Glenn Whelan

As I see it Martin O'Neil effectively retired Whelan a there was some tokenistic game where he was subbed off after 25 odd minutes.

However Mccarthy recalled Whelan when he became manager and he was un-retired...  

No wins in 10 Nations League games

Only beat Gibraltar and Georgia in the last qualifying campaign and failed to qualify from the group

Knocked out in the first game of the Euros playoffs

There isn't a straight line of decline from 2002 until now - there have been a few peaks in-between obviously. But the overall trajectory has been downwards, especially in the last three years.

I don't expect 2021 to be any better to be honest, but there are signs of progress with better young players that should improve us from the Euro 2024 qualifiers onwards. The problem is that they're coming into the weakest Irish team since the mid 80s so we really need to build a new team rather than slot in a couple of younger players here and there. We are pretty much at our lowest ebb in almost 40 years though so there has clearly been a huge decline over time.

I think that up to and including the win against Wales, were operated at a different level, and a competitive one at that. I think ti could have been better at times, and there might have been players who didn't decline as rapidly and prematurely as they did, or players who might have achieved more, or may have bloomed a little earlier (not their fault). But we were 60 minutes from attending the 2018 World Cup when the ceiling caved in on us.

Since then, there has been a noticeable decline. The performances have been tough to watch, but the results have been poor with three competitive wins (two against Gibraltar, on against Georgia) some plucky draws, but when you take the Euro 2020 campaign as a whole, it was a huge disappointment, and this backed up 2018 when I feel interest in the national team declined greatly, due to the performances which were motivated not to have the sky cave in on us again.

Apart from losing Rice, which has been a major loss, we have also not been able to replace important players like Jon Walters and Robbie Keane, and Wes. McGeady and Long, if they were still firing would make a difference. Also, there is a youth bubbling under the surface, but that is just not quite ready yet. Hence, we are left with what we've got, which isn't very good.

During the euro 2016 finals under O'Neil we played Sweden in our first game (1.1) and got hammered by Belgium in the second game (3.0) whelan played on both games.

The remaining 2 games (Italy and France) whelan was dropped to the bench.

He played a few games thereafter but between 28th March 2017 - 19th nov 2019. Of the remaining 19 games under O'Neil he was not in the squad for 10, on the bench for 3 and only played +45 mins in 2 of his 5 sub appearances.

The last being the 36 min supposed swan song vs N.Ireland.

Once mccarthy took over, he was playing 90mins in 5 and 82 mins in 1 of mccarthys 8 euro qualifying games.

None of which made him a key player, which you described him as

 

277 Premier League Appearances.

91 CAPS.

 

Was a great servant for us.

 

Was on the end of outrageous criticism from a very ignorant cohort of fans and media.

 

 

Funny how you can’t see this with SK