Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

The idea that a manager should have been sacked after one result is genuinely crazy to me - especially a result that ultimately had no bearing on the finishing position of the campaign, and it was the second game in his first attempt.

That is short-termism that is off the scale.

I won’t argue that it wasn’t a terrible performance against Luxembourg because it obviously was, but treating it like it was some unforgivable sin is completely OTT. It’s football, nothing is guaranteed, results like that can happen - if they happen consistently then sure, look to replace the manager(which is where we are now).

What happens if Roy came in for the WC and lost to the fourth seed in his first game? Just bin him then, pay the rest of his contract, start looking for someone else?

In the 2016 qualifiers O’Neill lost and drew with Scotland which were the 4th seed. Should he have been given his marching orders?

It’s not football manager, you can’t just replace someone the moment they get a result you don’t like. It’s extremely entitled and we would have the highest manager wage bill in Europe with all the payouts we’d have to do.

That shows up the flimsiness of the "we dont have the players" excuse oft used to wave away the disorganised mess we are.

The forum is only quiet because you dont have people making nonsensical excuses that have to be repeatedly dismissed. Any teams thread in any sports forum is the same.

Absolute nonsense.

Using an unconvincing home performance against Gib to make a point.

Really scraping now.

I would say Greece have a fair crack at finishing second in that group.

Netherlands are poor enough.

We would need to win our next 2 games to get back in it, but to be honest I would say Greece will turn us over in Dublin as well.

I think only qualification would/should save him now, really.

Finishing third might be enough to keep him on should we get a playoff though.

It's not because of 1 game, it's because of 5 major failures and counting. You know this.

I was responding to the multiple comments that he should have been sacked after the second game of his first qualification campaign - Luxembourg.

I have said multiple times on this thread that he should go after this campaign.

I asked you what's the point in keeping him till the end of this campaign? Completely pointless. He's long proven that he is not up to it. Let someone else in.

We won't make playoffs either as things stand apparently.

Might as well just enjoy the next 5 months

Not going as far back as Charlton when I think of us playing hoofball.

Thinking Trap, O’Neill, Mick. Keep it tight, kick it forward to Shane Long, hope he can hold it up, try and win a set piece. Loads of our games followed this pattern, and that’s practically what Gibraltar were doing last night.

I can understand Gibraltar doing it with the quality they have but Ireland shouldn’t be so risk-averse. There is a middle ground to be had - there’s no reason why we can’t be more organised in defence while being more constructive while transitioning to attack.

Kenny hasn’t been able to implement an effective, consistent way for Ireland to do this so he’ll be moved on.

But hopefully the next manager will be able to add a bit more organisation while continuing to try and develop how we create chances.

Ww drew with Albania too I think

Direct football done properly is not hoofball. It is an extremely effective and successful style of play for technically poor teams it must be done with high energy aka gegenpressing. You just sound like an idealist football snob. You are not the only one on this thread in fairness. Plenty of dreamers.

International football is about cutting your cloth to suit. Making a team hard to beat in whatever way possible is no1! Be structured especially for technical inferior teams.

Winning the ball back closing down high energy is the second crucial part. That was always in Ireland’s DNA but Kenny destroyed that making Ireland slow paced easy to play against. That is the most unforgivable stupid thing he has done IMO. High Energy fitness is a must for Ireland. Close down shots! That is nothing to do with skill. Even fecking Gibraltar caused a few scares yesterday for Ireland.

Set pieces - Ireland are poor at defending them under Kenny. And should focus on them more as an attacking threat oShea Collins good weapons for Ireland perfect it focus on it.

If the FAI haven't already been looking for a replacement, then we're in big trouble. You have to believe they have identified some candidates. Also, with Kenny gone, they can start approaching potential managers and encourage applications. The playoffs are March next year, there are only 3 international windows until then. Waiting until the end of the campaign to sack Kenny would be a disaster. Cut him loose now, we've already wasted 3 years with him in charge.

Under Trap, Mick and 2018 onwards O’Neill, we weren’t playing direct football well, we were playing hoofball. That was my point.

We weren’t doing any variation of pressing, we were packing the final third to leave little space for the opponent to play through. We’d win in back and have a lone striker as an outlet to hope he could hold a ball to bring others into play. But most of the time we’d lose the ball and invite pressure back on.

Nothing wrong with direct football - nothing wrong with any style of football if it’s effective. But the type we had been playing prior to Kenny wasn’t anywhere close to that.

Unless he wins the U21 Euros it's likely gonna be Carsley. Don't see the FA keeping him on unless they have a good tournament and there's no smoke without fire that last summer he was named as the FAIs long term target post Kenny and again now people in the media and his agent getting stories out there again this summer.

Whether he should or shouldn't get the job he'll likely be the FAIs first choice if he's out of a job this summer. Doubt they'll put much effort into seeing all the options out there and will just go with Carsley given Hill and Canham (new DOF) are both ex FA and would have probably worked with Carsley at the FA.

There is also the other possibility that the FAI aren’t thinking along these lines at all and that they’ll keep him if he wants to stay on as long as they’re still getting people into the stadium.

I can’t imagine the state of this thread if it happens!

It's the state of our senior team you should be worried about. How low do you want Kenny to drag us before you're satisfied?

Regarding the play-offs. We basically need no more than 7 of the teams head of us in the queue for League B and League A play-offs for us to qualify for either of them. Estonia, as the best ranked League D team are nailed on for a spot in the League A playoff ahead of us because of the ordering rules for non-League A teams getting those spots. Right now I would say that there are 4 teams who are ahead of us in the queue who are looking very unlikely to finish in the top 2 in their respective groups:

However it gets worse. Finland, Denmark and Slovenia are all in the same group. Since Kazakhstan are so far exceeding expectations 2 of them are currently taking up play-off spots. If we look at a best case scenario for Ireland, kazakhstan won't finish in the top 2 so only 1 of those slots will be taken. So that'll be 5 ahead us.

Italy and Ukraine are also in the same group, fighting over 1 spot. So 1 of them will require a play-off spot as well. So that's 6 teams almost guaranteed to be ahead of us

So we are aiming for one of those final 2 spots. If any two of the following scenarios occur then we're goosed:

• Slovakia qualifying ahead of Bosnia in Group J (looking quite likely, right now although Bosnia have played their toughest fixtures on paper)
• Kazakhstan qualifying automatically in Group H (they've beaten Denmark so I'm not going to write them off. Would be some story)
• Romania qualifying ahead of Israel in Group I
• Montenegro qualifying ahead of Hungary or Serbia in Group G (probably unlikely)
• Armenia qualifying in group D (probably unlikely given how inconsistent they are)
• Sweden qualifying in Group F (probably unlikely given their current form)
• Greece qualifying ahead of Netherlands in our group

and lots of other scenarios that are increasingly unlikely to happen (e.g. Georgia qualifying ahead of Spain)

True, but it's not looking good

We don't deserve it anyway.

Think we badly lack full/wing backs also especially left backs. McClean and O'Dowda are not great options really. And Coleman and McClean are aging.