This shows the mindset that is holding back Irish football.
Stephen Kenny won’t be the next manager of the Republic of Ireland. Probably not anyway. A lot would have to happen.
Firstly, it appears unlikely that Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane will be leaving their posts. They only signed new deals back in January and it would cost the association a fortune to dismiss them.
The Republic of Ireland management team are simply too big to fail.
"The fact Ireland don't have great players isn't a defence of the management team. It's just another argument in favour of replacing them" | @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/XUEaG66zis
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 17, 2018
We’re unlikely to see the best of this current group of players under them. This modestly talented squad need a coach to apply some structure and organisation. They simply aren’t good enough to be told: “just deal with it.”
No-one can deny he had a galvanising impact across two campaigns. But O’Neill’s effect on the team has evaporated.
It is time for a change. This won’t get any better.
As such, in an article last week I suggested that Kenny, the Dundalk manager, should be the next Ireland boss.
Kenny’s work with the Irish champions suggests he could, at the very least, put some shape on the national team. He has won four league titles in five years and helped Dundalk reach the group stages of the Europa League playing progressive football.
He is, by all accounts, an excellent man-manager and a great coach, who has an idea of how the game should be played. Despite losing several of his best players over the last few years, Kenny has found a way to maintain Dundalk’s success.
He wouldn’t spend five years in the job complaining about not having Robbie Keane and would never talk down the quality of his players.
He has a positive view of Irish football and Irish players.
“It is important to dispel the current train of thought that it’s in the DNA of Irish players to play a more direct style,” Kenny wrote in his programme notes for Dundalk’s win over Sligo Rovers last Friday night
“That somehow being Irish that you were inherently born with a skill deficit. The players have consistently shown their talent, their ability to pass and receive the ball under pressure and open their imagination to see possibilities.”
Ireland wouldn’t aimlessly lump the ball away under Kenny. If he can get Dundalk to pass the ball against Zenit St Petersburg, he might be able to get the Ireland team to string a couple of passes together.
Yet, while many agreed that Kenny would be a good choice, there were others who shot the idea down.
This comment, in particular, sums up the attitude of many towards potentially appointing a League of Ireland manager to the national team post.
This is the type of attitude that has held Irish football back and will continue to do so. It is flawed and shortsighted.
To hold this point of view is to focus on where someone has worked rather than the work they have done. It blatantly ignores the evidence from the pitch.
"There'll never be another Robbie Keane and there wasn't one before he came along. What other small European country has such a player or ever did? He was an outlier" | @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/MSn8At2PGy
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 9, 2018
In essence, it is the exact same approach O’Neill has had – selecting players based on the club or level they are playing at, rather than because they have the necessary attributes to fit into a tactical plan that will bring out their best qualities, minimise their shortcomings and get the better of the opposition.
Kenny wouldn’t take such a fatalistic approach. The fact he hasn’t managed in English football shouldn’t be of any relevance for his suitability to be Ireland coach.
Experience is overrated
On paper, there is no contest between the managerial records of Sam Allardyce and Gareth Southgate. One has been a manager for 27-years. He has coached more than 10 different teams, seven in the Premier League, and has never been relegated as a manager. The other was sacked from his only club job a decade ago after taking the team from Uefa Cup finalists to the Championship.
Yet, Southgate has done a brilliant job as England manager. He has achieved more than Allardyce would have with the same group of players. His approach to the England job is of greater relevance than his work with Middlesbrough 10 years ago. Experience only counts for so much.
O’Neill’s experience is a hindrance, rather than a help, at this stage. He is one of the most experienced managers around. He has been doing the job for 30 years and, you may have heard, also won two European Cups as a player. But, ultimately, what does that matter?
What difference does his experience make if he is going to pick Cyrus Christie in midfield and only inform him of the decision when they reach the stadium?
O’Neill’s experience has taught him that this approach can bring success. And it did over a decade ago, but he has not adapted.
He adheres to the Brian Clough bible of football management, a manual that is now obsolete.
The management team is the first issue Irish football needs to address | @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/Cpglk0pxqB
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) September 10, 2018
Like several aspects of Irish football, O’Neill’s methods and references are out of date. Last week, he actually said that international football is of a higher level than club football – something that hasn’t been true for at least 25 years.
His outlook is framed by British football logic from the 1970s and 80s. Another manager schooled in British football would likely take a similar view on the Ireland job.
We need to move past their limited interpretation and fatalistic approach.
Reputation
Another argument against appointing Kenny was that he may not command the respect of the Ireland players because he has mainly worked as a League of Ireland coach. Again, this is nonsense.
Firstly, players will respect a coach who can help improve them. A famous name might command their attention for a brief spell, but that effect can diminish if there is nothing substantial behind their methods.
More importantly, like Kenny, many of the Ireland players came from the League of Ireland.
In the World Cup play-off squad last November, the former League of Ireland players had 264 caps between them. If Seamus Coleman had been available, it would have been over 300 caps.
Whether people realise it or not, Irish domestic football has become the de-facto route to the senior national team in recent years. It is the springboard to relaunch a career that didn’t get going in England, or a chance to prove your talent if you were overlooked by scouts as a teenager.
The idea that the Irish players wouldn’t respect a coach who has, like them, worked in the League of Ireland is just rubbish.
Once again, it shows how the outlook of many within Irish football is completely framed by English football. This type of thinking is holding back football in the country.
"The rush for players to ‘get away’ to England has harmed Irish football and at this point it no longer makes any sense to persist with it as the primary goal, as English clubs are discarding Irish talent" – @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/Cyc7WlCeYH
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 27, 2017
Reliance on English football
England has been something of a backwater when it comes to progressive tactics and ideas on the game. They have got their act together in recent years and now produce more technical players. But Irish football is still beholden to the game across the water.
The national team still “play” – if that’s the right word – an antiquated type of kick and rush, hoofing the ball away and relying on hard work to get a result.
No other international team plays like this. England last played this way about 25-years ago.
We still rely on English football to develop our players, despite all evidence suggesting that this method is no longer working. We export the strongest, fastest and tallest teenage footballers, as they are the ones most likely to excel in the rough and tumble of British football. Or at least they were 30 years ago.
Intelligent, skilful players are largely overlooked and discarded because they were largely overlooked and discarded across the water. This short-term approach, based on the demands of an external market, has harmed Irish football.
We support their teams. We forge our opinions on players based on what clubs they play for in England. Faith in the merits of English football is almost a belief system for many Irish football fans. Like capitalism or Catholicism, they see it as a system to provide order to the world.
Someone actually said to me that Kenny would have to at least manage in the Championship before he can be considered as a potential Ireland coach. What have those two levels of football got to do with each other? They are different jobs with different demands.
The Dundalk manager himself said as much when speaking about this topic recently.
“We’re too influenced by England,” he told Daniel McDonnell of the Irish Independent.
“We need to look at Europe and South America for our influences – not England. Why do we narrow ourselves to that? We need to look at the broader picture of how the game is played. It’s as simple as that.
“I’ve been listening to that (comments about Irish style of play) for years. Zenit St Petersburg (Dundalk’s Europa League opponents in 2016) had much better players than a lot of the international teams have had recently.
“There are no English coaches – the best is Eddie Howe. The rest are oldschool in the way they think and the way they play. People are institutionalised by the way of thinking and the ideology about the game.”
He is right. And we can no longer afford to be defined by the standards of English football. Irish football could be cast permanently into the wilderness. Old-school British football has already been bypassed.
In an idealised scenario, if he was the Ireland manager, Kenny would work as part of a restructured setup, with the national team as the end point of Irish football development. There would be a much greater investment in domestic football, as we can no longer rely on English clubs to develop Irish players. They don’t need or want Irish youngsters the way they once did.
In this role as national team manager, Kenny would have an input on the future of the game in the country, to help develop players who will eventually feature for Ireland. Promising young players would be identified and integrated with the senior team. The money spent on a management team that has long lost its effect could be used elsewhere to improve the sport in the country.
Kenny could be to the Irish team what Michael O’Neill has been to Northern Ireland. A homegrown coach who has helped a modestly talented team perform above expectations, and has a remit to help improve the development of the sport in the country. But Kenny would have greater resources and arguably better players at his disposal.
There would be a plan, some structure, belief in the talent of the players available and no Clough anecdotes. An idea of play would be established.
Kenny believes in the best of Irish football and that would be a breath of fresh air after the dour intransigence of the current regime.
But, it won’t happen. O’Neill’s zombie team will limp on and Irish football will continue to be defined by English football.
An out of work “Proper Football Man” educated in old-school British football – a now bankrupt and archaic culture – will get the job when the current manager leaves and the senior team will continue to lump the ball away.
In truth, that is all that many expect from the Ireland team and Irish players. As long as that is the case, as long as people can’t see that Irish football is capable of more, then that’s all they really deserve.
