Cult of Stephen Kenny

It was the only time we ever failed to get out of the group having qualified. How is that the definition of success?

I agree about Kenny, but as I said in the post you quoted, there's not a man alive that can get us out of this group. Do you really think these players are playing below their ability?

Doesn't matter, you said qualification is the measure of success for Ireland. That's just not true is it?

So now Trapp gets the sympathy card because he faced tough opposition, but Kenny is a failure for not qualifying v France and Netherlands 😂 The three performances were embarrassing in 2012.

I think a big cause of disagreements in this thread is that delusional arm chair fans like you think that we should be competing with the likes of the Dutch (with the worst team in Irish football history) and anything else is an abject failure. At the other side of your mouth your saying defeat in the Euro 2012 was understandable. Clueless.

I haven't said once that he's a great manager. An average manager of a poor team I would say. Yet you demand that we should be beating the Dutch. Utterly delusional..

You've dodged every question I've asked, but is your genuine belief that we could have qualified from this group with a different man in charge?

So the answer is "no" then.

It's quite the juxtaposition to spin "no other manager would have got us qualified" into something positive about Kenny.

We will lose tonight. Tomorrow morning Kenny should be sacked. He should have been sacked two years ago, quite frankly, but enough is enough. He's not a winner at international level and cannot produce results and that's what football is - a results business. 10,000 passes among the back four v Gibraltar won't cut it.

Guardiola or Ancelotti would have recognised the limitations of the squad at their disposal and not try to play the sort of football that Kenny is playing. He can barely break down Gibraltar with his tactics but keeps persisting with a failed strategy. It's a totally absurd argument anyway throwing hypotheticals like "What would Pep do?" in order, presumably to justify Kenny's poor record.

In 25 competitive matches under Kenny it's P25 W5 D7 L13 - the wins came against Gibraltar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg and Scotland.

Would another manager do better?

Yes, and therefore Kenny should do the decent thing and just go. It hasn't worked out for him and I'm sorry for that but that's just the way it is.

I find that old "it's a results business" to be such a joyless anti football cliche. We could go back to hoofball...but we don't know that it would produce better results against the likes of France and Greece away. The worst of all was the combination of hoofing and not getting results, which is what happened for much of Trap's regime, and O'Neill post 2016, and McCarthy's 2nd stint.

Kenny will probably be gone at the end of this campaign, but he strikes me as a decent bloke who wants to do right by Irish football. However, I just don't think the players are there to truly implement the system he wants. I type this even as Ireland go ahead against the Netherlands. Lovely stuff. However, looking at it soberly, they probably won't have enough by the end of the campaign to get Kenny more time.

Beautiful pass from Gakpo.