Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

this Poyet vs Keane vs Oshea thing is dreamed up or there is nothing much to suggest it will be any of those three . I’ll wait for Dan McDonnell, fabrizio Romano or Ornstein to break the story of what is actually happening.

Greece were very good in those games against us and Poyet got the better of Kenny in tactics battle.

Looking at the other available/realistic options, I don't see anyone better.

I don't think you remember Roy Keane as a manager. He was generally very reserved apart from the occasional press conference. I think he left both jobs on good terms and was never one to stir it or run to the press instead of the board with his problems.

I kind of want it to be Poyet because a lot of stuff will be exposed, but I reckon the FAI will ultimately be too afraid of his mouth to appoint him.

From Dan McDonnells news letter this morning:

"There have been plenty of jokes about the significance of the Georgia-Greece playoff on Tuesday with Willy Sagnol and Gus Poyet on either side but there are sources claiming that senior FAI figures were following developments in the shootout in Tbilisi very closely in the minutes before kick-off in the Switzerland game. And the story goes that they didn’t necessarily get the result that they wanted."

Unless you get Jesus to come down off the cross and fill in at right back the 10 men retirees are well bet.

So I guess we'll learn tomorrow if he's the man to 'resurrect' Irish soccer….

FAI can simply deny they offered Poyet a 5 year deal or they can structure any offer to JOS with a clause allowing termination after 2 years eg for non-qualification.

The shitshow is the “contractual obligations” as to why they had to wait until April to announce it.

This whole thing about them apparently having their man weeks ago, looks to have been bullshit anyway.

Cullen and O'Shea on scoresheet for Burnley

For a contract to be signed it requires the entire 14-person boards approval, with the terms and conditions also approved to ensure the budget sanctioned at the outset is complied with. So there may be agreements and offers made but nothing's rubber stamped until then. The FAI were planning to do that on this Wednesday.

It was also nonsensical that they'd have a new manager signed up and it not leak.

This is good, saw it on another forum

Did Paul Simon have a premonition?

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

we should give it to someone with zero managerial experience bar being a caretaker manager? No thanks.

we should just accept we are not going to qualify for tournaments? No thanks.

It’s the Irish national team, we should hire someone with experience and credibility. Unless we get a nightmare draw, of course we’ve a chance of qualifying for the next tournament.

It’s not unrealistic to appoint a manager with experience. Much smaller countries with less of a budget manage it.

It’s not unreasonable to enter the next qualification campaign with the hopes of qualifying however slim the chances are. Why bother to watch then?

I'm just looking for an improvement in performances and some credible results. I don't believe for a second we have a team capable of qualifying for a Euros never mind a World Cup. I don't see where the big improvement needed in the quality of our players in key positions is coming from for the next couple of qualifiers. That doesn't mean we don't try but I think it's easier to accept where we are to be honest and start building a more competitive squad. It's going to take years to get us off the floor.

Given where we are now what have we got to lose? O'Shea seems to want it. I thought the team did OK in the friendlies so why not?

We didn’t score a goal in both games and never really looked like scoring (penalty aside). We created one meaningful chance in both games, the ogbene shot. Apart from that, it was nothing impressive.

We’re not in a great spot and we can’t get a particularly high calibre manager but we can do better than “OShea, why not?”. His career does not demonstrate he’s capable of the job. I’d honestly prefer to bring Kenny back (and that was a dire few years).

Scotland came 2nd, Albania topped a group, Slovenia came 2nd, Romania topped a group, Slovakia came 2nd. We absolutely could have qualified in other groups. We were never gonna get ahead of France/Netherlands. Those teams listed above are not on a different stratosphere to us.

That was one route in, the other was the Nations League. Ukraine, Armenia, and Scotland. If we finished 2nd (entirely plausible), we’d have gotten a play off. Ukraine route was Bosnia and Iceland, two teams we’ve a reasonable chance of beating.

There’s no reason we should accept we’re not qualifying for the next WC before the draw is even made. We shouldn’t make managerial appointments based on “why not?”. We should appoint someone who will make us as competitive as possible in the next campaign and/or build for the future.

There’s no “if my granny had balls” stuff. You said if you put us in any other qualifying group, we wouldn’t have qualified. Other teams with a similar level of player managed it. One of which we played off the park in a 3-0 win in the NL in the campaign directly before it.

You can draw a comparison but it’s nonsense the other way round?

We’d a shite manager for the last qualification campaign but by your logic I suppose Sweden, Wales and everyone else who didn’t qualify should just give up now? Build for 2028.

There’s no reason to believe we can’t give qualification a good go before the draw is even made. I don’t think the qualification criteria has even been set out but you’ve already called rip.ie and put in the obituary.

“We didn't qualify for the 24 team Euros but we can qualify as one of the 16 UEFA teams for the next world cup?” - so one set of rules for Ireland and another for Sweden and Wales.

We played Scotland off the park in that 3-0 win. Norway have better players than them but they managed it.

Again, the draw hasn’t been made but you’ve given up already. There’s pessimism and then there’s this. We should just give it to JOS because sure why not? It’s nonsense, we should expect a manager not an ex player stepping into his first role. Duff and Keane at least have experience, give it to them.

You seem to be off on a bit of a soap box crusade here. There's nothing particularly controversial about saying we're not going to the next world cup.

The qualifiers will be 12 groups of 4 or 5 teams. Group winners go to the world cup. We are not getting to a world as a group winner.

The play off is the 12 group runners up plus the 4 best placed nations league teams. Seeded teams get home advantage in the semi final and final. 4 teams out of 16 here go the world cup. Unbelievably difficult to get through that. Plenty of good outfits will fall early in this.

Who is available and interested to give us a better chance? Roy Keane appears to be the only other realistic option (publicly anyway).

Who then is a realistic prospect for you we should pursue? All well saying JOS is not good enough but what's the alternative?