If Ireland have a golden generation Rodgers is a cert for manager in my opinion.
Brendan? He is on about 8 mil a year. He would have to be calling time on club management altogether
Where can he go after Leicester? Nearly seen as a figure of fun in some quarters. When Rodgers was starting off at Swansea he said his biggest ambition was to manage Ireland. Home euroâs in 2028, i suspect Rodgers will be at the helm.
Rodgerâs says a lot things.
Heâd walk in to any amount of jobs.
Frank Lampard might be a realistic candidate for Ireland manager down the line.
Itâs a pity we didnât move for Sean dyche. I was seriously impressed with Everton the other day. Going direct, a threat from set pieces and tackles flying in.
We need somebody of this ilk.
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Owen Coyle.
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Didnât John Giles take it upon himself to interview him for the Irish job ?
Wasnât that Paul Jewell?
You could be right now that I think of it
Was that before or after Jewellâs sex video? 
During.
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Goal for Finn Azaz off the bench for Plymouth
Obafemi 95th minute equaliser for Burnley off the bench, first goal for them.
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Molomby with a goal this evening
Troy the boy with a peno
The two goal-scorers were Irish â Olamide Shodipo from Co Kildare gave Lincoln the lead before Corkman Conor Hourihane equalised late on.
The names on the Derby team â Hourihane, Jason Knight, David McGoldrick and James Collins â will all be recognisable as players who played for Stephen Kennyâs senior Ireland side, the Lincoln contingent less so; only diehards being familiar with the career paths of Shodipo, Paudie OâConnor and Sean Roughan. OâConnor chatted afterwards about a mutual acquaintance â the player turned agent Stephen Hunt â but otherwise the only bond was a shared nationality.
âIrish players who would have been in the Premier League 20 years ago are now plying their trade in the Championship now and it trickles down from there, but itâs a good standard,â OâConnor says.
The rarity was the presence in the Lincoln dugout of Mark Kennedy, one of only two former Ireland internationals now managing in English league football. The other is his mentor Mick McCarthy at Blackpool and therein lies a tale, of which Kennedy will not especially want to be reminded. It was McCarthy who sent Kennedy home from international duty along with Phil Babb when the two players were involved in a late-night escapade in the centre of Dublin in 2000 which involved Kennedy leaping Starsky & Hutch style over a Gardaâs car. A furious McCarthy sent both of them packing back to their clubs, an overreaction and one from which Kennedyâs international career never really recovered.
Kennedy has appeared more bitter towards press coverage of that incident than any beef with McCarthy and the sense of bitterness must linger with the national media as he chose to make himself unavailable at his weekly press conference on Thursday, except for an interview with local radio. While Kennedy remained tight-lipped, at least the Irish players at Lincoln fronted up and were happy to talk about their manager.
â[Stephen] Hunty was filling me in on some of his antics in his playing days when he was a bit hot-headed, but he has been very level as a manager,â OâConnor says. âI think thatâs something he is conscious about. He has spoken about how it doesnât land with players if you are flying off the handle, so he doesnât get too high when we are winning or eff and blind at players when we lose. There is a time and a place to give the bollocking, but you only lose some lads if that is the route you go down too often.â
Kennedy, 46, would be high up the league of players you never thought would be managers, but now that he is one, the initial signs look good that he can go where so many former Ireland internationals have failed â or had the door barred. Once the most expensive teenager in British football when he moved from Millwall to Liverpool for a fee of ÂŁ1.5 million in 1995, Kennedy made most of his mistakes in the public glare, while all his subsequent learning has been done in the shadows, by choice.
When I spoke to him at length as far back as 2006 he bemoaned his reputation as a âJack the ladâ and was already assuming a leadership role, as he pointed out, as captain of Wolverhampton Wanderers under Glenn Hoddle when Paul Ince was injured. His eyes blazed with defiance and hurt when talking about how he had ended up in a police cell in Dublin.
Later he was signed by Roy Keane at Ipswich Town where he began his coaching career. Subsequent spells as a coach at the Manchester City academy and at Wolves and Birmingham City â as well as a short stint managing Macclesfield Town â were spelt out by Kennedy in a Powerpoint presentation to the Lincoln board when he went for the job in the summer. His presentation was lucid and impassioned and his experience enough to persuade them that Kennedy could help forge a connection with the supporters which had been ruptured since the Cowley brothers, Danny and Nicky, had left the club.
A slow start to the season and a succession of home draws hasnât exactly set Lincolnshire alight, but before this weekend the club were on a run of five league games unbeaten and have claimed some notable scalps away, such as the 1-0 defeat of Ipswich Town at Portman Road. Much of what Kennedy picked up at the Manchester City academy has had to be put to one side.
âThis is his first proper gig and he is probably finding out things as he goes along,â OâConnor says. âYou end up coming to League One and you just have to learn how to get results in games. At the start of season we probably played out from the back quite a bit for a League One team but since then we have picked and chosen the right time to do it. If you are well drilled, hard to beat and have a game plan, that is probably the most important thing. We have a young group here, but they are really honest, hard-working and they take instruction well. So when we are given a game plan we tend to be quite good at sticking to it and frustrating other teams.â
For players like OâConnor, who was at Leeds United when he first came over from Limerick and couldnât establish a foothold largely because of the high turnover of managers, the stability at Lincoln is allowing him to prosper. Shodipo has had a similar experience at QPR and has blossomed since coming down a division. Roughanâs loan spell with Drogheda as a 17-year-old has worked wonders in preparing him for menâs football.
Kennedy has been given a four-year contract, which suits both parties. Clauses mean that he will not get a massive payout should he be sacked, and the club will be entitled to compensation should Kennedy move on to bigger things, as the Cowleys did. We will all be rooting for the latter, even though he may find that difficult to believe.
Two assists off the bench tonight for Molumby.
Second one was a lovely piece of skill, cheeky flick.
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Collins losing his place at Wolves is very worrying.
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First one wasnât really an assist. Surprised he was on the bench when theyâve been raving about him lately
A blocked shot that led to a goal, it counts to some degree.
Games are coming thick and fast in the Championship, a lot of players will be rested around this time. Some teams have played 6/7 games in 3 weeks.