Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

There are reason to be optimistic though. We just can't let this continue.

I do think we have reason to be somewhat optimistic. Kenny needs to exit though.

Bazunu - Could be world class or even a PL regular for a long time.

Collins - Makings of a top central defender. No doubt if he were English one of the top 6 would spend 40-50 million on him.

Knight - the lad is capable of making the step up. He has potential to be a good player.

Obafemi - Look the lad scored in championship regularly for a bit. If he could score there consistently going forward we'd take that.

Omabamdele - lots of potential

Ebolese - exciting too.

Cullen - hes good lads.

Doherty - should be a big player for us over next 18 months or so

Are we really suggesting we shouldnt be beating lux.armenia,azerbaijan?

Well I don’t think looking at the overall WDL stats tells the full story, because it ignores any improvement in the play or results in the team. Kenny had a horrible start but he was bringing players through and had an abnormal amount of COVID absentees compared to other nations at the beginning. The second half of the WC campaign had shown some improvement, team was scoring more goals and up to Armenia we had 1 loss in 9, and that was to a last minute Ronaldo header.

The last 2 games(Armenia specifically) have been disappointing but it’s weird to be dismissive of Scotland and Ukraine, ultimately they are more talented teams with players playing regularly at higher levels than Ireland, winning against either shouldn’t be considered a given.

I said at the end of the last campaign that I had seen enough improvement to be happy to have Kenny in charge for 2024 and a couple of bad results haven’t changed that. Should he fail to qualify for 2024 he will go and nobody can have any complaints.

Kennys contract was renewed because the FAI agreed to wait until the end of the last campaign to decide if he should continue, which they did.

Getting rid of him now in no way guarantees anything. Why should the FAI sanction spending more money paying Kenny off and getting someone else in if they can’t guarantee a return? The other manager then will have the excuse that he took over Kennys team and needs a full campaign on his own.

If they FAI decide they want rid I hope they’re not as knee jerk as the posters on here, let him have the campaign while beginning to compile a list of candidates to replace him.

Sack Kenny, pay him and back up team off, get An other Manager in, and back up team, which will cost a lot more than current one. Get back to total disconnect between senior squad and everything below it. Hope and fingers crossed that we get some players coming through, continue with the part time league we have have.... sure it worked before..remember.

We need a" reset " a blueprint of at least a 10 year plan to try and set up football properly.

I'm not saying Kenny is not making mistakes and is the answer, the problem is much bigger than just changing the Manager. No quick fixes here .

Well, I think a reality check is required the other way - through the 2020 campaign, we were competitive against sides at this level. Actually getting results. Yeah people didn't like the style and we fell a game short in 2018 and 2020, but we were right there.

I think there is an almost puritanical component to the Kenny support on here: 'you stupid national team fans who don't go to LOI games deserve a run of results like this'. Allied to a sense that Kenny's intent to try and play a better brand of football is a morally "correct" approach.

But ye will not win on this point. People like me who **** go to these games and have done most of our lives will not stomach an artificial lowering of standards back to the Liam Tuohy era. Nor should we. The media have been absurdly patient with him. The fans roared on the team and cheered them off after scaldy draws against Serbia and Portugal. We are not asking too much.

He needs to get some **** results. And you all know it.

Let's hope he makes some obvious adjustments to the approach; manages more proactively in-game, and the players pull it together on Saturday. We could really use a win. And Scotland is beatable at home. If you don't believe that I don't know what to say.

And if Roy Keane is somehow at the top of that list you might as well call up Mick and ask him get the band back together and come in for a third stint. It's as if people have forgotten about 2018 and the end of the MONROY reign, but don't mind if we go back to that way as long as Kenny gets the bullet. Jeez bring back Martin O'Neill before even entertaining the idea of Roy Keane, at least he was the brains of the operation, and probably kept Keane in check for as long as he could.

It's time alright that the FAI do dust off that book of possible candidates because they'll probably need it within the next 12 months at the most if not the next two weeks. Even the most hardened Kenny supporters are talking about how things might have to change. Because if the lad who created the Kenny's Kids page is questioning things then you know the end is nearly in sight.

Newstalk commenting like we have just come off winning a world cup.

Kenny is being set up to fail by his biggest supporters.

There is still a belief out there that he can make a silk purse out of sows ear. That all we need to do is play young players, develop them, and we can expect them to be able to challenge for qualification to major tournaments.

Other than Bazunu (who's had 2 very good years at club level anyway), we've not really seen any evidence that giving young players international games has helped their careers.

Anyone calling for Kenny to be sacked after defeat to Ukraine is delusional. They were simply the better team unfortunately. What you can attack Kenny on were the performances against teams like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Luxembourg. We were far too defensive, our build up play was too slow, players lacked the technical ability to find space against teams that parked the bus.

What's really worrying is that Kenny himself said in the post-match interview was that more patient build-up was needed. That demonstrates a worrying lack of tactical understanding of where this team is at.

It's Che Adams though. Yes better than what we have but not off the charts.

Obviously overall Scotland are better than us with Tierney, Robertson and McGinn particularly. Apart from that it's probably marginal enough.

Anyway not that it matters. They will be the best team we will have played and with the results versus Armenia and Ukraine 2 it's hard to see a good outcome.

There are no excuses for Kenny's bad run and losing to some of the teams we have been bet by. Most on here have given him the benefit of the doubt but it's too much to take that we are out of yet another group after the first game really. Any manager will tell you that in tight groups taking 6 points from the poorer team is a must. This is two groups in a row now Kenny has failed in that.

Look at the last group. 12 points available against Luxembourg and Azerbaijan. We took 7 points. That can't happen.

No doubt there's a drop at times when it comes to games in June but Ukraine had it worse than us with lads not playing games really. I think you often only had the one competitive game, we played Austria away in 2017 and not sure if we played competitive games in June 2019 but I know we had a training camp as the lads were in Portugal training.

Maybe lads are thinking meh it's a bunch of friendlies but Kenny talked up this camp about treating it as a tournament with the games in close proximity. If players aren't upping their games then it's unfortunately his head on the chopping block for mismanaging this series of games.

That was dreadful last night. Even as a man who would like see Kenny do well and like what he is trying to do I can't defend that.

Knight the only bright light in a dismal team performance

He even had the stupidity to criticise the team for stopping the "patient build up" and actually going direct to try and score.

Exactly. Anyone who thinks Scotland's first 11 aren't a fair bit ahead of us are codding themselves. The fact they are a bit ahead of us is why this is so dire for Kenny now. A trimming on the weekend will just exasperate things further. I don't think he comprehends the importance of taking points off the weaker teams in groups.

data analysis…AAAAAGGGGHHHH…it’ll kill us all

im not absolving Kenny, just giving the comparison. Armenia’s squad is 4 times cheaper than Ireland’s

Well said , you summed up the whole mess there.