It's the Stephen Kenny Thread

 

 Yer you are right maybe a bit too over the top , hey it's not like the time when you were stood at the bottom of my bed with your lad out , now i was Very Worried i can tell yer

 

Lenny , you can say whatever you want but the two big games this month with Serbia and Lux will go a long way to see where we are heading .

 

Six points = unreal we can go all the way

Four points = super sets us up for Sept

Three points = well we beat Lux but have to Beat Serbia at home

Two points = just not good enough

One point = looks like the World cup is going out the window , and people on here said Kenny was out of his depth .

Zero points = Just walk away now Kenny .

 

That's my take on it .

I think plenty of our younger players have made great strides but the problem is that none of our attacking talents have quite kicked on. Connolly has done fine for Brighton very much established in their 18 but just hasn’t hit the back of the net. 

Obafemi had horrible ill timed luck with his injury. Parrott hasn’t really fired at all but is only turned 19. 

Idah is the dissapointing one in that I would accuse Norwich of handling his development poorly. No issue with him being behind Pukki and competing with Hugill two top strikers at that level Norwich are at but it’s little use to Idah coming off the bench for 5-10 minutes. 

I’d love to see him go out on loan next year to a decent side where he plays every week. Think he’s the one out of them all that could turn into a Pukki,Mitrovic Glenn Murray, type striker who is a profilic finder of the net. Kieffer Moore even for Wales. 

They don’t have to be superstars if they can find the net regularly at high level Championship level even they will have no problem doing so at International level.

It’s a bit like the last group. The draw away against Denmark kept us in the fight and made it a nervy 3 horse race. A draw against Serbia does likewise. All of a sudden Serbia nick a draw against the Portuguese Portugal know if they don’t beat us then they are in danger of falling into a scrap.

On paper Portugal will batter us of course but Portugal are not like Belgium England or Spain who steamroll teams in qualifying. Portugal can be bone idle in qualifying groups the last one against Ukraine and Serbia Ukraine beat them to top spot and they were only a few points clear of Serbia who were close in 3rd. 

I can see us having big difficulty in breaking them down, there isn't as big a gap between our players and theirs as there traditionally would be and they are up to 4th seeds for a reason

We have striking options, but you either go for the less inspiring Collins or Hogan (neither have had exceptional starts to their International careers), Long (on history rather than on current or recent goalscoring form), Maguire, or Idah who has struggled with injury and is only really getting to grips with top level football. Parrott and Curtis are in the lower leagues. Apart from Long, a couple of international goals between them, and we have scored one in eight.

To me, the midfield, just isnt particularly inspiring, but it is functional. The defence is where we have our best availability, and the wing forward position isnt too bad. But in terms of keeper and centre forward, well, I'm not sure id criticise anybody for their opinion.

I would certainly have agreed with you, only some much has happened in the past 18 months, that I think we have never been as weak as a team, nor do I feel the collective is better than any one individual. I think apart from Coleman we don't have a natural leader, we certainly don't have an outstanding individual player, and the rest of the team is journeyman-esque. We don't have anything approaching a prolific goalscorer, and in midfield we don't have anybody with the guile to break other teams down,

I have even said it before, given the difficulties that the team currently has, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with some sort of a Frankenstein's monster team, and the most difficult thing to concede is that, that might actually be the best way in the short term. Our young lads aren't playing enough at club level to warrant inclusion, our obvious team is injured and out of form, and that opens up potentials, but it also creates a bit of a "needs must". But even at that, without just a solid team, I don't think there is much hope of getting draws (particularly against the likes of Serbia), and I think there could be a touch of Euro 2012 about the Portugal fixtures.