Worryingly similar to the end of 2021, Stephen Kenny appears to have four matches, starting with Scotland in Dublin on Saturday, to salvage his job.
The 12-person FAI board, chaired by ex-Goodbody Stockbrokers chief Roy Barrett, will review the six-match Nations League results before the draw for Euro 2024 qualification takes place in Frankfurt on October 9th.
Providing the Republic of Ireland manager latitude he has repeatedly insisted the squad needs to evolve and working off a misguided belief that they could top this second tier group of European countries, further defeats to Scotland and Ukraine in Poland next Tuesday might see the FAI activate an exit clause in Kenny’s two-year deal.
“In any contract, in terms of employment contract, there would be a provision in there for a point of which you exit,” said Jonathan Hill, the FAI chief executive last March. “That’s within Stephen’s contract. That was part of the to-ing and fro-ing [during negotiations].
“Stephen is comfortable where we’ve got to; we’re comfortable with where we’ve got to. I’m not going into the detail of it but it’s all pretty standard stuff.”
Standard yet essential to avoid the enormous pay-offs previous Ireland managers have been able to claim.
Despite adhering to the former Dundalk manager’s call for patience to allow a reimagination of Irish football, the same results-based evidence has reappeared. Ireland have failed on 12 attempts since Kenny became senior manager to beat a country above their current perch of 47th in the FIFA rankings. They have also lost to 90-something-ranked sides from Luxembourg and Armenia.
“It is not easy at any level to break teams down,” said Jack Byrne of Shamrock Rovers, easily the most creative player in the League of Ireland. “It doesn’t matter if it is a Premier League team struggling at the bottom of the table or an international team, they are going to be well drilled.
“The coaching has improved across the board in international football over the last couple of years. Even the likes of San Marino and Luxembourg, they don’t get smashed like they used to. They are all well organised and know what they are doing.”
So it comes down to coaching. Ireland’s record since Anthony Barry took the Belgium job, to be replaced by double-jobbing QPR trainer John Eustace, is a last second victory over Lithuania, a 2-2 draw with Belgium (reserves) and defeats this past week to Armenia and Ukraine (reserves).
Not one competitive victory has been registered in Dublin since Kenny took control in September 2020 while defeats to Finland, Luxembourg and now Ukraine are increasingly difficult to swallow.
Nonetheless, plenty of excuses are being offered. Wednesday night’s match winner Viktor Tsyganov joins Emin Mahmudov of Azerbaijan and Luxembourg’s Gerson Rodrigues as scorers of spectacular “fluke” goals that silenced the Aviva Stadium while draws at home to Serbia, Portugal and Belgium (reserves) were framed as morale-boosting results.
Kenny’s reasoning this week, following back-to-back 1-0 home losses, is proving as contradictory as his team selections.
“I think we are building something really progressive,” he said. “Statistically we are not backing that up, I know that, but I think we’re building something really progressive and I think people can see that.”
People are not blind. When the lack of creative players at Ireland’s disposal is highlighted, most obviously the failure of Jeff Hendrick to dictate the tempo against Armenia and Ukraine, the 50-year-old attempted to defend his squad with outdated examples.
“We troubled Portugal and Serbia even though we haven’t beat them, we drew with them. We troubled Belgium recently. We have the capacity to do that.
“We troubled Ukraine too, as we hit the bar to equalise and had a few shots that went over, so we did trouble Ukraine. We can’t say we haven’t. We troubled them as much as they troubled us. I know they were missing [players], but we were missing five as well, but they were missing more than that.
“Are we striving to get better? Yes we are.
“Jason Knight showed a lot of creativity in that opening half in particular. He nearly equalised at the death as well.”
Clinging to the Derby County midfielder as an example of creativity is difficult to square as Kenny overlooked Knight late last year and against Armenia, despite a 28-minute cameo in Luxembourg that yielded two goal assists and an excellent display against Belgium.
Instead, Kenny turned to Troy Parrott after the Spurs striker’s injury-time winner against Lithuania but two wildly different players being used in the same position is confusing many long-time observers.
Knight was the stand-out performer against Ukraine but Parrott’s reputation for scoring important goals in the green jersey was ignored with Kenny deciding to cap 27-year-old Blackpool winger CJ Hamilton off the bench as Ireland chased another draw.
This is not the only indecisive call to be levelled at the current management. The famous 2-1 defeat in Portugal last year was quickly followed by drawing at home to Azerbaijan, when Kenny was forced at half-time to abandon the headless attacking trio of Aaron Connolly, Adam Idah and Troy Parrott.
This month’s absence of Matt Doherty at wing back, Gavin Bazunu’s acrobatics in goal and even injured Norwich City pair Adam Idah and Andrew Omobamidele has proved damaging while John Egan was set to captain the side against Scotland but the Sheffield United defender has now also been ruled out.
“Obviously Matt Doherty at times has been a bit of a playmaker for us, taking the ball against a low block and building through the midfield,” said Kenny after Ukraine’s win on Wednesday.
“We just have to show a little bit of composure and build better than we did at times. But I can’t fault the players, they gave absolutely everything of themselves.
“I told them before the game that 100 per cent is not enough, you’ve got to extract every ounce of yourself in pursuit of trying to get the result that we needed and I thought the players gave absolutely everything of themselves and we just came out the wrong side of a very narrow game.”
When asked if opponents have figured out the new Irish style, Kenny paused for a long time before asking his own question: “Are teams paying us more respect in that regard? I don’t know.”
