Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

The problem with the aftermath of the Delaney era is that there was an obsession with whether Delaney would be arrested and very little interest in Irish footballs endemic problems beyond Delaney. The new fai have corporate governance and female and independent board directors coming out the ying yang but it’s of little benefit if the endemic problem wasn’t even discussed never mind confronted.

The endemic problem is too many mouths to feed, too little income to feed them. Until that is overcome and it probably never will, Irish football will be small time.

its not just football, Ireland and professional sport are uneasy bedfellows in everything but horse racing.

Ah yes back to the good ol days of being the only international team to have a sponsor logo slapped across our jerseys.

If John Fallon says one thing then automatically assume the opposite. The guy is a spoofer of the highest order. Dan Mc Donnell and Gavin Cooney also are probably the two guys worth listening to. Especially when it has come to the search of a new manager.

I've never seen someone blame an individual for turning down a job. The FAI should have walked away or made a better offer. Bizarre to criticize Carsley.

Your point was they have ruled out candidates so why didn’t they rule out carsley. But they didn’t rule anyone out publically. They have mentioned no individuals name in the entire process. So if they came out and said carsley is ruled out they would have been actually have been taking a different approach to him than every other name.

so the opposite of what your saying is in fact true.

They haven’t mentioned a single name of any individual in the entire process yet apparently they should have ruled carsley out

These are the current odds:

Willy Sagnol - 9/4

Gus Poyet - 7/2

Anthony Barry - 15/2

John O'Shea - 8/1

Robbie Keane - 9/1

Lee Carsley - 9/1

Slaven Bilic - 14/1

Rafa Benitez - 16/1

Ok, lets look at candidates with taking it as fact that the FAI will announce the new manager in early April and can't before that because of "Existing contractual obligations".

I suggested Sagnol last September but his agent said there has been no contact and Georgia have the possibility of qualifying for the Euros. However, he signed a 2 year contract in February 2022 so that is up. Poyet has said he has not been contacted by the FAI and also Greece might qualify for the Euros, his contract is up after the playoffs though. Carsley has matches upcoming but has rules himself out or is he taking any distractions away from his current obligations? Everyone else on the list above is either already out of contract or under contract.

I've looked at a few others in the betting. Murat Yakin - With Switzerland for the Euros. Hervé Renard - Contracted with French women till August 2024. Klinsmann - Sacked by Korea in February. As far as I know, everyone else mentioned with the bookies are similarly either in contract for longer than the end of this month or already without a job.

Who else has a contract finishing soon? I can only think of other managers with upcoming playoffs. They are:

Wales - Rob Page, signed 4 year deal in 2022. Poland - Michal Probierz, contracted till 2026. Finland - Markku Kanerva, contracted till December 2024. Estonia - Thomas Häberli, not sure about contract. Bosnia - Savo Milošević, not sure. Ukraine - Serhiy Rebrov, until 2026. Israel - Alon Hazan, until 2026. Iceland - Åge Hareide, not sure. Luxembourg - Luc Holtz, until 2025. Kazakhstan - Magomed Adiyev, until November 2024.

I don't think it will be any of them. Has the new manager put his team in place? Meaning is John O'Shea going to be his assistant with everyone else already appointed staying as well? Is the contractual agreement something not involving football management? Can someone figure this out?

No idea who the new manager is gonna be at this stage. Thought it would be Carsley all along so I'm stumped now. Someone on YBIG said Poyet with O'Shea as assistant manager which sounds like the most plausible answer so far. It's like a game of guess who.

I mentioned before that it seemed risky to agree a deal with one of Poyet or Sagnol if they have a chance of getting to the Euros. I can't see how a manager would work so hard to qualify a team for a championship and then walk away before the tournament to take over a team that is arguably at its lowest ebb. To me, a deal with either of them only makes sense if there's an agreement to take over after the Euros should their respective teams qualify. It doesn't strike me as ambitious if they'd skip that opportunity to take over a team that'll only be playing friendlies until September.

Out of those two, I would put more faith in Poyet but he strikes me as a volatile character.

A genius move would be that the FAI have an either/or deal in place. If Greece qualify (meaning Georgia don't), Sagnol takes over and vice-versa.

Carsley was the exciting one for me but I'm not terribly convinced by any of the rest. Bilic and Benitez haven't done much since Covid. Barry and Josh don't have any senior management experience and Keane could do with stepping up to a bigger league.

At least we've moved on from the Premier League old guard.

Poyet at 40/1, had already mentally written this off.

But the Qatar league goes until the end of April, the FAI have said the announcement is early April. 80/1 if you fancy it though.

The Belgium regular season has ended I think. They have playoffs from here but Ronny Deila was sacked 2 days ago. 😱

Mark van Bommel is there but under contract, he has had international experience as an assistant.