Second Captains Part II

Ken went full Kevin Keegan !!!

Ken went full contrarian. Enjoyable. But I agree with Murph.

Ken was a disgrace I thought.

His "some people" guff in the main discussion was very childish.

I appreciate Ken likes to play devil's advocate, but he was talking complete pony today. I genuinely doubt even he believed the rubbish he was spewing. Serious Chris Sutton vibes 😬

There was a real clear the air vibe about todays pod and I loved it because it managed to capture the feelings of most fans. Murph made a good case on behalf of the frustrated fan while Ken tried to make the case for patience with Kenny. Eoin moderated very well tbf, there were times when Ken tried to ram home his opinions while Murph was raising genuine flaws in his argument.

On balance Murph's concerns were franked by the inputs of Sadlier and Delaney. On a side note Delaney has really come on as a pundit, his technical analysis was bang on today.

In summary todays pod confirms that the lads are the best in the business and worth every penny of their subscription.

Ken is great and all, but he was being a bit of an annoying twat yesterday.

However he did have a point regarding the fans expectation given our results over the past several years.

It was just too forced from ken. He clearly doesn't believe most of what he was saying.

i mean how recent we talking? We qualified to the euros after beating the world champions and got to the last 16 of the tournament.

in the last campaign we drew 75% of games vs one team that knocked out the favorites and another that got to a semi without their best player.

the results have drastically disimproved

It just made me think that given how bad we've been in most matches since after Euro 2016, the results in this campaign should not be much of a surprise considering our squad is now even weaker and less experienced than it was 3-5 years ago. There's also the difference between how the football associations in places like Luxembourg and Azerbaijan have been behaving recently in trying to improve their football compared to the shambles that was/is the FAI for decades. Also the one step forward, two steps backwards thing, as seen with the last two games has been with us for years even before Kenny. For example how everyone expected us to kick on after the performance in the France play off and again after Euro 2016.

does Ken give a fair prediction of what the score should be tonight on the show today? Just so that we can hear from someone who isn’t deluded like the rest of us about what should actually happen.

I agree with what Ken was saying mostly ha. I don't see why people expect us to beat these teams. Portugal beat us because they have one of the best players of all time and the ref was awful. Connolly should have had a penalty too.

Serbia scored two very good goals against us. Our keeper was a disaster that day though.

The Luxembourg goal was a world class strike out of nothing. Plus Luxembourg actually have a good team, full of players who had played together for years. We have a team that is thrown together but slowly getting more and more experienced. Ken is right about the "fail better". We are better failing with these young lads than failing with Glenn Whelan coming back. Before the Portugal game people were giving out that Darren Randolph wasn't even in the squad. He won't even go out and get first team football. Bazunu almost cost us a penalty and that would have justified all those people giving out about him. But he saved it and he honestly looks like a keeper we could have for the next 15 years. Previous managers wouldn't have played him. Kenny threw on an 18 year old v Portugal and he played unreal. What a boost for his confidence going forward.

Slovakia....Hourihane had a 1 v 1 with a defender scurrying across the line, inside the six yard box. He hit the fecking defender somehow. I still can't get over that!

Azerbaijan drew with us because they scored an absolute wondergoal. I watched the highlights again, we had 4/5 very very good chances to score and we didn't. Idah had two free headers, one just wide of the post. Duffy had a free header too from more or less the penalty spot, he put it well over and was furious with himself. Coleman got into a great position and then took a left footed shot and curled it safely high and wide. Doherty also had a header from 6 yards out. Then we eventually got the goal through a Duffy header.

During Mick and and MON, there was lots of talk about chances created. We were creating nothing. So much so that the narrative was that even if we had Robbie Keane, he wouldn't have any chances to score from. Now we are playing with a load of kids, creating chances. They just don't seem to be able to finish.

Anyway...rant over. It is almost as jumbled up and rose tinted as Ken yesterday. Apologies!

Among all the noise, I thought Ken’s point about Michael O’Neill’s first qualifying campaign was an interesting one. It’s worth checking out the NI results in that group which had Portugal, Azerbaijan and Luxembourg in it.

How do you get behind a defence that are largely camped out in their box. It's extremely difficult.

Are you saying those particular chances I mentioned weren't chances to score? I don't see how not.

Also worth mentioning the best player we have for getting behind a defence is Coleman who was in the back 3 and so somewhat anchored to defensive suties