New thread as the last thread seems to be broken.
He wasn't up to standard as an international manager but to be fair it wasn't all his fault. He had the poorest players collectively ever to play for Ireland available to him (feel free to argue otherwise). No manager was going anywhere with those squads.
if your counting the nations league campaigns he got 5 altogether : the one where Bulgaria finished bottom and the one where Armenia did
Kenny was a shambles. A painful period in Irish football.
Hopefully the next few years are brighter
Sk got 4 campaigns in sense.
We failed beat Slovakia for Euro 2020, we were out of WC campaign after 2 games for 2022. Finished a very disappointing 3rd in nations league followed up by losing 6 from 8 for Euro 2024.
No, no its not similar.
Before the qualifying started I'm pretty sure most of us said we would take progression as a positive and the real goal was being ready for the home Euros.
I guess its just desperation to try and somehow make the SK era not look like a clownshow. Its chalk and cheese. They'll be wanting the Hungary win to "prove" Heimir failed.
Sounds a bit like some have their nose put out that we won, Jesus saying Kenny was unlucky is very generous in the extreme, he was a clusterfuck, nice fella and I wanted him to succeed as you could see it meant a lot to him, but, he was out of his depth, HH is little over a year in the role, inherited a totally demoralised squad with no world class players, but, at least has us in a position where we have a decent chance of making the play-offs. Portugal are one of the top teams in the world and were always going to top the group and Hungary have been significantly better than us over the last few years and would be expected to get second place. Realistically, third was always our most likely position, with an outside chance of getting second or fourth! Progress has definitely been made, whether people like it or not.
Don’t agree with this thing that not getting a result tomorrow means we’re just the same as we had been. Getting to the last day with a playoff in our own hands IS progress. Going from two wins against Gibraltar and tamely losing every other game in the group, to going unbeaten at home with two wins and a draw IS progress.
They were far from well beat at that stage.
There was half an hour left. Wed already been playing seige football since before the end of the first half.
Ronaldo should have been subbed and if Portugal could finish a chance theyd have at least had one back before he was sent off.
Anyway it was a great win. Delighted for everyone. The team beat what was in front of them. If we revert to form tomorrow itll be a blip and nothing else to me.
People looking to put it in their family album is sad imo but each to their own.
I suspect that the fact that with both teams looking over their shoulder tomorrow will be very cagey.
0-0 or 0-1 ???
Once the performance is there tomorrow, nothing will be undone from what happened on Thursday. Even if we don't end up beating Hungary. And let's face it, away from home, over there, it will be extremely difficult.
If we play very well tomorrow and still don't manage to get over the line, at least the team will have improved to the point where we can look ahead to the Euros campaign with a lot of positivety.
Not in this position but the point was this team have raised it before only to revert back to shte. That could easily happen again tomorrow.
Yup we're a small country that has no footballing industry and treats it as more of a past time. Hopefully Thursday night serves as big momentum for tomorrow but if things don't work out you are 100% correct it doesn't make Thursday night meaningless. Results like that will never be meaningless for countries like ours.
Going down a man didn't mean much.
The man in question was a hindrance and they were well beat and lucky not to be more behind at that stage.
Kenny never had us in this position. Its no contest between the two.
The Hungarians calling us British in their press conference. Some things never change.
They say don’t change a winning team.
But Thursday was a huge effort and there’s not much recovery time. Manning and Molumphy are options, if we’re unsure about Azaz or Taylor.
Itll be meaningless in the context of this campaign. Portugal were poor and went down a man and knew they had more or less won the group regardless.
Not something ill be telling my kids about unless it results in playoffs and WC qualification.
It’ll be disappointing if we don’t win tomorrow especially if we go down without much of a fight. But it won’t make Thursday meaningless. Not by a long shot.
We beat a top team comfortably in a competitive fixture for the first time since 1998 v Croatia. That’s never going to be meaningless.
No way should we go out and say “well we’ve given it a good go whatever happens”. We should go there doing everything we can to win the game but the win v Portugal gives hope for the future and should guarantee the manager another campaign IMO.
If Ireland don't beat Hungary tomorrow then Thursday, as great a victory as it was, will be undone. Great results need to be followed up on.
If we can't build on it then it becomes just another once in a decade result amid normal service.
It also really shows the damage done by the defeat in Yerevan and also the draw at home to Hungary. We wouldn't need a win tomorrow. We'd be favorites to finish first.
It's so much easier just to win the games you are expected to win and nick a result from the top seed than having to take the playoff circus route.
I dont want to start another thing here but like thats just your opinion man.
There's more positivity around the team under HH.
SK sucked the life out of the team. He was kept on far too long as well which definitely didn't help.
We are slowly going the right direction now,but the wrong result tomorrow would be a big set back.
Absolutely, only injury time away from beating them in Portugal under SK. Drew at home etc. All very similar to HH.
Portugal had plenty of chances on Tuesday. Easily a different result and we're out already.
Im under no illusion. I was an SK fan so I personally just see slightly different scenarios playing out as opposed to some magic tactic that HH knows that SK didnt.
What happened Thursday was amazing but even under Kenny we showed similar resolve against big teams just didn't get the result.
Tomorrow is very different. The fact we have to win could be great or terrible in terms of how we approach the game.
Im delighted for the country the fans the players and the coach but its meaningless without a win tomorrow.
Losing to Armenia was a disaster, HH and the team were rightly criticised after it.
We could be talking about topping the group tomorrow if we had beat Armenia.
If we win tomorrow ill happily talk of progress under HH. Lose and we're pretty much where we were under SK.
Should visit Tallaght on match day, loads of families with young kids. Rovers have so many underage teams it’s bringing in the parents to see the first team, I’d say it’s the same with Pats. Rovers new north stand is recommended for families
Delighted for HH and the team, HH has taken a huge amount of stick since taking over, but, bar the Armenia disaster, which was really poor, there has generally been progress. People seem to forget how poor performances and how low morale was under SK, campaigns were effectively over after 2/3 matches, trying to play a brand of football that the players weren't capable of, instead of playing to our strengths. HH has at least brought in a bit of structure and organisation to the team, making us more difficult to play against and playing more to our strengths.
It's great to be heading into the last match of the group with a genuine chance of making the play -offs, win, lose or draw against Hungary, as least we are in with a shout, something most of us had written off. The team has shown great character to bounce back into contention again.
I think it's not unreasonable to expect to get to the last match of the group and at least have a mathemathical chance to progress, however slim, that's what was so disappointing about the SK era, we never even got close to doing anything, always supposedly rebuilding or in transition, but, it was same story in the next campaign.
I for one, blame the FAI for not having had Seamus Coleman performing stud duties, once his potential was realised.
We could have been looking at some Coleman Gen II progeny being let loose at U17 and U21 level by now.
I don't know Seamus's opinion on this, but we could have crowd-funded the activities, and paid the man!
I would agree. He brings a steeliness and refusal to accept second best type of attitude.
Anyway great to be looking forward to a match Sunday. Hasnt been that way for a while.
Id politely disagree there that's its not a place for u12s, bring them and a friend, they will enjoy themselves and maybe watch the match too, its a great interest or seed to grow for them........the worst thing that will happen is they may get a bit cold, and they will always remember you bringing them.
