Stephen Kenny

My issue with the Moran call up was that I believe he did it to quieten a bit of the clamour for his inclusion and to help point towards his record of calling up young players. He can point all he likes to the caps he has given out but he didn't give Moran one and went with safer options like McGrath and Robinson and Idah against Netherlands. It just feels like it was a stunt and a desperate one from a desperate man. 

Yeah no bother at all. I had the same opinion in the past when (I think) Connolly and possibly Parrot were in a similar position at different times. If it was a meaningful senior game or if the lads were being called up to play a significant part of the match my opinion would of course be different, but solely looking at this situation I think Moran should have stayed with the 21's 

Gaz wrote: Badgersboys9 wrote: The hypocrisy on here is baffling. There's not a chance that posters on here have, in the past, been calling for players deemed good enough for the seniors to stay with the U21s for qualifying campaigns.  The only time I've seen it was when someone hasn't been playing club football and should drop down to the U21s like its some form of punishment. When an important U-21 game is on versus an absolute dead rubber for the senior team I'd always prefer the U-21's to keep their strongest players where possible. Especially considering Moran didn't even get 1 minute on the pitch

When the senior team is in the middle of a giant rebuild & is in dire need of bodies then I would prefer that issue be treated as Priority #1 and sorted out as quickly as possible. U21s qualifying, while it would be nice, pales in comparison to actually sorting out the seniors.

It's not something that can be fixed over night, it takes time, literally 2-3 years to get a player up to 15-20 caps, so saying "well there's 4 friendlies in March/June he can come in then" is just kicking the can down the road when you can get the process started now. It's very unlucky he got injured last month.

People are bringing up Italy & Israel dropping players back down to their U21s, but I'd wager neither of those teams are in the middle of rebuilds.

As for Moran himself it would be actually be unfair on him to have him play for the U21s then go with the seniors for what would only be 1 training session & then expect him to perform vs NZ. He's better off getting the full week to settle in & get to know everyone, that gives him the best chance to impress when he does play.

Beyond that, he's one of our High Potential players, playing in a position we're light in, playing in the same League that most of our squad is in & doing well there. He's in on merit.

Things I look out for in a manager is flip flopping and not being consistent. To me that sends out indecision to the players.  I think Kenny bringing Duffy back and not going with the younger centre back and getting caught for it against Holland. I would blame Kenny for that not Duffy. I think the lack of consistency of

Thought with Kenny has been his undoing to be honest.  

I've supported Kenny since day 1. 

Kenny brought through 24 players but he never delivered.

This is his last game. It's time we move on.

People's perception of the talent pool has always been fairly realistic. A lot of the criticism of Kenny has been that he has been overly focused on a style of play instead of looking at his resources and planning appropriately. We do not have the players to be aesthetically pleasing and also achieve success. We have a limited team where we need to be pragmatic and play to the strengths which is hard working, physically strong and be difficult to beat that way.

He had little or nothing else to brag about so he picked this and repeated it ad nauseam. 

But I think the point is these two senior games were complete dead rubbers, as meaning less as it gets considering the manager isn’t even staying around. If the new manager is in place I could totally see the point of Moran moving up as part of a new group. I.e. If these were in any way important/ relevant games no one is arguing for Moran to stay with u-21s.