Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

He has dropped the standard he set

But its everyone else fault according to some.

He is absolutely beyond criticism or blame.

Ive never seen this before with anyother manager. The man can literally do nothing wrong.

Trap and Mon blamed the players and the were treated like the anti christ for doing it.

Mad stuff.

Ffs.

They had another shot after the two goals that was close and probably within the 5 minutes spell that i mentioned but they didn't do anything else and we were far more likely to get a winner which we did.

One thing I will say is that midfield is an issue if Cullen isn't there. Knight is all energy but he's lacking in quality atm, he's young and will improve but if Molumphy is playing aswell there's a real lack of creativity on the ball. Could really do with a Wes or a fully fit Jack Byrne.

His game management was poor tonight. It nearly cost us dearly.

It has cost us results before.

I will ciriticise that and its a fair criticism.

It will happen against weak teams again. There is pattern against weaker team which has emerged concerning his tactics amd decision making.

His game management and tactics have cost us before and nearly cost us tonight. If he had of beaten luxembourg, armenia and azerbaijan making the same mistakes then it wouldnt be so much an issue. Its the pattern. The fact that if we drew Armenia again you wouldnt bet on him being tactically astute enough to see them off over two games.

I mean hes trying to say we went chasing a third goal and that was nearly our downfall. Thats bonkers stuff really.

We had zero need for 3 centre halfs on the field. Having three didnt make a differ for the 2 goals anyway. Ogbene should have come on for one of them.

Im hoping Kenny is learning and thay he can react and make better decisions going forward.

Ultimately results are what matter as i have said but overall in that context if we fold like that again we might not get as lucky.

My main concern Faugheen is that we end up being all but out of contention in the euro qualifiers after a game or two again. Its a very real worry.

I dont want Stephen to fail. I want him to be a success. But i am seriously concerned that we will spend another campaign playing nothing games.

But it keeps happening.

This out of his depth manager keeps allowing it to happen, again and again and again.

I didn't see any of the game, knew they were two nil up and thought they would cruise.

But I was stunned that they only won it at the death.

I seriously didn't believe they could get that close to not beating Armenia at home after all that has happened.

But they did.

How anyone can continue to support him as manager I cannot understand.

It over, he needs to go or we are wasting the opportunity to get into a 24 team Euros.

Well chasing the third goal did cause us problems for the Armenia first goal as our midfield was pushed too high up and allowed their attackers to drive at individual centre backs with the ball which is never a good idea and the midfield couldn't get back in time to recover the ball when it bounced off the post. 2nd goal was a horror show from Hourihane and Bazunu didn't cover himself in glory for it either.

Two things on this:

1- San Marino are one of the worst teams in football, as bad as Armenia are they're nowhere near that level so there are going to be some different levels of reaction to the respective results.

2- People's expectations have changed. We have a much lower level of player these days compared to 2007 and a much less experienced squad so most fans have adjusted their expectations.

Are tgere any midfielders that could make an impact straught away?

Is lewis obrien eligible?

Sammy smodzics

Jack Taylor

Coventry

Smallbone

Is conor nob worth a look at?

Louie watson.

Anyone?

I think Delaney is just rubbed up the wrong way by Kenny.

Delaney came up hard via the LOI and lower leagues in England. The way Kenny speaks about the game, he'd have been run out of town in those lower league dressing rooms I'd imagine.

I would say Delaney thinks Kenny has notions and he himself views the game through the eyes of a grisly battle hardened centre back.

Kenny does make some strange comments in interviews. I think he's not the best public speaker and they're just throw away comments tbh...some people take what everyone says at face value.

I'd say Delaney prefers a manger who comes out talking about the nuts and bolts of the game rather than his philosophy. Neither is a better manager or worse. It's just personal taste.

People take post game interviews much too seriously. The manager usually doesn't want to be there and what he says publicly usually will be different in the dressing room.

Bazunu should have done better on the first goal. The initial shot should have been pushed out for a corner or towards the sideline.

Didn't do great for the second either. He should have gotten a stronger hand to it

But people who are unwavering in their support for Kenny are equally looking for it both ways.

They were willing to emphasize the performance aspect of Scotland but are only interested in the result aspect of last night.

And if we have no devine right to be beating Scotland, Ukraine or Portugal, after two years we should at least have the right to be dispatching the likes of Armenia without such drama as last night.

Heard John Duggan from OTB this morning and sensed that he was not quite as bullish on Stephen Kenny being the Messiah as his previous utterings. He is clearly still a big Kenny fan but there was definitely a bit of a change....

It feels sometimes like some here are arguing against imaginary people.

There is nobody here blindly defending Kenny that I can see. It’s clear the big worry for his team is how he deals with teams that want to play us on the counter. But just because everyone’s not calling for his head doesn’t mean he’s not being judged.

He got a result last night, but he will need to improve his performances against these teams in the Euros. We can’t afford to switch off for a second, or we can see what trouble we get ourselves into.

But people have been saying that (i.e we need to improve our performance against these teams) for months now and things are still the same.

At some stage things have to come to a head, we can't keep saying that they have to sort things out when he has been in the job two years and nothing has been sorted out.

There is a Euro draw in a few days, regardless of who we get our chances of qualifing will be slim, but it's a 24 team tournament so almost half of UEFA qualify.

We are wasting any chance we have of qualifing by persisting with this manager and hoping that he learns from previous mistakes and starts getting things right against lower quality teams.

Perhaps they were actually at the match and are working this morning. It's not all about SK in most people's lives.

Don't worry, I'm sure there'll be enough along the rest of the day to challenge your guff.

"The cult of Kenny" ...Jesus wept!

Plenty of criticism of Kenny in the media and everywhere else. I've seen people who are very pro Kenny rightly criticise some of his decisions during his reign like they would with any other manager.

As the poster above mentions. The matchday support are fully behind the team in large numbers. The players are clearly playing for him and each other. I haven't seen such unity around the Irish team in a long time.

The majority of people I speak to are happy with the teams progress and realistic about what our standing is in International football....while still being frustrated with results.

He came into the job to an ageing and poor level squad. The FAI were a joke and finances at rock bottom. He took a very good u21 pool of players and integrated the best of them with some experienced players some of whom are past their best and have moved down to championship level from lower PL level.