It's the Stephen Kenny Thread

Far too early to start talking about sacking him.

The tactical issue of playing 523 vs lower ranked opposition needs to be addressed though.

Azerbaijan at home, Luxembourg away (for the first 60mins until Knight came on for Idah), Lithuania, and today Armenia.

All 4 games we played 2 CMs with 3 strikers ahead. Dominated possession, created lots of little half chances. But if the opposition can weather the pressure they can have a decent counter-attack planned that gets a few bodies up quickly they can play right past our 2 CMs and gain a huge amount of ground very quickly. And then if they they have a player with a good long range shot they can potentially get something.

Those teams now have a clear blueprint of how to effectively play against us.

All our best performances over the last 12 months have utilized an attacking-mid.

-Vs Portugal it was McGrath both games.

-Azerbaijan away 0-3, it was Horgan (subbed for McGrath at half-time)

-Qatar at home 4-0, McGrath again.

-Lux away 0-3, Robbo/Idah/Ogbene started, didn't work, Knight coming on for Idah changed it completely.

-Belgium 2-2, Knight again.

Pretty clearly that 3rd midfielder is crucial for us.

What you saying, Murph? We sack him after that? 

I'd say it's our worst competitive away result since losing to Cyprus way back in 2006 (with the home defeat against Luxembourg probably our worst ever result in a qualifier).

The quality of our players will mostly decide that I think. The horizon would suggest its going to be a tough ask bit could just sneak in

Stephen Kenny now statistically is far worse than any Irish manager that went before him. In 11 LON games now we have lost 6, scored 2 goals in those games. Routinely lost games to minnows, the same minnows that we previously used to always beat. But now some how it’s deemed some

what acceptable to lose to Luxembourg, Armenia etc etc.. the justification has been wide and varied with the mentally fragile Pro Kenny brigade. For more than a year now people who have had valid questions marks about Kenny and suitability to a top international job have been jeered in the media by the likes of Dan Mcdonell. It was said and suggested that if you don’t ‘see the plan with Kenny ‘ then you should go back to supporting your premier league team. It was as if Stephen Kenny was completely immune from any sort of criticism for the past 18 months. I for one am sick to death of it and the non stop excuses.

It is high time now that a spade be called for exactly what it is. Stephen Kenny now has had 3-4 years with this group and it cannot be argued that it has been anything other than a miserable failure and we have regressed significantly under his tenure. It seems that people are so mentally unable to handle that he isn’t good enough and any criticism as mentioned above is justified by a myriad of excuses. Kenny has tried to implement t more possession based football fair play to him for that but at the end of the day the buck will always stop with the head coach and results alone he should judged on. He is not capable of turning this around and I for one am sick of him.

Some good points there . 

He was appointed just over two years ago tbf.