Cult of Stephen Kenny

I couldn't give a toss about Kenny, **** him out for all I care.

In fact, I hope you do sack him, it'll be a good laugh seeing these people move on to calling the next guy rubbish as well.

Shifty two tournos brings us up to the 2026 WC, three brings us to the ‘28 European championships, by which time he would be in the job 8 yrs without qualification. It is inconceivable that he would be given that amount of time without qualifying for a tournament, Ireland could be playing like 1970 Brazil, but if they can’t win matches then it will be utter failure. At some stage the bluffing has to stop and the results are required.

The only place Kenny will find himself is back in the LOI.

with plenty to cheer his failure but the LOI supporters see him just being there as an ego victory .. to hell with his record, his abject failure… one of theirs got the number one gig. Recognition, progress…….but……failure !

problem with the LOI die hards is setting low standards and failing to achieve them is classed as success in their worlds… it’s weird

Watching the English German game here. The Germans really do play the best type of football imo. Aggressive, penetrative passing to match their dynamic athleticism.

They lose the ball but its always with a 50/50 ball in that final 3rd. I think SK wants to play a more Spanish style but I think we'd have more success with a German style.

Obviously we dont have the player quality of either countries but I think Germanys style would suit us more.

How come the whole covid situation didn't help?

Was it not the case that a lot of prisoners were let out early from their sentences when it came in?

That should have increased, maybe doubled, the number of potentially available soccerball players for the local teams

I don't see the point in it meself. It's as if, by moaning about a manager, they are implying that there would be a great team there if there was another manager.

How many of those current players are regular players with top clubs? I wouldn't claim to know anything, but I get the impression that very few, if any. I never bothered much with the soccerball but the impression that I have from years ago was that there would always have been a core of players who were regulars, if not fairly top men, in their clubs, where those clubs were competitive. There would be a few permanent players on the teams contesting the top of the English League.

Is it not more the case that most of the current players took up the soccerball because they were never able to get a run out at corner back on the local junior B team back in the day?

Wot are you on about, nobody is asking to play in every euros or World Cup, only that we are competitive, well we were in the past, and now we aren’t, kenny has dragged us to a place in world football where we should never be, he’s a bluffer, bog standard loi manager who was appointed by Delaney in a last ditch effort to save his job, get rid of him.

Let’s be fair, Hodgson is too old, as already posted, Farke has taken a job at a big club in the Bundesliga and wants to rebuild his reputation, Pardew is a nut job and Rangnick was not available, he jumped from the clusterfuck that is Utd straight to Austria. I’m afraid I have no idea who Jim Crawford is, so hardly an upgrade on the incumbent.

Are you having a laugh?

It's so obvious that Irish football exists within the orbit of English football with the discourse surrounding the National team. A lot of the discussion seems like the debate surrounding England circa 2002-2014. The difference is England always produced good players just the wrong type of good player. Ireland produce average players and mostly below average players. Our good players now are not even extremely talented more so hard working and good mentals. We have no talent. We acted as if Wes Holohan was a mercurial maestro in the mould of riquelme when in reality he's another bang average footballer.

I don't have strong views for or against Kenny either way. It used to annoy me under Trapattoni and O'Neill when people said 'we don't have the players' but we had as good as several teams who were far better than us. In the case of the current team though, we really do seem to be scraping the barrell.

I have heard some stories from friends in the media of him spending a lot of time lobbying them to go easy on him, under threat of removing access to him and players for interview. It seems an odd fight to pick given how obviously poor the team are.

We don't have a team of EPL players? And there's no reason why our players championship status(many of them squad players) mean we are better than some of these teams? Ireland gains a bit from geographical proximity and cultural similarity with England,some players filter into English football and find careers there making decent money whereas the same level Armenian player might play around Europe in second rate leagues on significantly less money than a similar standard Irish player. This to be is proven by the fact that as the EPL has got more global Irish players have been pushed further down the English pyramid. Even in the Championship few Irish players are stand out performers.