SQUAD Greece (A) - Gibralter (H) June 2023

A great point - Why doesn't he give the likes of Jack Taylor a go in the squad? 

So you know with 100% certainty that Cannon hasnt privately said he doesnt want to tie himself down just yet, which a sub app vs Gibralter would do for 3 years? 

It's just Kenny's fault so it is and that's that!

If the player has said that he doesnt want to commit to the seniors just yet, then Kenny is 100% correct in my view to keep that private for now. This endless quest to disparage Kenny is just boring. There are plenty of things he has got wrong and that he can reasonably be criticised for, but this is just lads making assumptions and piling on. Cannon wouldnt have got on the pitch vs Greece and we dont need him to beat Gibralter. Relax ffs, as I said earlier he's played less than 20 senior games and has only just started his U21 career with us.

Taylor has been on the fringes previously, called up to extended squads/training camps. He has not done enough in his senior career to date to warrant a place in the squad having had a pretty average season in his first tilt at the Championship for a Peterborough side that were relegated. I like Taylor and I am glad he has now got his chance, but to suggest he was a horrendous omission from previous squads is nonsense and another attempt to denigrate Kenny on spurious grounds.

It really doesnt stand up to any scrutiny at all, he's probably brought in as many/more players than most previous managers. I'm not even sure that's necessarily a good thing.

Borussia wrote: SeaSharp wrote: You Tell Me wrote: Borussia wrote: Fruice wrote: I really can’t understand the Cannon situation. Fair enough he hasn’t trained due to illness but the games are weeks away he has plenty of time to get ready. We know he is a better finisher than some of our other options. We all know Kenny is slow to bring new faces in so the best he was going to get was a substitute appearance. I know I would much rather see him coming off the bench in Greece to get a goal rather than his team mate Parrot. I just can’t see why Kenny does this to himself you have to have space in your squads for form players. A great point - Why doesn't he give the likes of Jack Taylor a go in the squad?  Especially as it has only just come to light that he is eligible and he hasn't been there to be called up for the last three years?!  I'm sure Cannon will get a cap if he hangs around until he's 25 like Taylor has had to. Has Taylor really been worth a cap though? Shown himself to be very capable in League One but he's competing with fairly well established Championship players. I suppose there'd have been no harm giving him a go against Malta or Latvia but that's about it The point being in the last 3 squads I think there have actually been uncapped players. So this stuff about Kenny being slow to bring players in doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I don't think using a player who has been on the fringes of the squad for the last two years without being capped is a particularly great example.

Kenny was very quick to call up his own favourites from the Under 21s when he got the job, as well as a few more obvious standouts like Bazunu, Omobamidele and most recently Ferguson. He has been slow on the English born dual nationals though, Smallbone should have been in sooner than he was, and Cannon should be in now if available. It continues to baffle me that McNamara has never made a squad despite the age profile of our right backs and our tendancy to drop midfielders into that position. I suspect if Lee O'Connor had shown a fraction of the ability in senior football that McNamara has shown, he'd have been straight in.

How long did it take for Taylor to get a call up?

Probably until he demonstrated he was worthy of a call up and then came to a training camp and demonstrated he had something to offer in terms of what Kenny would be looking for him to do. 

So if he wasn't at the training camp - and bear in mind he wasn't supposed to be at the training camp - he wouldn't be in. This training camp thing is bollocks, these players are playing 20, 30 games a season, more in some cases, it shouldn't matter a damn whether Kenny and his coaches see them in a 4 day get together in Bristol or not. 

Kenny and Andrews are at the same sh*te that every Irish manager before them was at as well, coming up with excuses not to pick players instead of reasons to bring them in. Wales and the north aren't messing around with training camps, they're getting the better dual nationals straight in and they're capping them. Even England are better at it than us, we're messing about yet again and will probably pay the price for it like we did previously.