It's the Stephen Kenny Thread

Baldrick wrote: Stickittotheman wrote: Baldrick wrote: Well it beats being bored to tears and still not qualifying as happened most of the time under 2nd generation Mick and under MON and Trap.  If we are not going to qualify at least if we have a go and bring through young players it is something that can be enjoyable. If you were to offer me coming - close 3rd and not qualifying watching sh*t and coming a distance 3rd and seeing decent football and youth given a chance, I would chose the latter.   We do not have the players to be winning groups or comfortably finishing 2nd.  So it’s tight margins around 3rd and maybe 2nd on a very good run of results.   You are comparing apples and oranges. Trap had Robbie Keane so he had an advantage the others didn't- yeah the football wasn't great but we still had a great buzz for Euro 2012. The draw looking back was an horrific one. MON qualified for Euro 2016 where we get out of the group- Brady's goal will live long in the memory. We were one game from world cup qualification where we imposed tactically and to be fair the Danes were a right good side. Mick took us within one goal of automatically qualifying for the Euros. We were always competitive and who knows how he may have fared had he been given the play off. Kenny has had two nations league campaigns where we have picked up one win. His qualification campaign for the Euros was a catastrophe with us out of contention within 3 games. Now all that said we are playing some good stuff at times. Certainly the first half last night was excellent. Again lost the first two games in this campaign leaving us with so much to do. Personally it wouldn't bother me to see Kenny relieved of his duties. I don't see us qualifying for the Euros if he stays. His record suggests we may even be out of contention early doors. He probably will stay on though so I pray he can get more consistent results because otherwise we will be sitting at home discussing our great possession stats against Armenia and how we ran a couple of teams close whilst sitting 10 points behind again.  Hard to take you seriously when Kenny had not managed a euros campaign other than one playoff match.

Dalymount79 wrote: Mr Brick wrote: t_rAndy wrote: Interesting that there not a load of debate in here about his time being up this time around.  And some of the teams that he was slaughtered for, e.g. Luxembourg and Azerbaijan are getting results still off teams who would be similar to us (or arguably better) like Slovakia and Turkey.  If course, those performances were we have lost were not good enough so he can't be absorbed of fault and bad performances should continue to be scrutinised but it was maybe not as absolutely disastrous in reality Those results were disastrous. Just like the defeat to Armenia is proving disastrous. A bit early for benign revisionism.  finish on 10 or 7 points not that relevant as we’ll be 3rd either way with 4 points for the mini 3rd place league. For me a win is must as not winning would be as deflating as the defeat to Armenia…. and his position should then be questioned… as it would be repeat of steps forward only to fall backwards.

John Nice wrote: This argument has been done to death. We have produced 3 good performances on the bounce now and 4 pts from Scotland h&a and Ukraine a is a decent return given where all 3 teams are at. We need to back those up now at home to Armenia and we can then look forward to the Euro 24 campaign, where results will absolutely matter. We had 7 lads 23 or under starting last night, we are clearly heading in the right direction. The unending squabbling is just tiresome at this point.

John Nice wrote: This argument has been done to death. We have produced 3 good performances on the bounce now and 4 pts from Scotland h&a and Ukraine a is a decent return given where all 3 teams are at. We need to back those up now at home to Armenia and we can then look forward to the Euro 24 campaign, where results will absolutely matter. We had 7 lads 23 or under starting last night, we are clearly heading in the right direction. The unending squabbling is just tiresome at this point.

E2016 wrote: John Nice wrote: This argument has been done to death. We have produced 3 good performances on the bounce now and 4 pts from Scotland h&a and Ukraine a is a decent return given where all 3 teams are at. We need to back those up now at home to Armenia and we can then look forward to the Euro 24 campaign, where results will absolutely matter. We had 7 lads 23 or under starting last night, we are clearly heading in the right direction. The unending squabbling is just tiresome at this point. There are no prizes for good performances and we have 4 points from a possible 15 in a nations league group that the manager spoke about winning. The results thus far have not been acceptable. Its indisputable.  It's been near 30 games now. The results have to come at some point or we are just chasing our own tail. We are extremely easy to beat as we often lose when we play well and we nearly certainly lose when we dont play well. It's certainly not very clear that we are heading in the right direction at all. The debate is whether we will click our fingers in a few months and start getting results out of nowhere and develop a consistency the manager has never shown capable of achieving in nearly 30 games.  Qualifying for the Euros was always the target, based on what has happened thus far, there is nothing to suggest that this manager is capable of getting us there. This is a results business. His results have been shocking. Playing well against Scotland last night means absolutely nothing. Just like it meant nothing when we played well v Slovakia and lost and spent the last Euros sat at home.  Though evidently some will be happy if we have a 30 minute spell of good football against the pot 2 teams but lose anyway, be out of contention after two games and waffling about progress and qualifying for euro 2032 - telling everyone about the progress we are making and demanding patience.

John Nice wrote: E2016 wrote: John Nice wrote: This argument has been done to death. We have produced 3 good performances on the bounce now and 4 pts from Scotland h&a and Ukraine a is a decent return given where all 3 teams are at. We need to back those up now at home to Armenia and we can then look forward to the Euro 24 campaign, where results will absolutely matter. We had 7 lads 23 or under starting last night, we are clearly heading in the right direction. The unending squabbling is just tiresome at this point. There are no prizes for good performances and we have 4 points from a possible 15 in a nations league group that the manager spoke about winning. The results thus far have not been acceptable. Its indisputable.  It's been near 30 games now. The results have to come at some point or we are just chasing our own tail. We are extremely easy to beat as we often lose when we play well and we nearly certainly lose when we dont play well. It's certainly not very clear that we are heading in the right direction at all. The debate is whether we will click our fingers in a few months and start getting results out of nowhere and develop a consistency the manager has never shown capable of achieving in nearly 30 games.  Qualifying for the Euros was always the target, based on what has happened thus far, there is nothing to suggest that this manager is capable of getting us there. This is a results business. His results have been shocking. Playing well against Scotland last night means absolutely nothing. Just like it meant nothing when we played well v Slovakia and lost and spent the last Euros sat at home.  Though evidently some will be happy if we have a 30 minute spell of good football against the pot 2 teams but lose anyway, be out of contention after two games and waffling about progress and qualifying for euro 2032 - telling everyone about the progress we are making and demanding patience. And that's about the 3rd or 4th time you have posted that or similar, I get your point, we all get your point. Nobody here wants to lose games. I hear your viewpoint, but respectfully disagree. I don't think a change of manager right now will suddenly make us a better team or harder to beat. Rebuilding takes time and patience especially in international football where you can just buy improvement. I think we are improving, you clearly don't, grand!

Stickittotheman wrote: E2016 wrote: John Nice wrote: This argument has been done to death. We have produced 3 good performances on the bounce now and 4 pts from Scotland h&a and Ukraine a is a decent return given where all 3 teams are at. We need to back those up now at home to Armenia and we can then look forward to the Euro 24 campaign, where results will absolutely matter. We had 7 lads 23 or under starting last night, we are clearly heading in the right direction. The unending squabbling is just tiresome at this point. There are no prizes for good performances and we have 4 points from a possible 15 in a nations league group that the manager spoke about winning. The results thus far have not been acceptable. Its indisputable.  It's been near 30 games now. The results have to come at some point or we are just chasing our own tail. We are extremely easy to beat as we often lose when we play well and we nearly certainly lose when we dont play well. It's certainly not very clear that we are heading in the right direction at all. The debate is whether we will click our fingers in a few months and start getting results out of nowhere and develop a consistency the manager has never shown capable of achieving in nearly 30 games.  Qualifying for the Euros was always the target, based on what has happened thus far, there is nothing to suggest that this manager is capable of getting us there. This is a results business. His results have been shocking. Playing well against Scotland last night means absolutely nothing. Just like it meant nothing when we played well v Slovakia and lost and spent the last Euros sat at home.  Though evidently some will be happy if we have a 30 minute spell of good football against the pot 2 teams but lose anyway, be out of contention after two games and waffling about progress and qualifying for euro 2032 - telling everyone about the progress we are making and demanding patience. Even performance wise has it really been so good that we are irrefutably on the right track?  Armenia (a)- Utterly abysmal performance and deserved to lose. Ukraine (h)- Poor result and performance against a Ukraine team with 10 changes and suffering a play off hangover. Ukraine (a)- Decent performance and result against a good outfit. Scotland (h]- Very good performance with the caveat that we played the Scots obviously suffering a hangover from the play off loss. Scotland (a)- Good first 45mins. Poor second 45mins. Probably unlucky to lose on the balance of the game. Maybe not enough to win. I really don't see the where the optimism comes from.

People seem to forget what Kenny has had to deal with. He has basically had to rebuild a new team from scratch. We have had to integrate a lot of toung unproven players who in years past probably would not have got a look in for years. Partly because we had better players and partly because we had cautious managers. The level of players he has at his disposal is not as good as in the past either. Throw in a worldwide disaster in covid-19 which disrupted everything. Add into all that he has had rotten luck with his coaches. Duff Barry and Eustace all left not long after starting. Would we like better results absolutely but there are a lot of factors going on. We have the makings of a decent team. We lack a composed striker. We always talked about if we played more possession football we may lose more than we win. Maybe that will play out. Im not convinced someone else coming in will make us get results more often. Maybe it would i dont know. We absolutely have to find a way to score more goals though or we will continue to lose these types of games like last night.