Contract is up in March I believe but talks they'll move him on after the France game. Greek FA look a bigger shambles than our lot. They'll have no fans in attendance for their friendly against New Zealand because the only stadium they could get for that date UEFA won't allow fans attend.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Nah - you didn't go into detail - you looked at the rankings of the teams in the group - spoke about when Ghana scored a couple of goals - and then mentioned two friendlies that Ghana lost (without mentioning the rankings)
And that is fair enough - now - can I challenge you to name your preferred candidate - someone who is a realistic prospect for the FAI and who won't jump ship to a club job at the first available opportunity?
Carsley is my preferred and I think the most obvious candidate, but outside of that I dont really know. If I was to pick a massive outsider who I think could be interesting to take a punt on Id say Brian Barry Murphy.
The biggest reason for my choices are that I believe over the next few years its still vital that we bring in players from the youth ranks. We are continuing to be successful, to a point, with the underage teams and there are a number of players from u17s up that could very well make an impact in the next 2-4 years. I dont want a manager with the mentality of Martin O'Neill for example who explicitly said that he didnt care about the youth players because his job was to just win now. For me the senior team manager has to win games obviously, but I also believe there should be a consideration to the overall development of Irish football. I also think that some of the players coming through will help the senior team to win.
So I dont think there is a perfect answer to who should be the next manager, but I dont want someone with a conservative mindset.
Its really not that complicated!!!
Two decent options - I don't think Carsley is a realistic one - but Barry Murphy could be. Now the big question is whether Barry Murphy wants to get back into club management - or wants to stay with his current job - he was linked with QPR and Swansea last year. He did a decent job at Rochdale and looked to be on an upward trajectory in terms of club management before he moved to Man City. He seems settled there and that's why I think he probably won't be interested.
I would agree with that.
I would also agree with this - but there is a myth that Hughton has a conservative mindset. He works with what he has available - when he has the players his teams play an exciting brand of football (ask Brighton fans during the season he got them promoted - or the Newcastle fans that staged protests when he was sacked by Ashley). What he does build is a solid defence.
There is also a myth that Hughton doesn't use young players - in fact the reason why he is currently being threatened with the sack in Ghana is because he wants to bring young players into the squad.
I do think Carsley is realistic, all his buddies in the media like Kilbane and Dunne were touting him for the job up to recently and I dont think that they would have done that without knowing he would take the job, but we'll see.
In regards to Barry, he'd be a massive outside option and I dont think Ive seen his name being linked with it anywhere but if hes ambitious this would be the biggest job he could get right now.
Edit: I dont think you can say its a myth that he has a conservative mindset. Its your opinion that he doesnt, but his style of football in the last 10 years roughly to me was conservative. I didnt pull my opinion from the air, its based on what I seen, and a lot would agree with me. Now if he got the job and made us solid, but tried to play a decent brand of football and didnt lean on tried and tested older players at the expense of better younger players then I'd be delighted to say I had it wrong on him.
Last edited by Razors left peg; 15/11/2023 at 8:01 PM.
Its really not that complicated!!!
I don't think that the senior managers role should have anything to do with the development of Irish football. I'd argue that the vast majority of snr international managers have little to no impact on the development of players coming through and nor should they. They have very limited time with their players throughout the year and the role of development will solely be with their clubs. The role of the manager is to essentially pick the best team and get that team playing to the best of their abilities through direction, tactics etc and bring young players into the squad but development does not fall into their remit and they wouldn't have the time or resources to do so.
There's a huge amount of downtime in between games so the international manager has plenty of time to be involved with the youth structures, especially I'm a small country like ourselves. And I didn't say he should be the head of development, I just said there should be consideration of it. If we only think short term constantly we will never improve.
Its really not that complicated!!!
We are a small country with a limited pool of players capable of playing international football. There needs to be some sort of overall development plan in place and it should include the international manager.
If I am remembering correctly - this was one of the things that Brian Kerr was touting both before and while he was Irish manager. Interestingly, he left the Faroes job precisely because they wanted him to take a far more active role in the development of football from the grassroots up - but this would have required Kerr spending far more time in the Faroe Islands than he was willing to do.
Last edited by Jolly Red Giant; 15/11/2023 at 9:55 PM.
Its not my opinion - it is an actual myth.
At Newcastle his teams were not conservative - at Birmingham they were not conservative - for the first two years at Brighton they were not conservative. But when you are managing a team that has a bottom three budget and little money to spend on players - then you do the job in a fashion that ensures PL survival. Half the teams that are promoted, get relegated within two seasons - about 40% after the first season. Those that survive tend to do so by throwing vasts amounts of money at the squad (e.g. Forest £150m) - and it usually comes back to bite them in the ass a few years later. Hughton kept both Norwich and Brighton up with a fraction of the money most other promoted clubs spend - in particular the case of Brighton because he laid the foundations for Potter's later success. To keep the teams up he had to play to their strengths - tight defence, not taking risks and battling for results. He didn't have to do that at Newcastle because he actually had a squad capable of playing in the PL. Forest were also a basket-case when he took them over - his first objective was to save them from relegation - which he did.
Forest had so many injuries at the start of the second season that Hughton basically had no choice but to shut up shop and wait until he got players back - except it didn't work - and Hughton paid the price. But - as I have pointed out - three months later Forest were still in 17th place - they then won three on the trot - two against the bottom two teams - and they jumped to 8th. In January they brought in five new players - and four of them played a crucial role in getting Forest promoted. If Hughton had the players that Copper had at his disposal then Forest would not have been conservative. Hughton knows how to get teams promoted and/or into the play-offs (and to keep them in the PL when they are promoted).
What "tried and tested older players" have Ireland got at the moment??
It's not a myth that, in his last two seasons at Brighton, finishing 15th and 17th, he scored less than a goal a game(60 goals in 76 games = 0.78), and conceded 1.5 goals a game (114 in 76 games = 1.5)
The following season, Potter's first in charge. he turned both stats around,scoring 39 goals in 38 games, and conceding 54, or 1.6 per game. In his second season in charge, they again scored more than a goal a game(40) and improved defensively
Quite a bit left out there. Hughton lost six of the first seven games of the season, drawing the other. Following his sacking, they only lost six more for the rest of the season. It's true that the team jumped from 13th to eighth, but the Championship has a notoriously congested league table. At the moment, Watford are 13th with 21 points, the right set of results could see them jump to ninth with a win, or drop to 19th with a loss.
There's a summary of Forest's 2021/22 season on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E...st_F.C._season
In terms of who we can possibly get for the job considering the money on offer, unless we go for a punt on an unknown, Hughton is as good as we can hope for.
Definitely wouldn't want someone untried like Barry-Murphy. The only thing of note on his CV in terms of senior football is getting Rochdale relegated. His Rochdale team seemed to have no defensive structure, and that's the last thing we need from whoever gets the job next. Could be one to consider next time the under 21 job comes up, or maybe the under 17/under 19 jobs, but that's about it.
We need to become hard to beat again, first and foremost.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
I wouldn't write off every untried manager. More and more clubs are giving coaches a shot rather than going the usual suspects route. Portsmouth are unbeaten in the league going back till March 16th and their manager was still playing with Oxford this time last year.
I wouldn't mind Anthony Barry coming in as manager. Has worked with the players before. Unfortunately I doubt he'd walk away from both Bayern and Portugal for Ireland, and don't think the FAI would go the route of having a manager who double jobs.
Had he wanted it, all he had to do was stay where he was surely ? He'd probably have it by now even. Exactly they type of appointment which would have his head turned soon as some attention came his way and soon after that he'd be gone, just like he did already. It'd be nice, but it'd be brief, and it'd lead to uncertainty and having to appoint again, when what we probably need is unspectacular stability for a bit, keep giving games to the young lads and try not to lose so often, while not resorting to launching it. That's sadly where we are stuck.
Stephen Kenny Saviour, Leader, Winner, An Autobiography - In All Good Bookstores Now
As usual - the stats do not tell the full story - Brighton had a championship level squad when they were promoted and Hughton spent £5m on Matt Ryan, £5m on Davy Propper, £3m on Pascal Gross - then, needing pace, £10m on Jurgen Locadia and £10m on José Izquierdo - and both Locadia and Izquierdo promptly got hurt, Locadia only played 6 games in his first season. For goals Hughton had to rely on Glenn Murray.
Like all promoted clubs - it is very difficult to get PL quality players to join in the first or second season - in the second season - he signed Bissouma (£12), Dan Burn (£3m), Montoya (£6m), Alexis Mac Allister (£6m), Andone (£4m) and, again looking for pace, Jahanbakhsh (£13.5m) - who immediately ended up injured and played less than half the games that season.
Hughton struggled - like all newly promoted managers do - to get in PL quality players - but he did get Bissouma, MacAllister (who was loaned back to Argentina as part of the deal and never played for Hughton), Gross, Propper and Matt Ryan who turned out to be a decent goalkeeper.
Throughout the two years Brighton were never in the relegation zone - Hughton did what he was supposed to do - he kept the club in the PL. If Potter had been manager of Brighton with the players that Hughton had, they would have gone straight back down.
When Potter was appointed what did Dan Ashworth do - He spent £18m on Trossard, £20m on Webster, £22m on Maupay - and £10m upfront for Mooy and a further £10m the following January (on top of that they also bought Matt Clarke and Tariq Lamptey for a combined £13m). For four players Potter and Ainsworth spent more money than Hughton spent in two seasons - and they had the players that Hughton brought in as the foundation for the team.
Hughton's first game in the PL was against Man City and the team was - Ryan, Bruno, Duffy, Dunk, Suttner, March, Stephens, Propper, Brown (a loanee from Chelsea who no longer plays football), Gross and Hemed.
At the end of Potter's first season the starting 11 against Newcastle were - Ryan, Webster, Dunk, Burn, Lamptey, Stephens, Trossard, Bissouma, Gross, Maupay and Mooy (and MacAllister came on as a sub).
There is zero comparison in the quality of both teams - Hughton's team were Championship quality - Potter's team had players who have raked in more than £120m in transfer fees (mostly from players Hughton signed). You give Hughton the team that Potter had available and Hughton does not need to play defensive football - his team would have played like his Newcastle team, his Birmingham team and the Brighton team he had in the Championship.
And, once again, the summary doesn't tell the full story
Forest were hit with a spate of injuries at the start of the season - several first team regulars were out. On top of that the Forest owner wouldn't go out and try and get the players Hughton wanted and then panicked and bought in several donkeys that Hughton didn't want on deadline day. On top of that Hughton spent most of August trying to bring in loanees to fill the gaps left by the owners antics - and didn't succeed again until deadline day when Garner, Lowe, and Spence arrived. Hughton was sacked two weeks later before he had any time to work with the players that he had available. Two wins would have got them up to 13th - 3 places higher than Forest were at the end of November. When Forest got Cooper the fans demanded action - so the Forest owner went out in January and got players that Cooper wanted - Steve Cook from Bournemouth, Surridge from Stoke, and Kienan Davis from Villa. With the injuries out of the way, the extra loanees in and the new players in January - Cooper had a completely new team. In the last game of the season Cooper only had two players from the team that Hughton had to put out for the first game - and if Hughton had the players at his disposal that Cooper was given then, he may not have got them promoted, but they would have been there or thereabouts.
Now - the year at Forest was a disaster for Hughton - but here is the rub - the much vaunted Graham Potter still doesn't have a job after his disaster at Chelsea - Hughton is going to a major international tournament with a team he has successfully qualified (that is if the Ghanaian FA don't do something stupid like sack him because he wants to pick his own squad).
You've no way of proving that Hughton's team would have played differently if he had player X available.
Also, Potter doesn't have a job because he doesn't want a job. He got a massive pay off after being sacked by Chelsea and won't need to work for the rest of his life if he doesn't want to.
That may be so, but there is the comparison made earlier of how the more ambitious teams he had in the Championship played. His teams are not homogeneously defensive, and the argument that he was only defensive when operating in the PL with a limited budget is pursuasive to me.
There's also little point comparing his team of recently promoted players augmented with a very limited budget to Potter's team of established PL players augmented with relatively big money.
Look we can go over an back on myth or no myth, but for a lot of us "the eye test" says that his last few jobs havent gone well and his teams were crap to watch. What we seen on the pitch wasnt a myth, but some can argue that it was acceptable given the circumstances.
Its really not that complicated!!!
Even if his football is /was defensive
We can't continue being humiliated at international level? We have to stop the bleeding. So if he sets us up with strong defensive unit that uses our incredibly fast counter attacking players on the break, then that's fine.
As far as I'm concerned we, in all reality have zero points from the group. There was 4 professional football teams in our group and it looks like unfortunately we won't get 1 point against those other three teams.
Gibraltar are not a pro football team.
The 6 points against them really means very very little when you look it.
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