Cult of Stephen Kenny

🤣 This guy is a member of the Kenny cult the thread title refers to. Kenny's been an utter failure, he's going to get sacked, get over it.

As weak arguments and whataboutery go, this is up there. Jesus.

Bolivia have only made 1 of the last 18 World Cups.

They would be the South American equivalent of Albania.

Probably easier to comprehand than Stevo.

Vata may be fast tracked in at this stage. Also with a view to tying him down. But in a creative sense i think he'd improve us off the bench. The same with young Moran.

Conor Coventry.

He was already an assistant manager when we qualified for a tournament. He is more qualified to be manager of Ireland than Stephen Kenny, and by a wide margin.

This is from Dunphy's 'The Stand' Podcast.

If any people are adhering to the 'Cult of Kenny' it is Dunphy and Giles.

They both want Kenny to get a new contract, basically because he is Irish and he is a 'nice fella'.

I particularly like the bit where Dunphy was going on about 'Wes' and Trapattoni etc.

But Giles (to his credit) said Trapattoni qualified for a tournament, - "You can only qualify for one tournament at a time Eamon." 

😂



Even Giles and Dunphy said that Stephen Kenny has to at least beat the teams he should be beating.

Dunphy repeated time and again that the current Irish players are 'journeymen'. I can't remember him saying that about an Ireland squad before.

But I went through the side Kenny named v the Dutch and the a few who would have played if fit/selected -

But I went through the side Kenny named v the Dutch and the a few who would have played if fit/selected -

English Premier League - O'Shea, Coleman*, Egan, Doherty, Ogbene, Cullen, Ferguson*, Obafemi, Kelleher (9)

English Championship - Bazunu, Duffy, Browne, Knight, Idah, Smallbone, Armstrong, Manning, Hendrick, Molumby, W. Keane*, Coventry*, Robinson* (13)

English League Two - McClean

Serie A - Ebosele

SPL - McGrath

It does not THAT bad - a core of a higher English championship type side or Lower Premier League.

It made me think is this current Kenny ROI squad worse than NI who qualified for Euro 2016?

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So I looked at the NI team that qualified for Euro 2016 for a bit of contrast.

A team which lost 1-0 to Germany. (which was real backs to the wall) not one for the 'purists'

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1035167/Live/International-European-Championship-2016-Northern-Ireland-Germany

Also beat Ukraine 2-0 and lost to Poland 1-0 - narrowly making the knock outs of a tournament proper

At that time:

English Premier League - McGovern, Cathcart, McAuley, Davis, J.Evans (5)

English Championship - McGovern, Lafferty, Dallas, Norwood, C.Evans, Ward, Baird (7)

League One - McLaughlin, McCullough, Grigg (3)

League Two - Carroll

SPL - McGinn, Magennis, Mannus (3)

A-League - Hughes

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So it looks to me that the current ROI 2023 squad is at least a better squad on paper than NI was in 2016.

And although Will Grigg was "on fire" I don't think he even started much!

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Looking at the Martin O'Neill ROI team from 2016 to see how much 'better' it was to both NI 2016 and ROi 2023, should be interesting just as an overview

English Premier League - Coleman, Clark, O'Shea, Whelan, McCarthy, Hoolahan, Long, Walters, Ward, Given, Brady, Randolph, (12)

English Championship - Westwood, Keogh, McGeady, Duffy, Hendrick, Meyler, Murphy, Christie, Quinn (9)

MLS - R. Keane

Overall midtable to lower type English PL,  to higher English Championship I would say?

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So I would argue that it is more how the players are structured moulded and managed. Rather than the players themselves. A manager can make a big difference to a side.

He is going to get sacked. The FAI have postponed it for some ridiculous reason. This doesn't encourage any positivity for finding a good new manager. It's the same old FAI. This is really depressing times to be an Ireland supporter. The next few months playing out meaningless games with a manager who's going to get sacked instead of letting a new manager introduce their style of play and get used to the squad. Then we'll have to watch on as the playoffs for the Euros take place followed by the Euros itself. Then, going by this decision, the FAI will appoint another inept manager and we'll be back to square one.

Stephen Kenny's time as Ireland has come to an end and has to be viewed as a failure.

The bad news for him, as I see it, is that they failed to offer Vera Pauw a new contract despite qualifying for a major tournament. The mens senior team are now further away from qualifying then they were when he started. A sad indictment of his time in charge.

There is no "way it should be played". There's effective and there's less effective. That's it.

I have never understood this philosophy. I'd take a competitive team over an uncompetitive yet attractive team any day of the week.

End of the qualifiers I thought and they had a clause to release him when we were out of qualification. This decision is really baffling and an awful decision. It may be a small chance but we could get a playoff. We need a new manager in now to be ready for it.

This just makes no sense at all. Kenny should have been sacked after the World Cup qualifying disaster. The FAI instead gave him to 2024. We then had the brutal Nation's League performance where our chances to get a playoff for the Euros were diminished. This was already after coming close to last in his first Nation's League. He then managed to get us effectively knocked out of Euro qualification after 2 matches (same as the World Cup), again the FAI didn't sack him and now this latest decision.

We take opinion out of it and factually, Kenny is our worst manager in over 40 years. How he has managed to get almost 4 years as our senior manager will go down as an absolute mystery. His reign has gone from one miserable failure to the next. By not qualifying for major tournaments, he has cost the FAI huge amounts of resources. He had 3 opportunities and failed each time. By dropping so far down the rankings, he has decreased our chances of qualifying for future tournaments. This is all a disaster for the FAI so why have they continued to back Kenny?

He was Delaney's appointment but he's gone a few years now. This debacle shows that the FAI hasn't moved on. They are still an incompetent group, just like our manager.

That's what I was hoping for with Kenny, to get a new manager bounce. The Slovakian team was depleted with covid, it was perfectly set up to win that game and then go to Belfast with a great chance of qualifying for the Euros. It was a huge defeat and it set the tone for Kenny, he's had 5/6 failures in under 4 years of managing us.

McCarthy should have been kept on, his reign wasn't great but he did come very close to qualifying us automatically. We will never know for sure but I also think he would have got us through the playoffs. Even the most pessimistic Irish supporter couldn't have predicted how bad it would get under Kenny.

Kenny is just sitting in hoping for a payoff… if he’d any self respect or respect for irish football he’d resign… get someone new in now, we won’t qualify… get in a new man , to experience working with the players and setup…. Bed in. Be ready for the World Cup qualifiers.

we’ve amassed 3 points out of 15 in this campaign so far. Played turgid, one dimensional, predictable and naive shîte. he knows he’s not up to it…. He’s about 2-3 levels shy of having the ability and talent of an International football manager. His lack of big time experience :

Premiership : no

Championship : no

League 1 : no

A total failure in the SPL, the one truly professional club he lasted 1 year and 21 days. Winning 15 out of 50 matches in total over a season and a bit and getting them relegated..

what do the FAI have to schedule a meeting for ? Absolute bolloçks from them as usual. Aside from dragging out Kenny’s departure to save them some money… the usual BS from them…..his level is League of Ireland… it’s always been LOI, it will always be LOI…