Couldn’t be as bad as 1986, that was woeful.
There’s a train of thought that the media pleading for a possession based, free-flowing brand of football landed Kenny in the job to begin with. There was no such clamour for Pat Fenlon to be appointed when he had a near identical managerial career to Kenny. Early, Gilroy, Cooney, McDonnell et all are certainly entitled to their opinion but it’s obvious that they can’t admit they were wrong on Kenny and are simply moving the goalposts whilst still trying to portray an image that they’re smarter than the public.
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He’s not going to be sacked, they’re waiting for his contract to run out next month.
We’re in a kind of twilight zone where everyone including the man himself knows it’s over but we’re plodding along, ignoring the elephant in the room. Another couple of games left after tonight of playing this charade out.
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Wales with arguably a worse squad than ourselves now that Bale and Allen are retired and Ramsey unavailable, beat Croatia over the weekend and are 2nd in their group. If anything I think it’s actually underestimated how poor a job Kenny has been doing. Even being organised at international level can get you results.
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Kenny and Doherty have been worse for this country than Cromwell
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What would they be admitting they got wrong? The fact that they want a modern style of football played? He’s already said there that Kenny has failed. I don’t think thats going to change what their ideals are.
They were telling us that Kenny would get it right and that those questioning him were incorrect/out of touch. Eamonn Sweeney was still defending him on the “Hold the back page” column in the last international window. It seemed that only Kenny had a patent on good football when you could argue that his football has been less than entertaining than most of his predecessors. I think Early has only made a very vague admission of error and still manages to throw shade at a far more successful manager as if he’s fully to blame. The football we played at Euro 2016 was many levels above anything we attempted under Kenny yet O’ Neill is painted as playing “futureless” football. What we really need is a mixed approach that plays to our strengths.
Invariably we’re always at our most impressive in the last 15 minutes of games when we play front foot, aggressive football. That usually involves lots of crosses and maximising our arial threat. Kenny tried to move away from that whilst also sacrificing defensive solidity.
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Doc holds his place
O’Neill openly scorned journalists which was very admirable but its no surprise they hate his guts and stick the knife in. It’s personal and he enabled that by being spikey and dismissive. Kenny is very savvy with the journos. He is open and amiable with them by all accounts. O’Neill and Keane made their bed with the media here.
Kenny is done. He’ll get an easy passage out and they won’t hammer him because he made life easy for them. It’s not difficult to understand
That looks like a 4-3-3 tonight
Doherty Duffy Scales Manning
McGrath Cullen Knight
Ogbene Ferguson Johnston
5 or 6 nil Ireland
That’s been said quite often and I’ve heard that he’s a very nice man in person but in interviews he seems neither savvy or amiable. He just seems perplexed most of the time and can turn from jovial, to sad, annoyed and then finally back to jovial in the space of a minute or two. The media had sold him as some kind of deep thinking, analytical mind but unfortunately he cuts a confused figure anytime we see him on screen. Always ready to throw in a random fact of irrelevance. He’d definitely have thrown in the “we’ve beaten New Zealand 5 of the last 8 times” if he’d been over the rugby team the other night.
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Poor Kenny has given up.
He’s never been openly nasty with them like Keane and O’Neill were. He’s not great in front of a camera, kenny isn’t
Given was right when he said Spock was spikey with Tony in the pre match interview.
He was spikey but TOD would test the patience of a Saint. O’Neill was openly disdainful of him. Tony ODonoghue shouldn’t be let near a telly
We beat the USSR 1-0 and Switzerland 3-0 at home in that group.
The next manager should insist on 5 minutes in a room with TOD as a signing on bonus