Lee Carsley

Is yer man Rowan a bit of a plank?

What is so special about Carsley?  Totally unproven and while he has had success at U21 level it is no indication he will be a success at senior level.

Just look at Stephen Kenny.  Was getting great results with the U21s and has been the worst manager in our history.

We need a proven manager who can get results while playing a somewhat decent brand of football. 

Its no coincidence all our major qualifications came from managers with authority and a proven track record.

Our experiments have all ended disastrously.  Kerr, Staunton, Kenny...

Always thought it was a grandmother too. Perhaps his mum has always been an Irish citizen on the virtue of her mum being Irish? These things are rarely black and white

Kenny is out of his depth and has been from the off; there’s no point going any further with him. The fans don’t “deserve” any more of him, that’s for sure. Most of us want us to see Ireland play good football, and don’t want to see the likes of Bruce/Big Sam/Lennon etc., but we also need to see results at some stage. We cannot wait forever for some ‘project’ to reach fruition - surely there’s a happy-medium somewhere. 

Do you think likes of Bruce or Big Sam would buy into the joined up set up from senior team down through underage?

In my opinion, the FAI and technical director are more after a specific model and will want a coach that will buy into that. 

That is why I think Carsley might be a perfect target for them as I think he would be an advocate of that sort of model and embrace it

I've previously used the analogy of the acquaintance we all have who is constantly talking about the app they are building, or the novel they are writing. It makes them feel all warm and fuzzy that their life will be so much better once its done, but it is never done, always being worked on, and when the chips are down that is when they are most likely to do all the big talking about it. Same here, the last vestiges of people who see a future for Kenny beyond this campaign would rather us be a terminal 'project', and avoid having to conclude that at some point there is no further it can go. And this is why we never see the novel or the app in the flesh. Better to have a great one that never sees the light of day, rather than one that does, and fails. You cant keep projecting into the future.

But that would be acceptable if it genuinely looked like the project was deeper than just changing the manager, changing the traditional style of play, and blooding a few new names on the assumption they all come good. Or that after three years the project itself still looked fit for purpose with clear progress. I was certainly very positive around the time of the Belgium friendly, after the last vestiges of the WC qualification campaign went well as we drew with the top seeds at home, and flat-track bullied the lower seeds. We then had a poor NL campaign (the Scotland win does not offset that), and have had a disastrous Euros qualification campaign. The win percentage is still being buoyed by beating the likes of Latvia, Malta, Gibraltar. It has been noticed that we are vulnerable from long distance. We remain pretty toothless from open play, and rely on dead balls and crosses for goals. Also, in the last window, there was a reliance on names like McClean, Doherty, Stevens etc that simply don't speak to the long term.

I don't think its fair to consider people as bandwagon fans if they have given support to the Kenny era, but patience has run out at this point. At a certain point it becomes delusional to any further progress here, as goal concessions, and defeats become more cultural to the team. We don't need to go back to route one football, or results based football. But if the FAI do their diligence, there surely is a manager in the market who could approach football less pragmatically than Trapp or MON, but get better results than SK. I agree, its cultural, and the traditional organs of player development in Ireland seem to have dried up at once.