Five. FIVE WORLD CUPS
Great article in the IT today from our Ken
Stephen Kenny didn’t want to be like the old men in the supposed Greek proverb. He intended to be around to sit in the shade of the trees he was planting in his early days as manager.
Unfortunately, his saplings are not sprouting fast enough to shield him from the harsh glare of the criticism that comes with four failed tournament groups in a row.
The population pyramid of Irish men’s football has an hourglass shape, like a country that lost a major war a couple of decades ago. We have some decent young players, and some decent older players, but not much in between.
Imagine Arsenal had taken the [Martin] O’Neill approach when they learned in the summer that Manchester City were also trying to sign Rice. Imagine Mikel Arteta had thought, “Well, to be honest, with City he’ll make more money, win more trophies, he’ll work with Pep, play with Haaland … frankly, it’s a no-brainer. I can’t stand in his way on this. When City come calling and give you a chance, then obviously you’re going to take it.”
I can usually take or leave the Saturday rte interview they do but I thought Michael Sheen was good today.
an analysis that centers on the lack of the 24-30 experience on the team while ignoring that players in that bracket were prime contenders for our worst performers in Athens (lenihan & odowda).
the Grealish & rice bollocks still getting an airing aswell. Ken’s fixation along with the evils of let it flow.
unfortunately Kenny and his coaches just didn’t have the ability at this level of management. We must move on from Kenny soon and move on to someone not mentioned as a contender yet because the contenders being put forward are deeply worrying.
I did like Ken's story about interviewing Michael Sheen during the week.
.
He was superb, wasn’t he? As the lads said themselves, you just get out of his way and let him talk
This season in particular had been excellent
I hope heaslips tweet gets discussed on Monday. By Ken.
What did he say?
What day's episode can that story be found?
RTG* stuff.
*Rugby Tech Guy
Funiest I've seen Twitter in a long while.
Surely they didn't make him do the "take your medals and your trophies and put them into the biggest dustbin you can find, because you've won them all by cheating" thing 😁
He was great as Kenneth Williams, did they ask him about that 😁
I'm by no means aboard the Kenny fanbus but the massive damage Delaney and the useless managers he appointed did cannot be overlooked.
"Did he get to the Euros Ken?" well, yeah, kinda, but left the national team in a decrepit state while allowing at least two great talents to slip away.
I don’t really see it that way. I don’t think Martin O’Neill or trap were heroes or great men or anything but they justified their reigns by getting us to the money offered for tournament qualification.
as for letting “two great talents slip away”, I think that is utterly deluded nonsense personally but that’s just my opinion.
How is it deluded nonsense?
Couldn’t but laugh at Ken invoking O’Neill like that in the article where he finally acknowledges he was wrong about Kenny.
believing we were ever in the race for Grealish once he began to bang and England showed interest is deluded. Believing anyone who is good enough to play for England would ever play for Ireland when their only link to Ireland is a grandparent is deluded.
For Rice, ok deluded is probably not the right word. We could have probably cap trapped him if we called him up and played him versus Moldova.
but saying it was a major mistake to not do that is extreme use of 20/20 hindsight. Dion fanning and Ken, both of whom are the worst culprits for moaning about not cap trapping Rice. But there is more context to it then is ever discussed
Total rubbish. A substitution still counts as a cap, doesn't matter if it's only for a few minutes. Nobody is getting "trapped", if they don't want to play for Ireland then don't f**king play for Ireland...
O’Neil should have locked in Ricsssssssshhhhhhhhh and Jack the lad forever and ever.
'Trapping' Mark Lawrenson, Andy Townsend, John Aldridge etc worked out pretty good for us in the past no?
you didn’t address the full context I gave but in any case…
If you have objections to the use of the word “trapped” where the plan is to give a 18 year old a competitive cap they haven’t earned on merit, to shutdown the risk of the 18 year old defecting to their preferred country then I just don’t think we see these situations in the same way.
Kenny was worth the gamble, but hard to see his replacement being much better, whoever that may be.
I dont see how any replacement of Kenny could be any worse results wise. I was a big supporter of Kenny and i think he was needed at the time but he's not the man to take us to the next stage. We've been repeatedly found wanting when a plan B is needed and i think it showed up Kenny's tactical naivity which was not to the standard for international management. He brought through a lot of players and we've more coming from the under 19s/21s so i think we'll be ok going foward.
The question is who do we get?
Tactics were spot on over the last two games. If Evan Ferguson is playing we probably win that game. Adam Idah had a stinker.
I think tactics started off very well in the first half of the last two games but once the opposition changed their approach Ireland were unable to adapt. Even taking France and Netherlands out of it, who are better sides than us, this has happened repeatedly under Kenny. We seem to have a decent plan A but theres nothing after it if it doesnt work.
Lee Carsley is bookie's favourite. I reckon they'll give Kenny the Greece game, if we beat Greece then surely that's about level par for the group?
Irrelevant fact - Lee visited my class when I was in 2nd yr in school as Derby were playing a friendly v Galway United.
Michael Sheens Father
Did he not represent us at underage level a lot ?
Yes. So?
It’s quite mad listening to Ken criticising Kenny for doing and saying the exact same things he was doing and saying a year or two ago when Early was defending him
So he was there on merit 👍🏻
