Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

He was immense.

Imagine watching decades of hoof ball and wanting to return to that under the mistaken notion that we can't pass the ball.

Did you watch ANY of the match last night?

Do you know who has crossed over the GAA/Soccer divide and has soccer management experience abroad? Jimmy McGuinness. High profile in the GAA, organiser motivator of men, and ex North Carolina manager. Coleman and Given could be in his backroom team!

Stop it please

You do realise Hughton had Forest heading for league one? Did not win a game for 7/8 games and was sacked for Cooper. Sometimes a manager has a 'sell by date'. And it appears Hughton has reached his.

Well it's a choice of losing this and a return to winning ways, or them winning and and failing badly in the next outing.

Kenny's had his bacon saved twice by the players pulling out a performance and the **** show has continued. If a loss is required to call time on this nonsense well you can't blame the supporters for wanting that.

You and your ilk are better off getting your entertainment elsewhere. Hoping for your country to lose? The state.

I'm sure you'll be at Lansdowne on Tuesday night giving it socks and booing like the clappers to get your point across?

A return to winning ways? We haven’t had a team that could consistently win since long before Kenny. At least he’s trying to raise the ceiling of the team.

Putting it as a choice between Kenny or instantly winning all of our games is completely nonsensical.

Ah so when we lose it is Kenny's fault but when we win the players bail him out. 🤣

Stop it please

You can't reason with people who think we'd be better off with Big Sam or Hughton. They're literally deluded. Putting aside the football side of things how would you even pay Big Sam, with free burgers and pints? Absolutely deluded, Kenny living rent free in their heads and driving them demented.

Anyone who can't see that we as a small nation, with a limited supply of players need to try something different just aren't being genuine.

Thirty years ago there were less nations in Europe, qualification was easier, we had a generational team. The game itself was different, it has moved on so much and we as a country haven't. We ploughed money into expensive dinosaur managers. Their legacy was that there was nothing coming through and we now are in the situation where we are rebuilding. Plenty of other countries have done it, Wales, Hungary, Denmark, Finland, Iceland. Bringing through youth, getting underage structures and pathways aligned.

We've no divine right to qualify for anything. Stop living in the past. We are so much better to watch this past year or so than any of the previous 10/15 years. Good, honest, talented younger players coming through and learning their trade at this level. It'll stand to us...in time. It can't be turned around in a short space of time.

Bringing in another mercenary manager would dismantle everything we've spent the last few years putting together and would have been for nothing and the cycle will just continue and the same lunatics will be here calling for a different flavour of the month mercenary in 2 years time.

Tl/Dr: fcuk off with your Big Sam and Hughton nonsense.

I find it bananas that anyone who purports to support the national team can in the same breath run down the LOI with no self awareness.

I'm quoting this so I can technically like it twice.

But I think the LOI has to be part of the conversation because it's the only level that Kenny has had any level of success at.

And the only other time he left the LOI and managed at a higher level was a complete disaster.

The reality of it is is that LOI level success is not good enough for senior international level management.

Kenny may have blooded players but that's not his job as senior international manager.

His job is to get results and have a good shot at qualifing for major tournaments.

Kenny has done none of that.

He is out of his depth at this level and needs to be gone.

Chris Hughton has far far more experience at the highest levels of the game than Kenny will ever have.

That's why you need someone with that level of experience in the game as manager, not a guy who has had LOI success and nothing else.

Blooding players is part of his job. He was hired as under 21st while mick tried to get to the euros by any means. The plan all along was then for Kenny to refresh the squad.

It's reassuring to see the Sunday papers and some of the pundits from last night are questioning the direction forward.

It has everything to do with a LOI man at the helm. Only a LOI man would be given the time and the excuses by the media and some sections of support to carry on not getting results.

Remember the aim here was to win the group - and even I would excuse that as just a bit of manager puffery to back the players. If we are all honest, the aim would have been a decent NL campaign, second in the group would have been respectable. A relegation fight is where the team is though and that's on the manager.

I thought it was a great game. Thought we played some really good incisive football for most of the game.

Pity Parrott couldn't finish what would have been a great goal and probably would have secured the win.

Id agree with people dissapointed with our points tally and current position in the table. Losing to Armenia put Kennys head on the block and you can't argue with that.

The Ukraine home loss was also dissapointing but I think the war etc gave that match an odd feeling.

Other wise results and performances have been decent in this tournament imo. Win against Armenia is a must. A convincing one at that too. Anything less and I think you'd need to sack him on pure principle and be done with it.

Anyone calling to bring in big Sam if Kenny does go is a moron, sorry to say it. You've no clue.

I find anyone that calls to bring in your Big Sam's etc is the type that isn't even involved in their local club. Because involved in grassroots football understands what an absolute mess the system is and appreciates what Kenny and his coaches are trying to do.

The Big Sam supporters remind me of the U10 coaches that show up in their spotless tracksuits, shout at kids to "GET IT OUT" "PUMP IT UP TO JOEY(the tallest kid on the pitch)" and then celebrates like hes Carlo Ancellotti because they won division 4 of the Carlow League. Thankfully in my experience those types of coaches are disappearing and being replaced by coaches that want to teach how to play football, none of this pragmatic shite spouted on here

Was McCarthy a pragmatic manager? Late stage O'Neill? I can't remember enjoying many of those games or even the performances in them. Even if the results haven't gone our way there is a sense that the performances and the players becoming more accustomed to playing with each other will have them playing above themselves. As it is with the teams out yesterday I don't think there can be any expectation that we could beat them. They could have with a bit more composure from Parrott and Obafemi in the first half. The manager would find it very hard to legislate for that.

Would you give it up

What Kenny is doing IS the pragmatic thing. It's the thing that's been proven to be how football has developed and evolved. Attractive doesn't even come into it, it's just the thing that now gives you a chance, where teams lumping it up the field and hoping for a break definitively no longer works. If you can't pass a bit to take the pressure off, you'll simply be eaten alive, as we increasingly saw with our own teams under O'Neil and McCarthy. Our problem is just that we've started this process later than everyone else, so we're playing catch up a bit, but anyone watching can see we've improved a lot as a team and that the players are fully invested.

Our team demonstrably HAS been adapting to the opposition, like even the most cursory glance at our matches has shown that. Do you really think we've been going into games against Portugal the same as against Luxembourg? Cause if so, I don't know what to say...

Ferguson looking like he might be our best striker prospect might fast track a move to this. If he turns out to be what he looks like he could be then rather than playing a system like he'll no doubt be learning at Brighton it will be to get the ball to him in the box ASAP and let him try score.

The likes of Ogbene and Molumby are good players for us now and for the next few years that would probably be obscure under any of these other managers. It may not work out to the level we want but it's a lot better than it could have been with another 2 years under Mick.