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Republic Of Ireland Football Thread

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Im red2

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The fault lies with the FAI, football in Ireland needs to be nurtured from the roots, with good facilities for young people interested in playing the game. And most important these young players need good coaching and good training. I can not see that happening very soon in Ireland. Living in Germany I can see the difference in the way football is promoted. Football needs to become an activity where all young people are encouraged to participate. And the clubs need active participation from local businesses in the form of sponsorship.
 

golden_blunder

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Brophs said:
Sorry for the late reply, but I guess this is more relevant now.

I'm not so sure, tbh. First, I would be pleased to see Kenny get the job, for a few reasons, not least that it would have a positive effect on the LOI and the perception on it. The style of football he tries to play, at least up to now, has been more progressive and in keeping with the sort of football generally played at this level. Also, he genuinely seems interested in growing the game as a whole and not just looking to get results with the senior team.

BUT

There are a lot of unknowns in hiring him. His record in Ireland is fantastic. His record in the year he was with Dunfermline is pretty mixed, at best. That's not to say that he wouldn't be able to translate his success domestically to the international game, but I don't think it's a given by any stretch. It goes without saying that his achievements, particularly in Europe, are extraordinary. And you're quite right that he is capable of making players play beyond themselves (you need only look at the likes of Darryl Horgan, McEleney and Andy Boyle when they've played away from him to know that he was able to unlock something in them that others haven't). I'm also not convinced that, in a lot of cases, lower league footballers, if he decided to move away from simply picking based upon the division they are playing in, will be up to it in the long term.

I'd also point out that he was able to get a tune out of those players he was working with on a full time basis. Is it unimaginable that the lack of time to work with the players, which is increasingly the case in international football, might not yield the same results? Likewise, he has, to this point, worked with players who are jobbing pros. Would senior footballers, many of whom have seen of much more experienced managers than Kenny, be willing to allow him to learn on the job, if there was a real adjustment period?

If he were to be given the job, he'd arrive to the worst squad since, from memory, the 80s. Asking a guy with very little top level experience to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear might just be a stretch too far. Sometimes, in international football where it's about being organised and motivated, the experience of someone who has been at the sharp end of the game can be invaluable. As an example, I suspect that if you hired quick fix like Allardyce, you'd possibly get better results in the short term, but be back in precisely the same position in two years time, or whatever it ended up being.

A lot of the talk around appointing him is along the lines of 'What's the worst that can happen?' to which the simple answer is that we could have a couple of bad campaigns, our world ranking and, as a result, seeding would suffer and we could conceivably end up as the fourth seed in qualifying, which would mean our chances of getting to tournaments would be pretty remote. We can't just toss off a campaign or two because we want something massively different to the last couple of guys.

None of which even mentions the financial side of things. Pogue mentioned some of the stats behind the FAI's finances earlier in the thread. These tweets gives some context to the precarious nature of international success.
I accept that people don't want to hear it, but an organisation such as the FAI needs the senior team to do the heavy lifting financially. If the team isn't successful and isn't qualifying for tournaments then they'll be constantly strapped for cash. Getting an appointment or renewal wrong could potentially mean quite a few wilderness years. Can you be sure someone like Kenny, with his limited amount of top level experience, will know how to navigate that? On top of that, we pay one of the highest salaries in European football (a nudge under €2m). To me, it would be negligent of the FAI not to see what that financial strength might be able to achieve in terms of candidates who were interested. If Kenny still looks like the right man after going through that process, then great. But, as I said above, this reducing of the choice to a binary O'Neill v Kenny or Mick v Kenny is somewhat odd and reminds me of the "Give it Giggsy t'end of season" narrative that sprung up (I only make the comparison in terms of one, somewhat left field candidate being pushed to the front based upon, in part at least, stuff that had little to do with how he might do the job). IMHO, his CV isn't so extraordinary that you'd instantly discount a whole range of potential candidates. That said, if the only two CVs in the pile were Mick's and Stephen Kenny's, I'd probably not take too long in getting on the blower to Dundalk to talk money.

All that notwithstanding, I am playing devil's advocate somewhat. For me, Kenny would be the first genuinely exciting appointment since Kerr. He might, might be exactly what we need to jump start the national game. I'd really like to see him being given the chance to try something different. I'm just slightly more cautious about the idea that he and he alone is the saviour of the Irish game. The odds - and the players available to him - mean he's probably more likely to fail than succeed. I'd like to see us give it a go, though (whether with Kenny, or someone equally progressive and innovative) because the potential 'success' you'd have under him would be, in the long term, potentially far greater and transformative than anything someone like McCarthy or Allardyce.
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Is that your longest post ever?
 

golden_blunder

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Brophs said:
Nah, it just looks that way because I shaved my pubes.
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Tell you a story about that. I was tidying up the garden around the boys the other day because I had to go into hospital for an op on the top of my leg. Anyway, somehow I contrived to nick the bottom of my shaft with the shaver. Cut open, only a small one but it bled for a while. I had visions of trying to explain that one in A&E!
 

.Rossi

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sullydnl said:
My interest in watching us play has drained away to the point where watching us get worse results wouldn't even have an impact on my feelings towards the side.

On that basis I'd be quite happy to give the job to Kenny. We're almost certainly going to be shite regardless so why not?
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But enough about United...
 

Tyrion

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Im red2 said:
The fault lies with the FAI, football in Ireland needs to be nurtured from the roots, with good facilities for young people interested in playing the game. And most important these young players need good coaching and good training. I can not see that happening very soon in Ireland. Living in Germany I can see the difference in the way football is promoted. Football needs to become an activity where all young people are encouraged to participate. And the clubs need active participation from local businesses in the form of sponsorship.
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Agreed. The Irish diaspora and the amount of players across Britain that have Irish ancestry allows the FAI to do f all, pay an expensive manager to forest for good players in the championship and make the odd tournament and call themselves a success. At this point, it's difficult to see how football in Ireland would be worse if they actually decided to do nothing.
 

Champagne Football

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So Stephen Kenny is the only realistic option? He's a good option for sure. Might struggle to get results while playing nice football but going backwards so we can go forward is the best way to move on from neanderthal Moyes/O'Neill type football
 

nore1975

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It's funny that O'Neill departure had me thinking back to the late 80's under Jack Charlton. Ok his methods brought us to our first major international finals. But the way we played considering the players we had was downright insulting .Don't get me wrong us getting to those finals in 88/90/94 gave the country a huge lift. If Charlton had the squad O'Neill worked with then yes route one would have been justified. But when you consider the players he had it's frightening. Bonner, Hughton, Morris, O'Leary, Moran, Houghton, McGrath, Whelan, Sheedy, Aldridge, and Quinn. What a first 11 that was. It was reflected by the clubs they played for too. Morris was probably the poorest player in that 11 and even then he played for Celtic. Irwin, Townsend, Keane and Staunton would come along by 1990/91.
 

Barca84

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Pogue Mahone said:
Does anyone have any idea how the €2m annual salary for this job compares to what managers in the PL earn? Should we be looking to poach someone like Eddie Howe, for example, by offering him the chance to earn more than he is in his current job?
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There is no chance in hell that Eddie Howe, a man already linked with some of the top jobs in the Premiership, is going to derail his club management career by taking on the Republic job. The money would be an absolute irrelevance - he has huge ambition and he's going to be at a top four club very soon and possibly that will be United.
 

Champagne Football

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So if Stephen Kenny gets the job I wonder will his 433 look something like this?
Randolph
Coleman--Duffy--Egan--Ward
Liam Kelly--Matt Doherty--Brady
Robinson--Curtis/Obafemi--Maguire​
 

Red00012

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Champagne Football said:
So if Stephen Kenny gets the job I wonder will his 433 look something like this?
Randolph
Coleman--Duffy--Egan--Ward
Liam Kelly--Matt Doherty--Brady
Robinson--Curtis/Obafemi--Maguire​
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Liam Kelly refuses to play for Ireland so no it probably won’t look like that .
 

SolidSnake007

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Red00012 said:
Roy will never be seen in a dugout again.
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Let's hope not... he has had enough "cracks of the whip" compared to coaches who work their work up the ranks.. Keane has got jobs on his playing career alone and that is wrong.

His only achievement as a manager was with Sunderland around 10 years ago.. taking them from certain relegation in the Championship to get them top of the league with instilling fear.
 

SolidSnake007

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Trizy said:
You can hire and fire as many mangers as you want, we're still gonna be dog shit.

Only way we're ever gonna be half decent is if we ban GAA sports as they dominate the sporting population of Ireland. Also we would need to completely restructure the entire FAI, coaching, training, facilities..etc.

Basically, we're always gonna be shite because the above isn't happening.
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You can be dogshite but still playing exciting football.. same for United. If you not gonna win anything atleast entertain us!
 

Brophs

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Interesting - and quite telling - that the most staunch support for MON and, to a lesser extent, Keane, is coming from the English press. They’ve entirely either bought into the Trap line of “Sure these lads are shite. What do you expect?” or are willing to peddle it regardless.
 

Brophs

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Also, I see that Niall Quinn is going after Delaney. He senses blood in the water. He’s an awful cnut.
 

Brophs

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Champagne Football said:
He's hardly going to make himself available for a long ball manager is he? Would be a bit like Pirlo dreaming of playing for Allardyce
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Is that actually the case? Because to suggest that he’s passionate enough about playing for Ireland to want to choose us over the country of his birth, but not passionate enough to put actually making his pissing debut and playing games for Ireland ahead of having to be managed by a “long ball manager” seems to me to be an extremely generous interpretation of Liam Kelly’s approach.
 

sincher

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Champagne Football said:
So if Stephen Kenny gets the job I wonder will his 433 look something like this?
Randolph
Coleman--Duffy--Egan--Ward
Liam Kelly--Matt Doherty--Brady
Robinson--Curtis/Obafemi--Maguire​
Click to expand...
Wow, Ireland really don't have a lot of good players at the moment.
 

padzilla

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Easy decision for Declan Rice now - join a team about to play in the Nations League semi finals after finishing as world cup semi finalists or a team about to appoint Mick McCarthy or the Dundalk manager as boss.
 

Still ill

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Brophs said:
Interesting - and quite telling - that the most staunch support for MON and, to a lesser extent, Keane, is coming from the English press. They’ve entirely either bought into the Trap line of “Sure these lads are shite. What do you expect?” or are willing to peddle it regardless.
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Well it's a powerful and oft repeated message, isn't it? To the extent that I think some of the players might believe it when they pull on a green jersey. In fact the only one I've seen in print coming out with a passionate rebuttal of that notion of late is Stephen Kenny.
 

Brophs

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Xaviboy said:
Talk of Robbie Keane being assistant with Mick McCarthy on newstalk today.
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Thank Christ. I was worrying we weren’t going to have anyone to pay half a million quid a year to put out some cones and scream at people.
 

Still ill

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Wow. It's actually Mick. I liked him the first time round but that feels like a step back. Surely we're looking to get away from 'old school '? Decent, genuine etc. is not really enough. You're looking to energise an apathetic and long suffering fan base. This won't do it. Fecking lazy.
 

RORY65

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I like Mick but it seems we've decided to move on from an outdated manager who had the team playing terrible football to a man who was first appointed Ireland manager 22 years ago and got sacked in the summer from a Championship club due to the style of play. He might do alright but it's a very underwhelming appointment.
 
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