Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

The way I see it yesterday was very similar to how ireland played under mick and Martin. Aerial bombardment from crosses getting thrown in.

under mick and Martin we’d get in behind them more and we wouldn’t be played through the center of our midfield as much.

only time we got in behind Azerbaijan was a one-two between Coleman and Doherty where Coleman over hit the pass….maybe I’m forgetting another time. I hope so because that is bad for 90 mins. Goals are mainly scored by getting behind the opposition line

God though Christie actually makes me miss the likes of McShane.

See what working?

You said; "...have to revert to whatever type people feel Mick had us at previously"

I don't see the Mick approach working any better. We need to improve. not regress.

Ah, I guess it could have been read that way too.

I meant that despite the new approach we are "still having to revert to type" to make inroads.

Good performance- loss

Bad performance- loss

Good performance- loss

Bad performance-draw.

It doesn't make for great reading but please explain how it shows we are " getting worse as the tournament goes on"

Where are we in the world rankings at present, because we must be about to plummet down them very soon.

I think whatever we are at, it's a false figure. We are drawing against Azerbaijan because that's out level at the moment.

My opinion is that this campaign hasn't been the disaster that it looks like from the results. The results at home to Luxembourg are terrible but the performances themselves weren't so bad. Two wonder goals against and otherwise didn't really look troubled. Against Azerbaijan we should have scored more, Idah and Molumby both had easy chances. Against Lux there wasn't much created. Connolly could have had a few against Portugal. Serbia away was a decent performance and against Portugal we were very unlucky to not come away with something.

So if Connolly could finish and we didn't concede the two wonder goals at home then we'd have 7 points from those 3 games and this is a very different conversation.

I'm undecided yet on if Kenny should get a new contract but there is a definite progression in the way we play. We need a player that can score when teams sit back because that is clearly what we struggle with at the moment. At this point I'm willing to give him the rest of the campaign to see if he starts converting performances into results.

Hopefully we've learned since then. Tadic was getting all the time in the world on the ball in-between our defence and midfield when Serbia changed from 3-4-3 and Tadic came in centrally.

As for Vlahovic, the re-emergence of a form Duffy would have a better time of handling Vlahovic than O'Shea, Coleman, and Clark had. Though he's been a bench for Serbia since our game and Mitrovic starts CF, and as Sugarman pointed out Mitrovic is a different beast when he's playing for Serbia.

Do we have VAR at the Aviva, as someone pointed out last week after the Portugal game when discussing VAR, Serbia have gotten lucky that VAR isn't available at their home games. Portugal should have won 3-2 and had a legitimate goal ruled out near the end and we should have had a penalty in the first half when 1-0 up.

Yeah, tomorrow is not the free hit for Kenny that Portugal was.

Serbia are also looking to mathematically wrap up at least second place.

I'm in two minds...I want a good result to brighten the mood but on the other hand I think a hiding would make things clearer.

A boring draw is probably the worst result we can get from my perspective.

… in the post you just quoted I literally said “this current thing isn’t working”. We need something better than both.

Can someone please tell me who they can think of as suitable replacements as manager?

I think that he should be left until the end of the campaign, I don't see any plusses in jettisoning him now.

But who is out there, and what should they change?

People in support of Kenny go on about him trying to change how we play football yet all our goals in competitive football under him have been headers from CB's its quite funny ,

I'm going to piss a lot of people off here but i'd give the job to Big Sam for obvious reason's we are what we are lads , ]

According to that article his contract doesn't expire till next July. Which includes the Nations Cup.

I'm shocked people want to scrape through qualifications at all costs. We've been the sick boy of European football for decades. I'm happy to forgo qualification to this world cup (not like we were guaranteed anyway) if it means we back a new ethos throughout the system. The only way to truly back that is to allow Kenny this campaign at the least.

Then if/when a new manager comes, he should be tasked with improving that. Not rewriting it back to hoof ball. At the moment we're missing that forward pass in the final third. If and when some proper talent emerges for us, id rather be playing positive football and have that talent come into squads that are being encouraged to play with the ball.

Coleman out of tomorrow's match. Big loss.

Stephen Kenny will be given more time to demonstrate he is the right long-term option to manage Ireland.

But the loss of skipper Seamus Coleman to a muscle injury has stiffened the task ahead of tomorrow’s showdown with Serbia – a game that has taken on additional importance with a view to erasing the memory of the scrappy draw with Azerbaijan.

FAI officials were satisfied that the midweek performance in Portugal reflected progress that was hinted at during the summer gathering.

Confidence was knocked by a poor showing against Azerbaijan which killed off Ireland’s already distant hopes of playing their way back into the World Cup picture.

While Kenny is under pressure to get a growing band of sceptics back on side, he is not under threat of quick action if things go badly against the Serbs.

Ireland are out of the World Cup picture and a small crowd for next month’s friendly with Qatar would be damaging to the Dubliner.

However, the reality is that the remainder of the campaign can be used to measure progress with nothing actually riding on the results in the short term.

Ireland’s seedings for the Euro 2024 qualifiers will be determined by their performances in the UEFA Nations League unless the European authorities suddenly decide to abandon the rules that were employed for Euro 2020.

The team’s final ranking position in the UEFA Nations League set the pots for the qualifying draw. Ireland already know they will be in League B so it is their results throughout 2022 that will count – not the World Cup finishing position.

Next month, Ireland are away to Azerbaijan before the Qatar friendly while Portugal come to town in November ahead of the return trip to Luxembourg.

A weekly update from our soccer correspondent Daniel McDonnell along with the best writing from our expert team. Issued every Friday.

Kenny is technically under contract until next July, but the big assessment of his performance will come in November and the rest of the year will be used to define if the Portugal display or the Azerbaijan disappointment are more reflective of the team’s graph.

Cyrus Christie has been called in for Coleman.

Dan McDonnell's article this morning on Kenny.

Why do people keep banging on about Kenny and a new ethos & style

Surely that is down to the grassroots and youth level to produce players in a different mould than we currently have,

The first team mangers job is results ,results results, Play whatever style or system give us the chance of getting the points & pick the best 11 to fit that style ,

He has a few weeks with the players over the course of a year ,He won't impact them as footballers that's down to the players themselves at there clubs ,

Kenny's job is to get results ,anything else is just nonsense its a different job than a club manager

For all the people who say that we've no chance on Tuesday, the bookies have Serbia as high as 5/4 to win. We are as short as 9/4 to win.

I'd make little changes like moving Doherty over to the left, and bring Christie in on the right. The back three I feel Duffy in the middle with Egan to his left and Omobamidele on his right. Feel Jamie McGrath should start and would have him in there ahead of Browne.

Big worry is how much Idah and Cullen have in their legs for tonight. Idahs already played 180mins this week and Cullen only came off in the 87th min.

Ah there's been some like fans that were never fans of him before he even stepped into the job. Thought it might have been within the FAI because said before they were possibly eyeing up Robbie Keane as the next senior manager after Kenny, was the only logical reason for me that they gave him a four year contract that time.