Cult of Stephen Kenny

I really do hope we start winning soon, if we don’t we’ll just end up with another “long ball” merchant manager grinding out 1-1 draws against weaker opposition.

The result wasn’t great yesterday but he’s had the side playing football again. That’s nice to see.

If he had a decent creative midfielder and a striker on form there wouldn’t be any questions hanging over the guy.

Certainly wouldn’t be in a hurry to replace him with Steve Bruce or Chris Hughton.

Honestly he bores me to death, I feel he's chosen the wrong career, could have been an excellent artist with an astonishing ability to Draw.

I laugh when I hear people defending him saying the FAI is Broke as if that makes hiring him acceptable , Kenny is earning half a Million Euro a year and for what, supervising Training Sessions essentially.

I'll admit to not knowing much about Soccer but I know BS went I see and hear it.

... as distinct from losing 0-1 to weaker opposition

How do you explain how he did so well in Europe with Dundalk?

Did I hear Kenny said, Ireland didn't deserve to loose against Armenia 😳 mother of God, is that an excuse or justification for such an appalling performance 🤔

How anyone has tolerated this continuous spoofing is beggars belief.

I haven’t watched rugby in months.

You need to work on your self-control.

Kenny is still trading on his past successes. But what's left in the bank is getting thin. Next few results may be telling.

Bring back Brian Kerr, he never got a proper go the first time round.😀

I'm reminded of a comment I read elsewhere by someone without a vested interest

'That Irish manager looks like a dodgy Catholic priest'

😆

In rugby we play a bunch of hyped up meaningless friendlies, do half decent in 6 nations, and are found out during world cups every few years, an absolute masterclass in marketing means it becomes the most watched sport in this country.

Grass roots football in Ireland has failed to produce even half decent International footballers, and the LOI should carry a large portion of the blame. And yet what do we do? Hand the International job to a manager who wouldnt even be considered for a position as manager of Accrington Stanley.

Before kenny took over we were regularly challenging for Euro & World cup qualifications, now where are we? The bottom of the barrel, struggling to get results against teams we would usually have beaten 4 or 5 nil.

How anybody can get behind this man is delusional

I vote for possession football and building an ethos of playing football the way it should be played. If and when standout players appear they will be much better utilised in this kind of team. Kenny may not be in charge but we need to move onto a similar thinking manager not regress.

I for one could care less about scraping qualification once a decade over not qualifying in that decade. Especially when qualifying is followed by nil poi in the group and the only highlights are of "the best fans in the world" changing tires or singing lullabies to infants.

Best summation of the situation. Sterile possession hits the nail on the head perfectly. It's slow and drab and when it matters we resort to just punting the ball into the box aimlessly. TBH, Kenny is his own worst enemy, never sell yourself on your ideology because you become too wedded t, just come in and do what you have to do. Let the performances speak for themselves, Kenny speaks about football like some punter calling in to Talk Sport demanding that Steve Bruce get the sack so we can get back to playing the (insert football team) way on the deck. It seems like such a British obsession as well. Other countries just play a certain way because well that's how you play football but 'passing football' seems to have taken on this sort of mystique in British, and by extension, Irish football culture.

The team is incredibly bad right now though. The midfield is appalling.

The tournament before our last tournament we got zero points and 1 goal. A truly embarrassing showing.

That Croatian team I remember seemed to be a team in decline(in hindsight they weren't) but mad that they ended up in a World Cup Final 6 years later.

We scraped through the group because Italy had already qualified and couldn't be arsed to play their starters, then ran out of steam after 10 minutes against France.

I don't know if Stephen Kenny is the right man for the job, but I'll watch these lads try over the absolute hoofball we've played for the 15 years previous.

We're a low level European team who've qualified for 3 world cups and 3 Euros, why are we pretending otherwise.

We're a low tier country which is pretty much the crux of it. We've rarely had good teams, produced a few good players over the years and very few in recent times. The late 80', 90's were an anomaly in Irish football's history. Even then we missed out on a lot of tournaments(92,96, 98, 2000).

Italy played a number of their starters, and the people that came in off the bench to start that game included Immobile and Bernadeschi, who have featured regularly for Italy since and during Euro 2020, which they won.

We are a mid level European team - given we are in Nations League 2nd tier. But if we were a low level european team - we should play to our strengths and not get in a fella way out of his depth to have the players pass it around the back five for 75 minutes, before hoofing it for 15 when the other thing invevitably hasn't worked.

Some of the best performances in the history of Irish football have come in the last 15 years. Utterly f*cking hilarious that you would try to reduce those performances to hoofball, you absolute armchair bluffer.

For once here in Ireland we are thinking of a longer-term development of the international team. That's why I like Stephen Kenny and even when they lose this team plays way more interesting than any Irish team for a very long time. You get the sense that it will click for this bunch and I for one am happy to be patient with them.

Yeah and we can use the same excuses for our WC qualifying campaign just gone. Only 2 teams and top teams at that qualified.

So ya know, its almost like depending on one's bias they can state stats to back up that pov.

See this is where there's a divide; the people who are just happy to pass it and pass it until we get to areas where a pass would be required and we hoof it into the box. That seems like the Kenny philosophy as it plays out on the pitch. I don't actually mind losing but we still lose in the same bland Irish way. I remember Belgium(much more promising players than we have so not a great example perhaps) but back in like 2010-2013 when their golden era was emerging, they'd lose games 4-3, be 3 up and end up drawing 3-3 and they missed out on all those tournaments until 2014 but that to me seemed an interesting time to be a fan. That's what I thought a revolution would look like. Our problem is that we are still a cautious unimaginative team with zero goal threat. We still play like your typical Irish team.

The hoofball was very difficult to watch and we couldn't string 3 passes together. We might just about qualify for something and then get decimated.

The hoofball was pure groan to watch, almost unbearable.

But now ...eventhough the results are worse...there's entertainment in the way we play, there's excitement. There's pleasure! You're egging on every pass, you don't quiet know what will happen next.

We weren't good v Armenia. Eventhough I thought we were better and created more chances . We lack goal scoring formulas. And we were loose on their breaks.

That said I look forward to the next game..in anticipation of what kind of passing and rewards the team might conjure up. I really can't say that about the previous set ups of hoofball...save for MacCarty s rein...he seemed to almost find a happy medium...

Serbia weren't even in the Euros and Portugal were eliminated in the 2nd round. There is absolutely no comparison between those teams and the sides we had in our group in 2012. None.