Cult of Stephen Kenny

We are getting what we deserve as a soccer nation . Why should we be anywhere near a World Cup or a euros regularly when we don’t have a full time professional league? When we done give a shite about the game in our towns or counties across the country ? Where there are no academies and nothing for young players to aim for in their own communities like there is in GAA and Rugby

The sport and association is an absolute farce in this country and always has been . We had a few glory days when we got lucky but we are getting exactly what we deserve now

A few glory days when there were a few Irish players at the top flight in England plus the Granny rule. Outside of the big towns soccer isn't really a thing here

What manager were you watching??????

That's it. Our goose was well and trul cooked losing the first game of the group to Armenia. A bit like losing the second game of the group to Luxembourg in the last euros qualification group. Unforgivable. When you are limited like we are you need to ensure you take maximum points off the weaker teams to allow some breathing space.

However it appears that some believe we don't even have the players to beat Armenia, Azerbaijan and Luxembourg. Jaysus actually wept.

They'll be even worser off leaving this guy in charge. The Euros are as easy to qualify for as ever. The Nations League was a backdoor in and that's now gone.

The FAI will want to give themselves as good a chance of qualifying as possible and won't give two hoots about the style of football involved. They won't leave this circus act in place come the end of this group.

Armchair managers have always been noisy, for as long as I can remember there has always been the sack the manager crew. When it comes down to it Ireland the Rep off, has had a fair number of managers and coaches over the last few years and non have been able to do better than the last. So exactly why would that change if we got a new manager? It doe not work like that. Until we let young players develop we are stuck where we are. Dropping new developing talent into the senior team risks wrecking confidence in you lads. Just look at what happened to Aron Connolly.

But it does actually work like that, sack the manager, and get in a better manager, what manager? well it would be difficult to find a worse manager, therefore an improvement will occur. Most people knew this would happen with a mediocre manager like Kenny, this isn't a surprise, its been on the cards from the beginning, people shouted how he needed time and should be given a chance, well he's had his chance, he's incompetent at international level, no surprise there - get rid of him, he's already set us back about 5 years.

You seem to have a very short memory or do you geniunely believe McCarthy was a success and the second half of ONeills reign was one too?

I presume you are talking about McCarthys first period in charge when he had household premiership players including one of the greatest players and leaders of all time.

Perhaps Ireland needs a wake up call, they would scrap into tournaments and never be competitive but everyone thought it was grand cause who doesnt like a trip away to a tournament, meanwhile the FAI were doing nothing in the background and the reliance on English clubs to develop irish players were drying up, leaving no route to properly develop players.

We struggled against minnows under McCarthy also (remember Gibraltar) so it is nothing new.

We could have Bielsa, Kloop or whoever and they will all struggle with the players we have but dont get me wrong Kenny needs to get more pragmatic and improve or he will also be rightly sacked due to the nature of the business but sacking and hiring managers is not going to fix the real issues, why are people not discussing this? I know the current premier league obsessed fans want instant success but if you look at succesful international teams over the years, they have had a a sort of golden group of players who all come through together. Ireland should be working towards that and have structures in place to facilitate that, have they??

I can't wait until Kenny gets sacked, just to see the "stick more bodies in midfield" crowd get all confused about why Ireland still aren't scoring goals against Armenia and the like.

It's Keith Andrews. He's the real cesar menotti in this whole cluster f*ck situation.