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Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2025 [CLOSED THREAD]

DM_7

2024 thread for the the general team discussion. Match threads should be used for games involving the Senior Mens Team.

Match threads for other teams will only apply where volumes of posts make it worthwhile.

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The old thread was not working and it was almost as hard to find a new post as it was to find a new manager.

Anyway, old thread linked below:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058192078/republic-of-ireland-team-new-manager-talk-2023-24-mod-note-in-op

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Comments

bren2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122365219#Comment_122365219

Think we need to move up three places in the rankings to be second seeds in the qualifiers which might help our chances of making the playoffs.

Crazy we still have a chance of making it into pot 2 and goes to show how baffling it is we let two international windows go by without getting our permanent coach in. The NL is incredibly important for us to get our ranking sorted to gives us the best chance of going to USA 2026.

Of course, the Euros Is likely going to drastically change what we need from the next few months rankings wise.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122364956#Comment_122364956

And some think that playing the type of defensive football people are calling for will also just mean losing.

Hopefully this guy is smart enough to know you need a bit of both and that you have to pick a system that suits what players are available and not trying rigidly stick to the philosophy of the problem or anti Kenny people.

noodler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366158#Comment_122366158

Well at least you are showing your true colours now.

We've always had both.

I've not seen us play a more effective away game than we did against Austria a few years back and that was under MON.

The bar is set low for HH initially, just not losing his first two qualifiers will exceed the last two campaigns but hopefully we get a group draw that could facilitate a bit more ambition than that.

ebbsy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366001#Comment_122366001

The other problem is that the playoffs are now seeded - so an away semi and final.

Not good.

noodler

I had it in my head the WC was expanding.

Did you smash it

the athletic hasn’t even reported him as our new manager. Romano hasn’t said anything either and he reports on every contract renewal of players you won’t ever have heard of. Don’t see it on the guardian sport website either.

it doesn’t matter but it’s unusual

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366216#Comment_122366216

Stop trying desperately to paint me as a Kenny fan.

I was more than happy with the football played under O'Neill and wouldn't say it's at all the same as the "Allerdyce type" manager some people were calling for here.

kksaints

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366254#Comment_122366254

The BBC good enough for you? Plus it's on the main page of the guardian app.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/crgrql9l57ko

TheCitizen

Canham “claims” as the RTE report put it that Hallgrimsson was number 1 target since the start of this year. He has claimed a lot of things at different stages, don’t know how he’s getting away with it.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366333#Comment_122366333

it’s weird the athletic are ignoring it or have missed it or didn’t get the press release.

it’s not a big thing, it’s just weird.

Didn’t see it on the guardian from a scroll but I stand corrected

[Deleted User]

I'm happy enough with his appointment in general. Has had some excellent success, but it hasn't all been plain sailing, about the best we could hope for, and if he does anything like what happened with Iceland, we'll all be happy enough.

Sure things with Kenny didn't work, but I think him shifting a lot of our focus to underage will be important for the future, and Heimir seeming like someone who will do the same in terms of looking at the underage structures, that can't hurt, hopefully he'll take an interest in things domestically too. I still think all of that stuff is more critical to our long term future success than anything else.

The being open to Greenwood playing for Jamacia stuff is something that bothers me, I would like him to clarify the situation early so it can be left alone and we can move on with our lives and enjoy something for once.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366418#Comment_122366418

I don’t really need him to clarify it. His job is to do his best for Jamaica football and it’s a simple decision between playing with Greenwood makes Jamaica clearly better than without. It would be unprofessional of him to do anything than welcome the possibility of him to declaring.

BonnieSituation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366418#Comment_122366418

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366443#Comment_122366443

In the week we have the Women's Soccer Abuse revelations, it's certainly something we could have done without.

LuckyLloyd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366271#Comment_122366271

What people want is what we were largely under O'Neill during his first two campaigns; what we were against Italy or France under Trapp; and sections of the games at home v Swiss / Denmark. In order to get results we need to score goals, and ideally we leverage pace and width to get at opponents and deliver service into the likes of Ferguson.

But we fundamentally lost our competitiveness under Kenny and became easy to play against. That has to stop.

keeponhurling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122363596#Comment_122363596

And Qatar is a peninsula, in fairness to him

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366494#Comment_122366494

This guy gets it

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366542#Comment_122366542

I would say we stopped being competitive since late MON. Maybe we didn't lose much under McCarthy II but we were not winning either or going anywhere.

But ya I agree that we need to be harder to play against and never was it more evident than seeing the amount of long range goals we conceded.

All I really want is to qualify and have the kind of feel good occasions that Iceland or Wales recently had. Style of play doesn't matter to me as long as we achieve that. I just have my own ideas about which style will best achieve it.

johnnyryan89

https://twitter.com/SunderlandAFC/status/1811324688981012831

That's a good signing for Sunderland.

johnnyryan89

https://m.independent.ie/sport/soccer/international-soccer/new-ireland-manager-heimir-hallgrimsson-gets-650000-a-year-deal-but-only-17-months-to-turn-things-around/a1906739454.html

Contract runs until the end of the WC and supposedly for €650K a year according to Aidan Fitzmaurice.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366494#Comment_122366494

Yes, he’ll be asked about it, he’ll say it was a football decision and hopefully the narrative moves on.

thebaz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122365856#Comment_122365856

are you ecsatic about this appointment ?

Im certainly not

LuckyLloyd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366601#Comment_122366601

Yeah that's all fair, agreed. Ideally we would play the best football possible. But we have immediate 'back to basics' needs around getting our defensive structure right again, and finding ways to attack that branch out from there. If we can get some results against Finland and Greece and sneak second in our Nations League group it would go a long long way. A huge 6 games ahead.

pjohnson

The Greenwood thing likely predates Halgrimsson in that it was their FA that began an ultra aggresive policy of trying to entice as many English with Jamacian heritage as possible to try and improve the team. At one point they called up 12 English players to a squad, and tried to call Ivan Toney. If his bosses wanted Greenwood he couldn't refuse, same as De Zerbi at Marseille.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366720#Comment_122366720

There is no realistic appointment I would have been ecstatic about. We were not shopping in the 'ecstatic' aisle… we were shopping in the 'clearance sale' aisle. Under the circumstances, it's about as good as I'd hoped for. An experienced international manager, with success reaching tournaments behind him, and a 44% win percentage with a similar level small European team. (Kenny had 27%)

TheCitizen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366779#Comment_122366779

There was a poster on here a few months back arguing that we’d be better off finishing last in the NL group. I think he and a couple of others were saying it made no difference at all when we made this appointment. A strange argument. I have little time for the way that the FAI dragged the process out but at least the appointment has been made and the new manager has a bit of time to have a look at our squad and review recent games and prepare himself as best possible for the NL games.

Has there been a role assigned for O’Shea? I’d say he might feel badly used by the FAI in this process if not.

keeponhurling

I was starting to fall into the "just appoint someone" camp.

Having a stable permanent manager must be a huge boost to the players. As we know O'Shea was interim, and Kenny was a bit of a dead man walking for his final few months.

I'm happy with the Hallgrimsson appointment. I feel the young squad needs an experienced manager, ideally experience at international teams and getting the best out of them. This is a much better outcome than I had expected, and much better than taking a risk with somebody who never managed internationally (or at all), like O'Shea or Barry.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366868#Comment_122366868

While I’d never argue for any team to lose on purpose, I can see the logic in it.

We are extremely unlikely to qualify for the WC. 16 spots for Europe and there are certainly 16 better teams than us. Even if we did well enough to get a decent seeding we’re likely facing teams levels above us even in a playoff.

Should we be relegated to group C then we’d be in with a good chance of being competitive there ahead of Euro qualifying which would give us a great chance of a playoff regardless - without that path Georgia wouldn’t have made it to their first Euros. Couple that with the potential automatic spots for non qualifying hosts and we’d have a few avenues there.

It’s not ideal but group C wouldn’t be an absolute disaster either.

LuckyLloyd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366868#Comment_122366868

Ah look, there have been very strange things said over the past ~18 months around who should manage Ireland and what the objectives for the Senior Team should be.

The past is the past. We have a brutally tough start against England, but hopefully the players can find something in the fire of that test to bring forth at home against Greece a few days later.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122366855#Comment_122366855

It's funny how many Irish fans can't grasp the level we were shopping in.

[Deleted User]

I'm in the I wish we had gotten relegated to Group C when Martin O' Neill got us relegated from group B but they then reorganized the comp and but us back in group B camp. The momentum back then might have been handy, now I think we should probably try and cling in there given falling to C will mean we drop even further in the rankings by the time we get there. I do like the idea of a handy playoff spot for winning C, but of course we would need to win it :D