All the lads bigging up Michael O’Neill have gone quiet recently. Funny that.
Even if Michael O’Neill never does another thing in management he’ll always have a record of getting the North to the Euros, qualifying from the group and getting them to punch consistently above their weight for several years.
Which is a damn sight more than Stephen Kenny has done.
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I was never a huge fan of O’Neill as Ireland manager and I would argue that he didn’t make us hard to beat and rather he had some exceptional strokes of luck along the way which papered over some really poor performances under him, especially his first campaign.
We actually did ok at the euros and the first half of the 2018 WC campaign and then a few of the older lads ran out of steam and his luck completely ran out and he had nothing else to offer
What was with all the West Brits booing Cody Gakpo last night? Weirdos.
You’re a gas man. You’ve a series of posts ridiculing lads for “bigging up” this player & that manager & saying they must feel foolish now when you yourself have been the biggest bigger upper of all!
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It was great to hear him and van dijk loudly booed every time they touched the ball for obvious reasons.
I think in general we were reasonably hard to beat, best exemplified by the games against Germany. France had a tough time beating us in the Euros despite being totally dominant.
We knocked in a couple of big late goals against Germany and Poland, which was a good sign.
There were a couple games where our limitations were badly shown up, Belgium in the Euros most notably, Poland away wasn’t great either though we only lost 2-1. We got very lucky with that 2-2 draw in Serbia. And then the nakba against Denmark.
I think overall though the notion we were hard to beat is borne out by the results.
The Irish football heart beats to the sound of an English drum.
Pyjama wearers
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The two games against Germany were complete aberrations though. Germany cut us open but conspired to miss a lot of chances rather than some notable outstanding defensive performance from us.
Those 4 points and Scotland shitting the bed was huge
Ireland had to be up all night to get lucky. Under O’Neill, they were more often than not up all night.
The knoweldgable football men won’t be fooled by passing stats
I wonder would big mick come back in.
As much as I hate his horribly smug head, I see Ole Gunner Solsjaer is 14/1 in the betting. I think he would be about as good an appointment as we could hope for. Doubt he would take it though.
Steve Bruce maybe
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And it would have to be agreed up front that Dennis Irwin would not be part of his backroom team
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Kenny just needs a bit more time
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Duffy, 31, 51 caps
McClean, 34, 102 caps
Egan, 30, 36 caps
Doherty, 31, 37 caps
Browne, 28, 32 caps
Cullen 27, 28 caps
Ogbene 26, 17 caps
Of the young fellas then they all have 15 plus caps, Knight, Gav Baz, Idah & Collins.
That was not a young or inexperienced team.
One of the back 5 under 30, building something me bollox.
3 subs on were Manning 27, Smallbone 23 and McGrath 26.
Then he threw on the two young fellas Festy & Sinclair with the game over
What’s Tony Pulis at these days?