Second Captains Part II

I mean when he’s openly saying he’s going to have to learn the players’ names we can discount him name dropping almost anyone. We’ve got the vibes man from the Icelandic management team that beat England eight years ago.

He’s better than Stephen Kenny and won’t have us trying to play like prime Barcelona with League One players sure but let’s not lose the run of ourselves. 13 months after knowing we’d need a new manager this isn’t the proof that FAI knew what they were doing all along like some here tried to convince themselves of. The lads are right to be worried that this process and even the announcement was so bungled that it doesn’t well of speak to the FAI’s capabilities to address any of the structural issues it has effectively.

Best of luck to the lad because he’s going to need it looking at the organisation he’s stepped into.

It's as if the Kenny era never happened.

What on earth was Ken saying to "try one of our own", haven't we got that out of our system after the Kenny era?

It would send a shiver up your spine to hear the professionalism of the FAI being praised, but I thought their splitting of hairs and nay-saying got almost to the point of parody yesterday.

It'll come down to whether this guy can deliver on the field. That's it.

At the end of the day whatever the FAI top brass had to say at a press conference doesn't matter a shyte.

I love Ken and all, but let's not forget he backed Stephen Kenny for a long long time and most recently was talking up J'OS and his suitability for the role. On paper, at least, I think the new manager is manifestly better qualified than J'OS - and that seemed to be lost amidst the noise about timelines and press releases.

They're at a disadvantage when Eoghan isn't around when stories like this break. He can take and argue the opposing view well and stops them all going down the group think rabbit hole on a subject.

Generally agree with the sentiment of most here. There was too much preaching to the choir regarding the FAI and a repetition of many previous podcasts. It's probably driven by the media scrums desire to fire shots at the FAI and who can dig the biggest hole for whomever the current target is.

Branno coming out of the press conference "feeling grim"!? Why the f*CK was he feeling grim? Get a grip.

The number 1 priority is winning football matches and Branno said it himself that not enough questions were asked of him regarding how to do this. I, for one, am massively more interested in the new manager's take on football and life and anything really rather than trying to find out the exact moment the FAI decided to get him.

Also, way too big a deal is being made of the new manager's getting to know players' names comment. He's said that he's watched all the games, so he knows everybody, he just doesn't know them, know them.

Anyway, will England be easier to beat if they win or lose on Sunday?

Presumably they’re not doing anything ahead of the All-Ireland semifinals this weekend? It’s a bit odd to preview national league matches earlier in the year and then not bother for the last four in the championship.

Weird that Eoin is away at the same time Ken is off at a tournament.

The H… hard to spell Icelandic guy podcast was mostly waffle but the Ken's continued train adventures bit was funny

Can I be the first to make the "watching Ireland has been like pulling teeth, so they might as well have got a dentist in" remark 😝

This thread is far more at odds with reality than the lads were.

The FAI were, are and likely will remain a joke shop. Any manager is starting on negative points in effect with this job. A 17 month contract in particular is utterly absurd to me because if he’s actually the right man like they’re swearing he will need a lot longer to fix the mess Stephen Kenny left behind for him.

Not sure why he'd start on negative points. He starts from zero, nothing about the last 9 months will be held against him. If anything, he will be given plenty of leeway in the Nations League due to lack of prep time.

Why would the FAI give him a longer contract? It's not a club, there's nothing to "fix" (from the senior men's management position). He will either get the best out of the players and a new contract or he won't.

The FAI are 50+ million in debt. They can't hand out 4 year 650k a year contracts.

The only person Ken wanted was John O'Shea and I've no idea why

Probably because JOS said hello to him after a press conference

Ok he gave game time to some young players. But he left us in an awful place. Rankings, seedlings etc. he won only 11 games. Every one of those bar Scotland at home, against a team we would be expected to beat comfortably. I’m pretty sure literally any other manager out there would have been capable of same or better whilst also playing those same young players.

This Irish rugby team is something special and even losing the WC QF didn’t stop this being one of the most memorable seasons in the history of the team. What a day to be alive.

We had a decent team under Eoin Hand.

Only for a disgraceful referee performance v Belgium, they would have qualified for the 1982 world cup from a group containing Belgium, Holland and France.

France ended up reaching the semi final only losing on penalties to West Germany in a match with another disgraceful referee performance.