FAI...New Manager Hunt continues

[red hander]

Given the job Michael O'Neill has done with Norn Iron coming from the LOI, it would be ridiculous to look past Kenny. He has a philosophy of playing which he implements wherever he goes, and tries to improve players to fit that style of play - rather than just shrugging his shoulders, saying we're crap and resorting to hoofing it - a la trap and the last days of Martin O'Neill.

+1

[Maroon Manc]

No one on here believes Ireland have great players but do we have players good enough, for example, to threaten the defence of N Ireland. N Ireland should have scored 3 and their two forwards are playing in League 1. We have as poor a squad as we ever had but for god sake we still have player to be a relatively solid 3rd tier team at the moment.

I do think O'Neil's time was up and he needed to go but think based on what we have there's no guarantee of qualifying for the Euro's even with 24 teams qualifying. I've just had a look at the Nations Cup tables and there's 20 better teams than Ireland; I'd put Ireland somewhere between 20-30 based on talent so qualifying for the Euro's is going to be a struggle.

[An Watcher]

Correct decision however the 2 men are getting alot of stick.  I for one will remember the great nights against Italy, Germany, Wales and Austria.  When our backs were against the wall having to win in Cardiff I was glad we had their experience on the bench.  I'm sure the players were helped when they looked over to the bench and seen Keane there.  Mr Trappatoni did not leave quite so many memorable nights!
Unfortunately problems arose against lesser or teams around our level.  I think more work could have been done at set pieces or on holding onto the ball more but what's done is done. 
I like the look of Kenny and hopefully it would work out better than the Brian Kerr era.  Chris Hughton is another however can't see him leaving Brighton.  We need a young manager with fresh ideas.  Get players to hold onto the ball more and allow them to make mistakes if it improves things in the long run.

[Billys Boots]

O'Neill and Keane are gone 

If the problem is the system it won't make any difference.
The FAI missed the boat on the development of young players and this is now a problem at senior level
It is not easy to fix. Mick O'Dowd said the Meath manager after the next one might start winning. Maybe it's like that. 

Losing attitudes are insidious. You have to drop people even if they have loads of experience when they have no belief. You have to build it in young players.
Ireland are disorganised and will be playing teams who aren't. It takes time for young lads to build experience. Kilkenny are learning that now.
Fan expectations are not realistic.

Look at how well the rugby team is doing but that took years to get right. 

If you look at Dunphy analysing the manager after the honeymoon period in videos going back to Staunton there is a constant theme.
I don't think it's been about the manager for the last 14 years.

I have an issue with the sentence in BOLD, it is simply not true.  Our underage teams are doing well, even more so since the implementation of the player development plan (PDP).  Last week, our u18s in an invitational tournament in Spain beat both Belgium and Holland, and lost unluckily to England after leading for most of the match.  The issue is that there's no connect (in the lifetime of O'Neill & Keane) between the underage structures and the senior 'structure', though I understand that there has been an appointment made in the last few weeks whose purpose is to introduce the appropriate players from the underage system into the senior system.  That has to be a positive development.

There's only so much you can do at international level in terms of development, are these youngsters playing at a good level for their clubs to warrant being called up?

I hear you - England have had probably the best underage setup in the last three years in Europe, and there seems to be a pattern emerging of their young 'stars' going to the European leagues to get first-team football.  Jaden Sancho is the one making a splash in Germany - got the Bundesliga player of the month last month and has made his England debut at 18, but can't get a sniff at a Premier League club.  Phil Foden is probably their midfielder of the future - gets an odd 10mins for Man City, if they are 6-0 ahead.  It's not just a problem for us - I actually think that youngsters are better off staying at home until they're 20-22 befoee heading for the championship, or better again to France, Belgium or Holland. 

[STREET FIGHTER]

BIG Sam 

[Milltown Row2]

Id actually like to see Gordon Strachan in, done pretty well with a limited Scotland squad, failed to get them over the line then got hounded, 2 games after he was gone the Scotland fans were nearly falling over themselves admitting they made a mistake. Strachan is very good at getting results, i look at the celtic team he got to the last 16 of the champions league, good keeper strong but limited CB pairing and players with a lot of work rate. i think he'd do a good job

I hope to f**k this does not happen, an atrocious manager.  Just ask any Coventry, Middlesbrough or Scotland fan.

Well thats it solved, get the managers out and then the results will change... So who will get the blame when the results stay the same? The FAI no doubt as they will have appointed said person, the problem is not the managers and their sidekicks, the problem is a shit squad of players..

Now there are managers who, with a limited squad did actually make teams perform above their station and believe it or not, MON was one of those managers.. Big Sam lined up 

Do you think the two boys should have carried on?

I don't think they should have at all carried on into a new campaign if I'm honest.. they themselves should have stepped down, they obviously were not getting through to the limited bunch of players their tactics, rightly or wrong as those tactic are the players need to buy into them. It seems to me that wasn't the case now and based on the mediocre results that the dressing room was gone..

Another manager will come in and do the same, if the players buy into it they'll get results, if not!  Ireland lacked passion in a lot of their games lately, be interesting to see who they get

[BennyCake]

Alot of managers use international football to build up their profile again, so they can get a club job again. International football is not what it was. Premier league and Champions Leahue is where they all want to be.

Sure look at Southgate, he was on the scrap heap. He only got another chance due to big Sam messing up. He's done ok with Engerland, but if a top ten team comes in, he'll be away.

In reality, the Ireland job suits a semi retired older man. Someone who likes a bit of fishing in his spare time. Here, there's a thought...

[manfromdelmonte]

MON was the 4th highest paid manager in international football

Who is his agent? Must be a genius

[Itchy]

No one on here believes Ireland have great players but do we have players good enough, for example, to threaten the defence of N Ireland. N Ireland should have scored 3 and their two forwards are playing in League 1. We have as poor a squad as we ever had but for god sake we still have player to be a relatively solid 3rd tier team at the moment.

Who are these players? Granted this last while I've watched very little of the ROI but Shane Long, O'Dowda, O'Brien are not these players.
MON & Keane did a wonderful job. They constantly over achieved. They will be very hard acts to follow. FAI should consider a statue in honour.

Here are some premier league players,  not saying they are top class but they are with premier league clubs none the less...

Coleman
Duffy
K Long
S Long
Hendrick
Arter
Obafemi
Christie
Brady
Ward
Cunningham
Clarke
Doherty

Mcclean, Randolph were recently also in premier league.

I also think o dowda and Stevens are capable of being premier league too. Now no doubt there are no world beaters there but is it unreasonable to expect us to be able to string a few passes together and make some chances? I don't think so.

[Milltown Row2]

No one on here believes Ireland have great players but do we have players good enough, for example, to threaten the defence of N Ireland. N Ireland should have scored 3 and their two forwards are playing in League 1. We have as poor a squad as we ever had but for god sake we still have player to be a relatively solid 3rd tier team at the moment.

Who are these players? Granted this last while I've watched very little of the ROI but Shane Long, O'Dowda, O'Brien are not these players.
MON & Keane did a wonderful job. They constantly over achieved. They will be very hard acts to follow. FAI should consider a statue in honour.

Here are some premier league players,  not saying they are top class but they are with premier league clubs none the less...

Coleman
Duffy
K Long
S Long
Hendrick
Arter
Obafemi
Christie
Brady
Ward
Cunningham
Clarke
Doherty

Mcclean, Randolph were recently also in premier league.

I also think o dowda and Stevens are capable of being premier league too. Now no doubt there are no world beaters there but is it unreasonable to expect us to be able to string a few passes together and make some chances? I don't think so.

Get your CV in quick, you'll be a cheaper option too

[trailer]

No one on here believes Ireland have great players but do we have players good enough, for example, to threaten the defence of N Ireland. N Ireland should have scored 3 and their two forwards are playing in League 1. We have as poor a squad as we ever had but for god sake we still have player to be a relatively solid 3rd tier team at the moment.

Who are these players? Granted this last while I've watched very little of the ROI but Shane Long, O'Dowda, O'Brien are not these players.
MON & Keane did a wonderful job. They constantly over achieved. They will be very hard acts to follow. FAI should consider a statue in honour.

Here are some premier league players,  not saying they are top class but they are with premier league clubs none the less...

Coleman
Duffy
K Long
S Long
Hendrick
Arter
Obafemi
Christie
Brady
Ward
Cunningham
Clarke
Doherty

Mcclean, Randolph were recently also in premier league.

I also think o dowda and Stevens are capable of being premier league too. Now no doubt there are no world beaters there but is it unreasonable to expect us to be able to string a few passes together and make some chances? I don't think so.

Coleman. A right back. And not even Ireland's best ever one.

<End of list>

[seafoid]

O'Neill and Keane are gone 

If the problem is the system it won't make any difference.
The FAI missed the boat on the development of young players and this is now a problem at senior level
It is not easy to fix. Mick O'Dowd said the Meath manager after the next one might start winning. Maybe it's like that. 

Losing attitudes are insidious. You have to drop people even if they have loads of experience when they have no belief. You have to build it in young players.
Ireland are disorganised and will be playing teams who aren't. It takes time for young lads to build experience. Kilkenny are learning that now.
Fan expectations are not realistic.

Look at how well the rugby team is doing but that took years to get right. 

If you look at Dunphy analysing the manager after the honeymoon period in videos going back to Staunton there is a constant theme.
I don't think it's been about the manager for the last 14 years.

I have an issue with the sentence in BOLD, it is simply not true.  Our underage teams are doing well, even more so since the implementation of the player development plan (PDP).  Last week, our u18s in an invitational tournament in Spain beat both Belgium and Holland, and lost unluckily to England after leading for most of the match.  The issue is that there's no connect (in the lifetime of O'Neill & Keane) between the underage structures and the senior 'structure', though I understand that there has been an appointment made in the last few weeks whose purpose is to introduce the appropriate players from the underage system into the senior system.  That has to be a positive development.

There's only so much you can do at international level in terms of development, are these youngsters playing at a good level for their clubs to warrant being called up?

I hear you - England have had probably the best underage setup in the last three years in Europe, and there seems to be a pattern emerging of their young 'stars' going to the European leagues to get first-team football.  Jaden Sancho is the one making a splash in Germany - got the Bundesliga player of the month last month and has made his England debut at 18, but can't get a sniff at a Premier League club.  Phil Foden is probably their midfielder of the future - gets an odd 10mins for Man City, if they are 6-0 ahead.  It's not just a problem for us - I actually think that youngsters are better off staying at home until they're 20-22 befoee heading for the championship, or better again to France, Belgium or Holland.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/international/more-than-a-manager-irish-football-needs-a-clear-and-persuasive-vision-1.3706047
« In conversation with his friend Eamon Dunphy this week, John Giles identified a fundamental flaw in Irish football.

"We do have a problem bringing the players through," Giles said. "I don't know why that is. I don't know if anyone knows exactly why that is, to be honest."

Finding the answer to that question and putting a correction in place is surely the key to the future of football here. The old model of hoping that enough Irish kids make it through the threshing machine of the English apprenticeship system to emerge as a contemporary Giles or McGrath or Roy Keane or Damien Duff is now redundant.

It could be that importing a figurehead manager from the English game for the bit of prestige has had its day also. In a way, it doesn't matter who becomes the next Irish manager.

What matters is that there are football people like Kerr and Stephen Kenny and Lee Carsley, the reliable midfield general of the first McCarthy era now on the coaching staff of the England U-21 team, with the knowledge and vitality and imagination to come up with a blueprint for how a small country could guide today's eight-year-olds through a football culture that truly backs itself »

Part of it is structural. The gap between LoI and English championship is too big.
There is nothing in between afaik. FAI have no control after a certain level.

In rugby Bundee aki and Henshaw played together with Connacht for a while under Pat Lam who was a promising coach . Connacht would be the poor relation. They won the pro 12 in 2016.

https://youtu.be/uHMQC4CmKc8

Now they both play for Ireland.
https://youtu.be/ydTOHLdpel8

It's all about doing the iterations.



« Irish football people need to demand of their FAI executive a clear and persuasive vision for the next two decades of Irish football so that the national senior team becomes a reflection of the progressive domestic game rather than a puzzle that needs to be solved over and over. »

[seafoid]

They have to do something radical.

BIG were 19/55 in 2017 on the national coefficient
LoI is 37/55 on the club coefficient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#Country_coefficient

The difference between 19 and 37 is England
But it's very fuzzy in terms of player development especially after underage.

In terms of expanding the pool, Wales (48) and NI (52) are lower than Ireland in the league coefficient.
The logical thing to do to improve standards would be to get the 3 countries to set up one league as in the rugby .
But soccer is awful parochial so mediocrity is the usual default. 

[Maroon Manc]

No one on here believes Ireland have great players but do we have players good enough, for example, to threaten the defence of N Ireland. N Ireland should have scored 3 and their two forwards are playing in League 1. We have as poor a squad as we ever had but for god sake we still have player to be a relatively solid 3rd tier team at the moment.

Who are these players? Granted this last while I've watched very little of the ROI but Shane Long, O'Dowda, O'Brien are not these players.
MON & Keane did a wonderful job. They constantly over achieved. They will be very hard acts to follow. FAI should consider a statue in honour.

Here are some premier league players,  not saying they are top class but they are with premier league clubs none the less...

Coleman
Duffy
K Long
S Long
Hendrick
Arter
Obafemi
Christie
Brady
Ward
Cunningham
Clarke
Doherty

Mcclean, Randolph were recently also in premier league.

I also think o dowda and Stevens are capable of being premier league too. Now no doubt there are no world beaters there but is it unreasonable to expect us to be able to string a few passes together and make some chances? I don't think so.

Come of it Itchy, most of those lads are very average and of their clubs got relegated this season there wouldn't be a Premier League side beating down their door to sign them. Only Coleman, Hendrick & Brady are genuine Premier League players and perhaps Duffy is on his way to be being one too. Shane Long is nearly 32 and this is probably his last year in the PL. Its the worst squad Ireland have ever had.

[magpie seanie]

Seems we're getting Mick McCarthy back.