The Republic of Ireland‘s football team plumbed new depths on Saturday night as Stephen Kenny’s side slumped to a 1-0 defeat to Luxembourg at the Aviva Stadium.
A sweetly-struck, long-range effort from Dynamo Kiev striker Gerson Rodrigues five minutes from time, sealed a deserved victory for the visitors.
Luxembourg, sandwiched between Bahrain and Armenia in 98th place in Fifa’s latest world rankings, had not won an away qualifier in 13 years before bumping into Kenny’s hapless team.
Things haven’t gone particularly swimmingly for the Boys In Green for some time. Prior to Alan Browne’s goal against Serbia on Saturday, Ireland had gone over 11 hours without a goal.
But Saturday’s result was the nadir of Kenny’s winless spell in charge and one of the lowest points in Irish football history.
“It’s a very embarrassing night for us as international players,” captain Seamus Coleman admitted after sheepishly accepting his man of the match award.
“It’s going to be tough. We’re going to get criticism. It’s going to be deserved criticism.”
Coleman’s prophecy was correct, of course.
The Irish Independent said in their match report that the “Stephen Kenny project has hit rock bottom” adding that it is “tragic” to see the national team struggling to such an extent.
National hero and veteran of 83 international caps Paul McGrath, opened his column for the same paper with the words: “I never like kicking a man when he’s down. I was down myself many a day. But I’m sorry, Stephen Kenny – it is time to go.”
Phil Babb was equally withering in his assessment of Ireland’s performance on Sky Sports after the game, going as far as to say it was a “very sad day for the country”.
“I’m in shock, to be honest. I thought they had all the tools in the box to get a win, and to be unstuck by the 98th-ranked team in the world is an embarrassment.
“They seemed to be devoid of ideas from the start of the game. It’s a very sad day. It feels raw but the more you look at it, it’s not unexpected.”
In appointing Kenny, Football Association Ireland (FAI) made a commitment to try and usher in a more expansive style of play, more in keeping with the modern game.
Admirable as that philosophy shift may be, neither the results nor the performances suggest that it is a strategy that is working. Kenny is without a victory after 10 attempts.
A frequent assessment of Kenny’s Ireland is that the players at his disposal are not technically gifted enough to carry out his instructions, although former striker Kevin Doyle disagreed with that notion.
“The argument that we don’t have the players goes out the window in that match,” he argued. “We are better than Luxembourg and we should beat them.
“What happens next with the manager is a decision someone else needs to make now. The players have to be ashamed of that. It’s a horrible place to be when things go as badly as that.”
Stephen Elliott, himself a former Ireland striker, agreed, saying: “Stephen Kenny needs to step back and realise whatever he is doing right now is not working.
“Ten games in and we are miles off where I hoped we would be. Maybe he has to look at himself a little bit and realise there is more to international football than he thought.
“We have scored three goals in ten games and we have lost to Luxembourg at home. That is unbelievable.”
FAI have a decision to make that goes beyond merely sacking an underperforming manager: if Kenny goes, presumably so too does the ambition to cultivate a more progressive approach.
Kenny’s post-match comments that he wasn’t “shocked” by one of the most shocking results in the country’s history, is unlikely to have been well received in the FAI boardroom.
Mercifully for Ireland’s beleagured players, there are no more qualifiers to play for another six months.
Whether Kenny will be the man to lead them out for September’s meeting with Portugal is very much up in the air.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2P83Zyi
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