Yep
Stephen Bradley is second from the bottom of the League Of Ireland Premier Division and also looks progressively more like Tom Humphries with every passing day.
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Oh he shouldn’t be let near the job but I wanted to appease the Rovers contingent on here with a nomination.
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Christ I didn’t realise Sagnol was in the frame. My poll is already obsolete. Pep Ljinders is only 50-1 randomly enough.
ANOUNCE BIG SAM!
Carsley can fuck off at this stage
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Surely even the big supporters of him must have grown tired at this stage. Whatever about taking a punt on him, he’s hardly worthy of a such a drawn out pursuit, if that was the case.
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A non-Irish manager needs to “get” Dublin and “get” Ireland in a Roy Curtis style of the phrase. They have to have an ability to become part of the furniture of our fair isle.
I think Gus Poyet would “get” Dublin and “get” Ireland. Chris Coleman definitely would. I think Slaven Bilic and Sam Allardyce probably would.
Herve Renard? Nah. Wouldn’t get Ireland. We wouldn’t get him. Vladimir Petkovic? Too facelessly technocratic.
Ireland itself increasingly specialises in producing useless self styled technocrats who are the football equivalents of low level EU pen pushers suddenly put in charge of running an actual country. Fellas who themselves don’t “get” Irish football and don’t “get” that it in its attitude and appeal it needs to be a mixture of ye olde Irish rugby teams of the Mick Doyle era and a fictional Irish international Gaelic football team. Not a team of powder puff tippy tappiers.
We like vibes men, not technocrats. Jack’s genius was he was a technocrat but even more so a vibes man.
We liked players who were vibes men with sod all technical ability who would run all day and get stuck in and we didn’t take to more skilful players in the same way, we’d moan about them. We liked players who were “bustling”. That’s what Irish football is. It’s about up and at 'em, big bustling GOOD LADS, preferably with a GAA background. It’s about EFFORT.
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The Irish football equivalent of Charles Windsor’s long pursuit of Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Stephen Bradley 
have we learned nothing?
The OTB lads don’t even fancy Bradiola.
We need a manager brave enough to point and laugh at Ferguson for being displaced by Danny Welbeck. The resulting seethe will be the making of Ev.
Gus Poyet gave a tantalising glimpse into how he would “get” Ireland when he randomly turned up at Murray’s (formerly Frazer’s) in O’Connell Street on January 29th this year for some meet and greet type event in association with Carlsberg Zero.
He even did a Second Captains interview to promote this pointless event. Why he was really here is another question. But.
That’s what “getting” Ireland is about. An Ireland manager would be better off spending their downtime turning up to the opening of an envelope than doing “research” on opponents that players don’t want to read. Cutting the ribbon to open a new Super Valu in Loughrea or Tullow, or going to the ploughing, or especially attending a GAA match. Doing a photo op for Vinnie’s take away in Kells and posing with a burger and chips. That’s what we like our Ireland managers to do. Jack Charlton understood this. When Jack endorsed Monaghan Champion Milk, he knew what he was doing. He was giving a pat on the head to the little people. The most powerful part of the Jack Charlton documentary was when he turned up at a football summer camp in Athlone. “Oh my God, it’s Jack himself. And he’s among us!” The stories about him serving breakfast in a B and B in Clarinbridge. When he went fishing in the Moy. He was sprinkling the plain people of Ireland with a little stardust. This was political canvassing better than Haughey could ever manage. It was this political canvassing, the photo ops, the chicken and chips circuit, the endorsements of local Irish brands, the stories, it was this that built the unconditional loyalty to Jack among the plain people of Ireland.
All the canny operators know this stuff. Pat Lam knew it when he was coaching the Connacht rugby team. He made sure to give the GAA a pat on the head by being seen to attend matches and he did his photo ops with local institutions and businesses. Trap didn’t do this and that’s why we turned against him quickly.
Deep down we are little people who love a pat on the head.
Bring me Gus Poyet endorsing Flahavan’s Progress Oatlets and I will show you a manager who “gets” Ireland.
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Trap was a regular visitor to Tipperary during his reign.
You’d never hear a bad word be spoken of him here anyway.
I’ve said it day one and I’m still convinced of it now and feel it’s ever more likely - it’s Poyet. Fact that they are waiting till April means he’ll have his Euro play offs with Greece out of the way and win or lose there should be in place immediately after the European championships .
Mark Canham has every journo in the country bamboozled
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Trap was a perfectly pleasant man but I don’t think he was cut out for the chicken and chips circuit. Jack was a natural for it. We were in awe of him. He played us like a fiddle and we loved him for it.
Bring me Gus Poyet hiking in the Galty mountains with Kathryn Thomas for RTE television. Bring me Gus Poyet chatting on the couch with Maura and Daithi. Bring me Gus Poyet attending a Munster hurling final.
Gus knew exactly what he was doing when he plamased us back in the autumn (I’d have included the fadas but the fada isn’t working on my keyboard). Our knickers are already off.
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ANNOUNCE CRITCHLEY !
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Great to see that Daniel McDonnell ape huff and puff every week. When the tide went out, you saw who was swimming naked.
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Is he a bohs man ?