Stephen Kenny still the right man for the Irish job despite recent results

I was at the Ireland and Gibraltar game at the Aviva last week. In his initial post-match press conference, Stephen Kenny looked forward to the two games against France and Holland in September as being vital. He was still confidant of qualifying for the Euros in Germany. 

After the main press conference, Kenny spoke to a number of newspaper reporters seperately. This always happens.

Kenny had been criticised in the media after the Greece game. One paper had described the situation that Ireland were in as being shambolic.

The reporter, Philip Quinn of the Irish Daily Mail, was the journalist who had used the word shambolic. He had a terse exchange with Kenny at a press conference the day before the Gibraltar game too. 

When the reporters went into their huddle with Kenny, the Ireland manager passionately defended himself as being the right man for the job. He listed off his achievements in management, much of them with Dundalk, but he had many other achievements as well.

Stephen Kenny was handed an impossible job when he took over the role. He had to go about the role of completely rebuilding the team. He gave many young players an opportunity that no other manager would have done. It will work. I have no doubt.

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On reflection, I believe Kenny should be allowed to see out the campaign. He has been very unlucky since he took over. He lost key coaching staff who went on to take roles with English clubs. He had to deal with Covid too. The pandemic wiped out a year of Kenny's plans.

Has he made mistakes? Yes, he has. But he has brought on many talented youngsters who in time will deliver. Kenny showed at Dundalk that he can be successful.

It took Alex Ferguson over six years to start winning trophies at Manchester United. He was very nearly sacked from the job. But he won an away FA Cup game and then the trophy itself. But for that away win in the early rounds, Ferguson would have been toast.  He went on to be United's most successful ever manager. 

An article by Philip Quinn last Thursday said that Kenny's job was safe until after the two key games in September.

Football is a cruel business. There is little certain in life. One thing that is certain in most cases, is that managers' football careers will end in failure.

Much of the media seem to have turned on Kenny. This makes his position all but untenable. But there has been a small minority of the media who have not wanted Kenny from the start. The criticism was very unfair in my opinion at the time.

Gradually that criticism has now grown to such a level that the former Dundalk boss looks like he will be relieved of his duties in October unless he can perform a miracle.

Kenny just has not got the results and football is a results game. But I am convinced that were Kenny to be removed, Ireland would once again be performing to half empty stadiums, like we saw under Martin O’Neill , Trappattoni and Mick McCarthy in his second spell as boss.