It's the Stephen Kenny Thread

Absolutely nothing would surprise me with that shyster. 

Luxembourg were 4th seeds and we were third, is finishing one place below your seeding an automatic sackable offence? Of course we would love things to click straight away and over-perform our seeding. But like anything in life, sometimes you need to take a step backwards before you can move forwards.

At least that is how I see it. It wouldn't be ideal but i could live with not finishing 3rd if performances improve further and we look like we are going somewhere. 

If we stink out the place in the remaining games then of course there is a question to be asked. 

I actually just did a quick check on our past performances versus seeding and it is interesting how some campaigns we would have considered as good (like euro 2016) we actually under-performed our seeding whereas others like (2008 under Stan), we actually overachieved! 

Bazunu - starting his career in L1 and looks promising.

Coleman - premier league player with excellent experience 

Duffy - premier league player with excellent experience 

Egan - vastly experienced with premier league experience 

Oshea - couple of years experience and probably one of the best defenders in the championship 

Doherty - highly experienced premier league player but struggling of late 

Knight - starting out his career in the championship and looks promising 

Cullen - new lease of life with anderlecht and looks good

Hendrick - highly experienced but struggling of late 

Idah - starting his career, needs more time 

Robinson - championship player and looks a good player 

Playing a teenager from a League 1 team is a risk but this lad looks good, still going to make a mistake but he'll get better

Defence looks better than it has for a long time now that oshea, omobamidele and collins are coming through.

Midfield is a problem area, lots of energy but lacking any attacking class going forward, hopefully knight can fill that gap.

Forward - critical area for ireland, struggling to kick the ball into the net

I think the team left foot picked will be close enough to the starting XI vs Portugal assuming they are all fit and firing, but for the Azerbaijan and Luxembourg games, I think we will need to get an extra attacking player on the pitch. I like Knight, but he's a better (and importantly younger) version of Molumby imo, lots of energy, pace, work rate etc, but I don't see goals or assists yet in his game, maybe they'll come, but to me he looks like a lad who can provide legs in midfield alongside either Cullen or Hendrick (or both against tough opposition), he can perhaps carry the ball from deep, but I'm still not sure he adds a lot to the offensive side of our game (yet).

For Azer and Lux, if we stick with a 5-3-2 as suggested, then imo we have to perm 2 of Cullen, Hendrick and Knight with somebody who might grab you a goal or create a goal from the attacking midfield area, maybe a Mc Grath, who has at least scored plenty at SPL level (although I don't personally see a great deal of vision in his game - haven't seen heaps of him to be fair). We really don't have great options in that offensive midfield role, maybe Ronan can develop further but these games will come too early. It remains a real problem position for us - where is the next Wes?

For that reason, I'd be inclined to field a kind of 5-2-2-1 with probably Robinson and Connolly a little deeper to the right and left respectively of Idah. Connolly for all that he exasperates at times (and he needs to kop himself on) remains one of our best goalscoring prospects and while he's clearly quite immature, he is still ahead of Parrott in terms of his development. Parrott for me looks like a #9 - it's either him or Idah in the team imo and Idah showed enough over the last window to suggest he's well ahead of him currently. Obafemi and Scully could represent options for the Robinson and Connolly positions going forward, but the next games probably come too early for them. I actually wouldn't be adverse to the idea of Parrott dropping down to the U-21s for their campaign, he just doesn't look close to ready for me. Don't get me wrong, I like the lad and think he has something, but it might actually help his development to be the main man for the U-21s campaign (and the U-21's need a striker if they are going to contend in their group). Collins can provide the back up for Idah. Also, the next 2 windows are both 2 game ones (and one game is a friendly where we should be giving fringe players a run out imo), so they shouldn't present the same rotation challenges (and I think that has been overlooked somewhat by commentators) that we struggled with in the last 2 groups of games.

Longer term, Coleman will be 33 in October, so 34 and a half when the Euro 24 qualifiers begin in earnest in March 2023 and 35 when the tournament proper kicks off. Much and all as I love Seamus, given his persistent niggly injury issues since his leg break, I think it's highly unlikely he will remain first choice at Everton past this season. RB/RWB is a particularly demanding position physically. Hope I'm wrong of course. In that instance, we move Doherty to RWB and hope the likes of Manning, Scales or Bagan can develop into an international quality LWB.

Arguably? No question.

He's on my all time XI

He can play right side of a central 3 as he ages

Doherty rwb