Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800694#Comment_121800694

Mon on 400k? He was on over a million reportedly. Keane was on more than 400k.

pgj2015

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800709#Comment_121800709

Sorry I was thinking of Brian Kerr, he was on 400,000 per year.

Iecrawfc

If all that's between the FAI and Carsley is 250k then it seems very short-sighted not to get a deal done, and if they haven't had a deal with anyone else why have they ruled out Lennon and now Coleman? And surely there's candidates with a similar profile to Carsley out there that rhey can afford... am thinking it'll be John O'Shea won't it!

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800998#Comment_121800998

It’s 1 million. Carsley will want 250k extra for his entire contract, not just the first year.

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121800373#Comment_121800373

I stand by my opinion

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121803808#Comment_121803808

Ireland is a rich western country that is mad about football but has no proper academy system. That may not mean much to you but I can assure you that it means we are effectively a basket case. That is just one example.

The current FAI administration isn’t to blame for that or most of the other problems. They are publishing plans to fix it but ultimately they’ll probably fail as the problems are just too great and the support and understanding just too little from government, vested interests and public.

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121804014#Comment_121804014

Can you expand on that? What do you mean by the problems are too great? What problems exactly and why aren’t they surmountable?

If you look at rugby in Ireland, the strongest rugby set up in the Northern Hemisphere. That didn’t happen by accident and I don’t think the government did it for them. If you look at Wales which was traditionally a rugby nation by contrast they’re a mess, they just haven’t got themselves organised. Ireland’s rugby association has organised themselves and they’re producing a conveyor belt of world class players.

How come the FAI can’t get themselves organised, get sponsorship, get funding from businesses, they don’t even have a shirt sponsorship. Yet there are still full houses for home internationals. Bigger crowds at LOI games. If they got themselves sorted they could have a decent set up. Why can’t we be at a level like Denmark. Similar population. That’d be a long term thing like 20 years down the line. Bodo Glimt from Norway are playing Ajax in the Europa Conference knock out stages, their average attendances is around 3,500. Don’t see why that can’t be an aspiration for LOI clubs.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121799224#Comment_121799224

...but very bad news for Liverpool.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121804203#Comment_121804203

“”How come the FAI can’t get themselves organised, get sponsorship, get funding from businesses, they don’t even have a shirt sponsorship. Yet there are still full houses for home internationals. Bigger crowds at LOI games. If they got themselves sorted they could have a decent set up.””

we had many of the things above in the Delaney era. We got funding from unconventional sources (Dennis obrien and fifa go away money) , had a shirt sponsor. Had many’s a full house. Had a couple of separate tv deals. Had Delaney on the uefa Exco executive which probably helped us. Didn’t do much good.

the model of Irish football is that the seniors men’s team is the breadwinner for the grassroots, for the underage international sides of both genders, the national league. This is not how it works in most countries. Normally the national league wouldn’t need to be supported by the FA. Normally the national league would make money for the association, not be dependent. Personally speaking Delaney’s description of the league of Ireland as a problem child was not liked by LoI people but it wasn’t inaccurate.

delaney’s reign had many problems but the one that brought it down in the end was that it didn’t have sufficient corporate governance. The new FAI has gone to great lengths to rectify this. They’ve commissioned god knows how many reports and adapted the recommendations from these reports.

but.

the new FAI has no access to income streams that weren’t available to the previous Delaney regime. The league is still a dependant and the men’s senior international team is still the big breadwinner. A greater commitment from the Irish government is still the missing ingredient.

in short they’ve improved corporate governance but the financial resources at their disposal is the same as it ever was.

there are many examples of the state’s neglect of Irish football without looking too hard for them but I believe the most obvious example is dalymount park. In any normal country this would be a 20000 capacity municipal funded stadium and this would have been done decades ago. In Ireland the supposed home of Irish football has been a half condemned ruin for about 15 years. The plan to develop it is desperately unambitious in terms of the capacity and it will not be a uefa A grade stadium once it’s built.

topmanamillion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121799900#Comment_121799900

A nonsense view actually. It takes an attendance of about 20k just for Landsdowne road to break even and pay for the match day costs associated with opening it.

The gates from Ireland home games are paying for a hell of a lot more than the men's senior international managers wages. They're what keeps the lights on in Abbotstown and services the massive debt Delaney left behind for a start.

crustyjuggler

Excellent post @didyou

Did you smash it

Indo get the first interview with Kenny

Azatadine

I see Ferguson started but things don't seem to be going his way there at the moment. He doesn't seem to be having a great season for whatever reason.

dr.kenneth noisewater

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121806597#Comment_121806597

Any good after?

Billy_the_Kid

So looking John O'Shea will be announced as new manager soon. Not an overly qualified candidate to be honest but best of luck to him.

deisedude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121813716#Comment_121813716

Interim or permanent?

LuckyLloyd

Surely an interim appointment?

Which I have no problem with, as I advocated for him to be appointed on that basis halfway through the last campaign.

If he is appointed on a permanent basis then it is very disappointing and concerning.

~Rebel~

Yeah, would have to be interim really, anything else would be insanity. There's no reason to give it to him permanently right now when the fella couldn't even really make a real valid claim for it himself. Interim gives him a chance to show what he's made of, see how he gets on with getting the players onside, and then gives the board something to consider as we go towards the September competitive games. This should be his CV for the main job, do well and you're in the conversation. Suits everyone, including JOS who has zero leverage to push for any more than that.

TheCitizen

If he does alright they’ll just give O’Shea the job. It gets the FAI off the hook, they don’t have the money to attract a required candidate. This kicks the can down the road on it. O’Shea will get the opportunity to audition for the job and ends that conversation and speculation for now.

YTM

Yup John O'Shea as interim to me screams they're not fully confident of finding someone permanently before June.

If John O'Shea ends up being rehired as interim it begs the question why didn't they bring him in as interim sooner when Kenny became a lame duck manager.

Instead he stuck around like a bad smell for October and November's games and we'll likely still ended up with O'Shea as interim four months after everyone was let go.

Iecrawfc

At this stage JOS as interim for the year would be the best of what appears to be a bad situation, they get time to reassess and see what happens after the Euros, If he does well, like the Gleeson situation, he'll get the job on a permanent basis otherwise may be kept on for transition purposes.

fullstop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121813139#Comment_121813139

Looking fairly grim for all Irish players in Prem at the minute. Ferguson is in terrible form since December. Collins dropped after a few shockers. Omobamidele made an absolute howler today and was already struggling for game time. O’Shea and Cullen going straight back down, ditto Egan.

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121814210#Comment_121814210

Because they didn’t want to have to pay off Kenny before his contract was up, they didn’t want to be seen to be paying him while he was gone out of the job. Wouldn’t have looked good for the optics, it’s also why Jonathon Hill repaid 20 k in holiday pay in lieu of holidays that he didn’t take and wasn’t entitled to. Still he asked for the payment in a throw away line in an email and only gave it back because they’re being watched. They’d still be pulling strokes if they could still get away with it by the looks of things. A two bob outfit now due to Delaney’s legacy is the only reason why the corruption is reduced perhaps.

Augme

The assistant manager to the maanger who was sacked as interim manager. Got to love the FAI. I can only assume they are holding out too see what happens with Carsely/Southgate situation.

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121814313#Comment_121814313

He was only assistant for a few months and at least it's not Andrews

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121813476#Comment_121813476

Worth a read but nothing amazing.

Thinks he got a raw deal by some with vested interests in the press and media. His harshest criticism came from Damien Delaney. He was never in the vested interests category from what I saw. Just called it as he saw it. I guess he might mean Phillip Quinn but he’s a crackpot that no one with any sense pays attention to.

kenny said Ireland never conceded from playing out from the back. Dan McDonnell challenged that citing the Cullen giveaway vs France. Kenny came up with some cock and bull story of why that wasn’t playing from the back.

he attacked casement park funding as something that will do nothing for Irish football and brought up the ticking time bomb which is irelands inability to fund an academy structure. He’s spot on there.

Xander10

JOS would be a shocking interim appointment at this stage months after Kenny's departure.

Hopefully just a rumour with no foundation.

briany

Nothing against JOS whatsoever, but yeah, his appointment would be very underwhelming on paper.

This is the doldrums. Ireland are well and truly in the doldrums, now, and I worry the team is still in the opening phase of an epoch that could see the team barely coming within even a chance of competing at another world cup for 20 years, maybe. The kind of wilderness which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland experienced for the previous 2 or 3 decades. Nary a sniff. Maybe they'll get to a Euros, but that's no longer a big achievement. It's expanded so much, that it's nearly harder, now, not to qualify for it. I could see Uefa doing away with qualifiers at some stage and just inviting every team above a certain Uefa ranking to the finals.

Am I just sleep deprived or do I remember some unpopular pundit saying before the 2012 Euros that qualification would set the team back by 10 years because it would delay addressing of some fundamental issues? If so, it might have been a slightly optimistic estimate.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121814313#Comment_121814313

tbf though, it's fairly common for the assistant manager to take over on an interim basis. Makes sense, they know the squad already so there isn't too much upheavel while you wait for the new manager to come in - the new guy is the one who gets to shake things up.

On a short term basis i'd probably rather O'Shea over Jim Crawford. But I definitely don't want either of 'em in the job when the competitive games start up in September (short of pulling off some miracles). Whatever interim comes in should be a 6 month contract.

The Rooster

Personally, don’t rate Idah highly, but two proper striker goals for him today. Lovely finishes. Big goals. Fair play to him.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815331#Comment_121815331

Could have got Noel King in there again. Might have made the post match coverage a bit more interesting.

~Rebel~

As an aside - I'd been feeling a bit negatively about the friendlies being such hard games when it looked like we'd have a new manager in place for them. Would've been a very deflating start for someone to have 4 games in a row that we'd most likely lose.

Now that it's more likely to be an interim I think it provides a bit of a quailty-buffer... had we had 4 games against the likes of Oman or Andorra etc, and gotten solid wins, you could totally see the FAi giving the job to the interim'er. For that to happen now will require some genuinely impressive results, even for friendlies.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815331#Comment_121815331

I don't think it's fairly common for an organisation to have a recruitment process for a new manager, fail miserable at it and then revert back to an interim manager though. Can't ever remember that happening tbh. I also don't think having a brand new manager launching straight into competitive matches is anything but a negative either. The new long term manager will have no time to interact with the players which the friendlies in the summer will provide. The four friendlies would have been great for that.

DellyBelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815348#Comment_121815348

Wouldn't rate him highly but I think the SPL is a perfect level for him. Hopefully keeps banging in the goals for his confidence

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815574#Comment_121815574

No, I mean obviously it's been a rubbish process, that's not in question. But in response to your statement of; "The assistant manager to the manager who was sacked as interim manager" that bit of it is actually pretty normal. It's the wrong thing to be complaining about.

I think it's the right thing for them to do at this point though. I saw someone in the Utd thread the other day say something like; "it's better to walk in the right direction than run in the wrong one" - and that's very true here. It's much better to appoint an interim that bides time until the summer - when obviously more people are available than mid-season - than to appoint the wrong permanent manager now just for the sake of it. Last thing I want these lads doing is doubling down on mistakes.

YTM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815331#Comment_121815331

It's common alright for a coach to take control when the manager loses his job. That's cool if it happened last year. Not four months after everyone, including O'Shea, also lost their jobs.

I'd much rather Crawford take charge short term over O'Shea. If Anthony Barry gets the plaudits for good things that happened during his time with Ireland as coach then O'Shea should get his fair share of credit for what turned out to be the poorest year results wise for Ireland. The worst part of Kenny's reign coincided with O'Shea being involved, now he might find himself as the manager short term.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815616#Comment_121815616

I dont really think it's normal though. It's normal to give an interim the position in a club to tide a club over in the short term as there are games almost immediately. As I can't think of a country who wouldn't want s full time manage run place as quickly as possible before a qualifying campaign starts tbh.

I can't see the shortlist suddenly expanding hugely in the summer. Its not we are holding out for Thomas Tuchel or anyone of that calibre.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815619#Comment_121815619

Crawford or O'Shea is much of a muchness. Either way it's an insider-appointment, and it's a decision being made by people who have a better sense than we do of what value the two individuals offer. We can make a very uninformed guess of how O'Shea was, but we've absolutely no actual idea. From seeing the U21s, Crawford is definitely not a particularly good manager anyway, so there's no great loss in taking perhaps a slightly bigger risk on more of an unknown quantity for a few friendlies.

There's loads to complain about with the FAI, I just don't think "which much-of-a-muchness option takes the friendlies" is just not really one of them. All that's actually important is getting the best permanent manager they can get.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815652#Comment_121815652

Yeah, i dunno, I find it very very hard to have anything more than a shrug over a decision to appoint the assistant manager who the players know and like, over a poor U21 coach, for a few friendlies. It's fine like.

As for the rest, we are where we are. They tried to get a decent manager. They couldn't get a decent manager.

And there's definitely going to be more options available in the summer. For starters, a sizable percentage of currently employed international managers will be out of contract at that stage as the international cycle ends. For instance the one whose name keeps coming up is Poyet, who's made it clear he's definitely going nowhere until after the Euro qualifiers (or the Euros proper if they beat Kazakhstan), but is then free. September is the real deadline - if biding our time improves our prospects, yeah, grand.

pgj2015

Was in Dublin airport earlier today, saw a load of kids and coaches with Atletico Madrid tracksuits, wondered what it was about. interesting.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/matt-dohertys-time-atletico-up-30238014

LowOdour

Fair play to Kelleher today, proving lately he can play at the top level

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121816620#Comment_121816620

Genuinely top quality performance, as good as you’ll ever see from a keeper.

LuckyLloyd

Should be first choice for us going forward.

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121815348#Comment_121815348

Yes, delighted for him. The two penalties he scored were also crucial in an extremely pressurised situation. He definitely has a big game mentality about him which could be useful in international matches.

TheCitizen

Brilliant from Kelleher. Just goes to show how important it is to be playing regularly. He often looked nervous when starting games over the last few seasons but with more game time his confidence grows and that ability that they’ve always said was there becomes apparent.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817462#Comment_121817462

Yeah, he looks an awful lot better now with this run of games. Makes sense, gets to shake the rust off and feel more a part of the team. This cup run, and the month or so deputising for Alisson, could be fairly instrumental in getting him a much better move over the summer than he might otherwise have had. Really picking the right time to do the business.

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817636#Comment_121817636

If he keeps playing like he did today he takes Alison’s place. He’s in possession right now.

I recall a year or two ago when he was linked with moves to other clubs for 20 million euros or more. I thought it was ridiculous but a bit of sustained game time makes a huge difference. Great to see.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817686#Comment_121817686

Ah I know what you're saying, but he really doesn't - Alisson is the best keeper in the world, and will be the number 1 again after the international break. There's no shame in being a brilliant backup behind the very best in the game right now.

But yeah, totally agree on the rest - he looked like he had bags of potential, and had some really great games, - but still looked more like more of a championship prospect than a top level one. Now that he's playing regularly, he's showing he could go anywhere.

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817749#Comment_121817749

He’s a number 1 at the top level. Can’t be expected to continue to be back up from next season.

It shows the changes in the game but also that some things remain. Goalkeepers always lasted longer and continue to take longer to come in to their peak.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817775#Comment_121817775

For sure, he'll almost certainly move on this summer. Really interested to see what sort of competition there is for his signiture. I'd worried about him maybe ending up at a relegation struggler like Bazunu did, and just facing an uphill battle immediately - but he now looks like he could get himself a mid-table or better club, which would be amazing for Ireland.