IRELAND VS WALES - October 11th

Egan Duffy Doherty Coleman Randolph Hourihane McCarthy Stevens Mcgoldrickthere would be plenty continuity although I do understand what your saying. 

I would say look at Wales Rodon Morrell Cabango Williams Smith etc the first 4 of them playing in the championship and Williams only playing cup games for Liverpool yet Wales bring them in early get them familar and if you look at Wales 25 man squads it’s packed with young talent on top of the 8-10 core senior players they have Ampadu Wilson countless others too.

Kenny has made more effort in a month to start that then any manager has in about 10 years for us but even still McClean in at Obafemis expense even the likes of Arter Christie and Williams when you have Knight Smallbone Obafemi O’Shea Manning and Cullen playing at least the same level if not higher than McClean Christie and Derrick Williams for us. The imprortant part of that is the younger ladshave a far higher ceiling potentially and are on the up. 

It shouldn’t have taken a complete gutting of the squad to finally bring O’Shea into it this time for a stand out example even though Kenny might give the U21 game as a reason for that who knows. 

McClean and Christie in at O’Shea and Obafemis expense is the equivalent of Wales having Ashley Williams Tom Lockyer instead of Rodon and Cabango or Joe Ledley in at Ampadu or Joe Morrells expense for complete context.  

Anyhow, swiftly moving on.......

You remind me of Muskie in the Wacky Races cartoon who always wanted a badge 

Do you wear them to bed 

Muskie? 

I don't know what's worse, that fact that you couldn't even get the characters name right (Muttley) or the amount of laughing emoticons in an unfunny and childish reply.

Anyhow for the second time, I can't be arsed derailing the thread further.

 

Just to answer that apologies I did but Stevens and McCarthy would probably be the least of those evils mentioned above for me so yeah I’d have them in intially. 

Again I would point to Wales as a template similar country to us don’t exactly have oceans of depth and bring in their players early regardless of how “ready” they are look at their past 25 man squads or even this one youl see how well packed it is with young quality playing at a very similar level to what the young lads I mentioned above for us are playing at. You can be certain sure if the likes of Joe Rodon Cabango and Mepham and 36 year old Ashley Williams were Irish Ashley Williams would probably still be in our squad.

Yeah the reaction to Molumby against Finland was bizarre I thought he did okay in that game and was the best player on the park against Wales. Connolly got similar abuse for being wasteful which he was but again only 20 a young lad learning his trade.

How high their ceiling is I don’t know know one knows really let’s hope it is really high. To touch on Connolly I get Shane Long vibes about him even at this stage for all he’s an exciting attacking talent one we haven’t seen burst on the scene for years whilst I’d regard Knight and Nathan Collins as two I’d have huge hopes for that aren’t talked about as much as some yet. Who knows about any of them. 

It's easy justify capping top young talent when they're at Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Chelsea etc whereas prior to the last year or two we haven't had that sort of luxury and in truth Wales are a few years ahead of us in that regard.

Take a glance at their top prospects who aren't fully established and do the same with ours, you can see that the likes of Roberts, Matondo, Ampadu, Mepham, Rodon etc are all around the 20-22 mark whereas our crop are 18-20 and it makes a big difference.

We will get there though, I'm confident that the future is bright for Ireland! 

That’s exactly it Green Devil is right in that most of them Wilson Rodon James Brooks Morrell etc are 20-23 as opposed to 18-21 with our lads. I don’t look at the Welsh lads and think there young lads are vastly superior to ours. They have a lot of lads knocking around at “big clubs” but it’s very much a case of stat padding isn’t it bit like Kelleher for us at Liverpool he won’t be there long term. 

Ampadu I have huge time for think he’s very good and was unlucky his loan at Leipzig didn’t go great as regards game time he can kick on at Sheffield Utd now though and looks a shoe in for a top half PL club if not Chelsea. 

I don't think many posters have an issue with the style of play, I think most of them have an issue with Kenny and his suitability for the job. Some of them are still pining for Mick, to come back for the third time to complete his "unfinished business". I notice that the post match inquest on TV after the  Slovakia game wasn't the usual Oscar speeches about ten year plans, but whether Kenny is up to it or not, because we lost a penalty shoot out. 

You'll get a few hoofball heads like Roddy Collins going ballistic over not getting 3 points, but I think most of us recognise that we've qualified for 2 tournaments in 20 years, and the traditional "put em under pressure" tactics we've revelled in for the past 35 years no longer work, and we need to rebuild the team and how the team plays. That was never going to be Mick, it's not going to be the likes of Allardyce either. It needs someone with the time and the will and the energy to do a radical reform of the side and it needs the fans to have the patience to put up with it, and be prepared to write off a campaign or two, in order to be competitive again. It's not about the next campaign, it's about where we want to be in 4-6-10 years time. Every country has to do it at some point, if they want to be successful. 

The game was everything I expected it to be. It was never going to be a classic. They had no interest in scoring and we can't score at all. Then McClean launched into one of his traditional challenges and became the first player to be dismissed at home since 2011. He can go back to Stoke and fight his one man war against poppy wearing for the next month. 

In his absence we're off to Finland, to face a country whose level of progress and achievement, are the model we have to look to during the long rebuilding phase to come.