Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

Era I think there's a certain amount of people just really hoping a particularly genuine Irish football man could do something with us, similar to the feeling around Kerr, which maybe gave him more benefit-of-the-doubt than the cold hard reality deserved. I definitely stuck with him longer than I would've with someone else I think, partially cause I just like the guy and how invested he clearly was in it all. It would've been a lovely story had it worked out, but alas it really really hasn't, and looks particularly bad in hindsight.

What would be the point of that? It's not like he failed on purpose, and it's his last night in the job, so it's not like some external accountability is required either.

I am blaming the manager but also the players many of whom are not very good.

What I am not accepting is black and white bullsht about it all being simple answers about who is 100% at fault.

The FAI need to ask themselves why this the case and how to improve it. FAI having zero interest in our domestic league and relying on England to develop our players has caught up with us.

Very much.

It’s a kuntish question. “Are you sad your dog died” vibes.

Its effectively saying; "So life's all downhill from here, eh Kenny?"

The fai does have interest in the domestic league but it doesn’t generate any money and the fai are a cash strapped organization. So what do you think the fai should do. They’ve asked the government for help and if that doesn’t happen, it’s somewhere between in big trouble and doomed.

It's a shame it hasn't worked out, but it's clear that Kenny has reached the end of the line. There were a few slightly promising performances against Portugal/Serbia in the previous qualification campaign, but we definitely went backwards this time around. The last few games in particular were really poor, the players seemed to play with less spark and confidence. Tactically we seemed to go back to the old ways showing a serious lack of movement and just passing around the back.

I am not sure who comes next, but it's clear that whoever takes over next is going to have to go back to a more direct style.

We need something very different. In the end, there is nothing positive out of this reign. He brought players through, but he had to and other managers have brought as many through. The football style was badly executed and didn’t achieve results. Change is required.

The fans are now in a place to appreciate what Trapp and MON brought to the table imo, let’s make ourselves hard to beat once again and take it from there.

Stephen Kenny has been shown to be a sham.

this ridiculous narrative that he has initiated, where we're supposed to believe that he has set these brilliant foundations for Irish football, and inferring that he has somehow sacrificed results for the sake of blooding this new, exciting batch of talented youngsters to take the national team on for the next 10 years ... well, it's offensive in the extreme.

the bloke forgot what the remit of his 500k a year job is - yes, to make sure there is a progression plan, but primarily to manage the senior team and win a few football matches. Wales, Scotland, even Northern Ireland ... they all have bare enough squads (granted Scotland are probably better than the others), but still give their fans hope with good performances, and some wins against teams that aren't Gibraltar.

Kenny was quite clearly completely out of his depth. the football he has instilled is nonsense. he has a team that plays some pretty patterns but has absolutely no idea how to be aggressive out of possession, and absolutely no idea how it's supposed to be structured when out of possession either. the team is an open runway to the goalkeeper, and it always has been. it's like he believes that pretty patterns are what football is about, and just forsakes any sense of aggression, strength or structure.

even last night, he got completely out-managed by his opposite number. NZ made adjustments at halftime, and should've won comfortably in the end.

the tears at the end were out of pride for being able to manage his country, absolutely, but i hope they were also tears because deep down he fully realised just how inadequate he was for the job. unfortunately, going by how he continues to speak, he doesn't believe that at all.

Terrible management that allowed Kenny to stay in the job for 3 years. New Zealand are ranked somewhere about 105th and they were the better side last night, Kenny has taken Ireland backwards.

Would cost money to sack him and for no reason other than to put an equally lame duck temporary appointment.

Show they failure wouldn’t be accepted, maybe put a bit of fire back into the squad. Given someone a platform to impress. Ended the season on a high, with people looking forward to the future. Plenty of reasons.

That's my take on it too.

Do you think those are the strengths of the current senior team ?

With ogbene it probably is yes but not with Ferguson really.

my main point on that was that long ball football can actually be good to watch. Last night in turners cross was good to watch.

passing football is not entertaining to me. Attacking football is entertaining. I think people are maybe realizing this belatedly

I should also mention that it is nearly as important to have a good long ball distributing back line if you’re going to go long. To be fair to Kenny we did go long from the back in Amsterdam to the wing pockets. But it didn’t really work as the team is bedraggled and lack of technical ability of the wide receiving players

I find it all entertaining as long as a game isn't one sided.

Its just that going long involves a lot of what some call "parking the bus" which I don't think is a good idea with this Irish team because I don't trust our defence. We could definitely do with being a bit more defensive in the midfield though and stop getting caught on breaks or allowing all these fekin long shots.