players. Pre 90s Irish were a marginalised culture in England which gave the the people a sense of Irishness. This is no longer the case as the ire of the Tories has moved to brown skinned people and the Irish are now considered as part of the establishment. The third and fourth generations do not have the same grá for the land of their ancestors and see themselves as English of Irish descent. We are now reduced to getting 2nd/3rd generation players and hoping that the lustful eye of England doesn't fall upon them as there is a good chance that they will choose England over us. This is why the abject failure of the FAI is more stark now than it was 20/30 years ago. They were always failures but the diaspora papered over the cracks until relatively recently but now all of those failures are coming home to roost.

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236495#Comment_121236495

Of my circle who like rugby about one has been to a Leinster game, and none would bother with the Magners league. I don't think that's unique to be honest.

Rugby is very much a national team, pints thing outside of a few areas.

All opinion though...

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236985#Comment_121236985

We rarely seem to have a manager who has more than one ridged plan. Even our good managers never adapted to an opposition or situation.

PokeHerKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236995#Comment_121236995

Very much opinion to be fair. Heineken cup is huge. Pro 14 (magners) maybe not as big but still very much supported.

AIL is what youre describing which would be a very niche crowd.

Rugby's structures are NASA compared to FAI and then success breaths support.

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237039#Comment_121237039

The later stages of the Heineken Cup are. Pro 14 (knew I had an old name but was too lazy to check) still barely registers with people.

All in all I think the low barriers to entry from a participation perspective will keep GAA and football ahead of rugby.

And sorry way off topic 😂

tastyt

When you think about Martin O Neills time it really makes you realise that it’s the personnel on the pitch that really dictates how you play . It was obvious that when Wes Hoolahan was on the pitch that the team at that time played in a vastly different way .

And it wasn’t because O Neill was telling them anything different , it’s just that Hoolahan as a player was constantly moving and giving defenders the option to put it into him , demanding the ball . He obviously then had the talent to open the game up in the final third .

If these players are as promising as a lot seem to think then they will do the same for the next manager but he might have a bit more technical skill about him to put a better structure around them

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236985#Comment_121236985

I agree with that.

What stands out with Kenny is that he doesn’t understand the strengths of his players and certainly does not react well to tactical changes by the opposition. I would hope whoever comes in can at least be more proficient there.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being defensive against a top seed where any point is a bonus, but it’s the games against second and fourth seeds we need to be much more intelligent.

As you say, hopefully whoever that is is someone that the whole fanbase can get behind.

pjohnson

It shouldn't be taboo to say we need to make ourselves much harder to beat. Even a basic formation change would help significantly. Kenny's favourite wing back formation regularly left whatever wing back was playing over loaded in 2 vs. 1 situations or just left gaping pockets of space in midfield (despite sometimes having 3 actual central midfielders on the pitch) to allow the opposition long range belters launched unchallenged at Bazunu.

But more importantly from an offensive stand point, we can't have Ferguson left so comically isolated as Kenny does. Most of our attacks are either set pieces (if they beat the first man), or pass to Ogbene and hope he forces something.

noodler

At least I won't hear anyone mention attendances as a reason to keep him anymore.

An absolute disaster that has set us back

noodler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236880#Comment_121236880

Being defensively organized is the way teams like us get to tournaments.

History has shown that

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236439#Comment_121236439

Eustace was part of Kenny's support team so he's probably tainted by that. I imagine he would be more interested in another club position. What about either Roy or Robbie Keane ? Whatever about their tactical nous, each has the stature associated with being distinguished former internationals and each has experience of coaching at a reasonably high level.

luckyboy

Don’t laugh, but Mark Hughes left Bradford City in the last few days. He has a decent coaching pedigree at club and international level (with Wales pre-Speed). You might see him as a yesterday’s man, but somebody like him could do very well in the job (in my opinion) …

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236994#Comment_121236994

Fair point on the emigration, it is harder to attract players with ties to Ireland. I have read articles about potential Irish qualified players from continental Europe etc. But really they would have to be badly stuck if they are anyway decent.

Even those who Ireland had played for Ireland in the past, under the current national team rules would Aldridge, Townsend, Houghton have wanted to played for Ireland even while at the likes of Oxford and Norwich?

Or would they have backed their ability and hedged their bets waiting for the English/Scottish call? The lure of a Euros or a possible World Cup would obviously have helped Ireland's cause in Charlton's time. But still they would at least not just jump at it, maybe just played a few Irish friendlies at best, or waited a bit longer.

But now Ireland is not looking like having the success (qualifying for tournaments) which would make decent players with Irish ties think that Ireland would be a good alternative.

DeanAustin

There is still some room between being hard to beat like Trap’s team and playing like Man City. Greece were it last night. They counter attacked. We had more possession and more shots but, let’s be honest, they controlled the game.

When they broke, they broke with purpose and pace. Their boys weren’t afraid to take the ball under pressure or in tight spaces and they played some lovely one touch football on the break. I was really impressed with them. Contrast that with us where we passed aimlessly and slowly.

Thing is, I’m not sure we have the players to do it. Their lads may play in leagues worse than where our lads play but they looked technically better than us and more comfortable on the ball.

johnnyryan89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237564#Comment_121237564

Can't say don't laugh and then proceed to say what about Mark Hughes for Ireland. He was sacked with Bradford sitting 18th in League Two. Kenny got daggers for calling up and starting McClean after he played a handful of games at that level.

CrowdedHouse

https://twitter.com/coleman_ronan/status/1712942468503650400?s=20

😁😁

billyhead

Would Allerdyce be available at Kenny's salary or even Redknapp? Otherwise the only other option I can think of is Carsley. Definitely not Chris Hougton.

luckyboy

Mark Hughes isn’t League 2 level. I’d actually have more respect for him for taking that job. He’s presumably financially comfortable enough not to have needed to take it.

pgj2015

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237883#Comment_121237883

Carsley wont be any good, mark my words. we will be praying the FAI get Kenny back after a year or 2 with Carsley.

Brock Turnpike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237142#Comment_121237142

Been saying this for a couple of years, but the biggest gap in our squad is a creative midfielder like Wes. We have no link between midfield and attack. Nobody that is willing to constantly show for the ball and receive it in tight spaces, turn and get us up the pitch.

It was glaringly obvious last night especially. Our only hope was Ogbene would force something, and force is the correct description as someone else said - just him running with the ball at his feet with no real feeling there was any great plan.

JPup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237759#Comment_121237759

It’s funny that first sentence, because there is no harder team to beat in world football than Man City. When they lose the ball, they hound the opposition until they win it back. Put em under pressure big Jack style. They also have phenomenal technical ability on the ball and are superbly well organised in transition and attack.

Hard to beat isn’t the opposite of Pep’s philosophy. That’s exactly what he sets out to achieve. I don’t think Stephen Kenny ever really got that. He was copying superficial elements like passing it around the box but missed the big picture (i.e. win your f’ing games!).

All that said, I’d like to see Lee Carsley get the job with Duffer on the coaching ticket.

Theres the bones of a decent squad there with a good manager.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121239256#Comment_121239256

No sane Irish person will ever be praying for another Stephen Kenny era.

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121239256#Comment_121239256

Spot the Dundalk fan in.

Francie Barrett

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/arid-41248165.html

We should at least talk to him.