In the wake of the Azerbaijan Apocalypse, which is sort of how our draw with the 112th-ranked team on the planet was framed (and sure look, no arguments here), the name of Sam Allardyce kept popping up in speculation about who might succeed Stephen Kenny if we lost to Serbia and if the FAI then chose to dispense with his services.
Now, it could be that the FAI have as much intention of (a) firing Kenny and (b) replacing him with Big Sam as they do of, say, choosing Katherine Zappone as our new gaffer, even if she was lobbying them hard for the post with a flurry of text messages.
Granted, Sam's international managerial record is flawless, having won all one of the games that constituted his England reign, and he's not short of belief, boasting once of having "out-tactic-ed" Jose Mourinho, of being "more sophisticated" than Arsene Wenger, of only being denied a chance to manage a Premier League top four team because his name wasn't "Allardici", and that he'd be better than any "fancy-dan foreigner" they'd hire.
Still, Sam becoming our gaffer would feel like the least progressive happening in world history since those Americans burnt their Beatles records back in 1966 because John Lennon had suggested that the band was more popular than Jesus.
Darragh Maloney didn't mention Sam, or Jesus, when he discussed the post-Azerbaijan fall-out with Liam Brady, Richie Sadlier and Stephen Kelly pre-match, but you guessed by the elevation of his eyebrows that he was thinking about him. He asked the lads about Kenny "coming out fighting" ahead of the game, when he emphasised in his press conference that this was a rebuilding process, that his plan was of the long-term kind.
Liam, who had an enormous hankie stuffed in the breast pocket of his jacket, Stephen, whose hankie was slim and trim and elegantly positioned, and Richie, who had neither a pocket nor a hankie, largely agreed that the FAI should avoid hitting the panic button and give Kenny at least until the end of the campaign.
Over on Virgin Media, though, Brian Kerr had the sound of a man who was having his doubts.
“I thought a lot of his interview yesterday was best forgotten, from his point of view. I think it’s delusional for him to think that nobody was too worried about whether we qualified for the World Cup or not. He’s playing for time, he’s saying he wanted to build a team for 2024 - that’s the first time that that was mentioned to us, that this qualification for the World Cup wasn’t an issue. It HAD to be about winning matches. I’ve never heard of that before, a manager dismissing tournaments, that it’s about the next one. That’s just extraordinary.”
Kerr isn’t one to knee-jerk, so that will have cut deep.
The prospects of a result to buy that time? Liamo had his highly severe doubts. “I wouldn’t like to see Stephen embarrassed tonight, but it could very well happen, Serbia is a top class team,” he said.
Team news. A sprinkling of injuries, but not one positive Covid test, so Kenny must have felt like he'd won the Lotto. And George Hamilton was back in the commentary box, after his post-Tokyo break, so were the stars aligned for a lovely night?
No. Milinkovic-Savic put the Serbs a goal up after 20 minutes, George adding four extra consonants to his name just to rub it in. Come the break he - George, not Milinkovic-Savic - tried to lift our spirits by noting that it had been a great performance from Ireland, “apart from the goal”. That was sort of true, but that sort of has been the story of our national team of late: “Great, apart from the goal(s)”.
Still, the ‘In Kenny We Trust’ banner in the crowd kept fluttering, the ear-splitting support for the team, and its manager, a very lovely thing. They’d be throwing rotten tomatoes at them most other places, or worse, phlegm.
A narrow defeat then, so ……hold it: GOOOOOOOOOOOAL! And the most well-worked own goal you’ll ever see, Milinkovic-Savic thumping the ball against Milenkovic whose body ricocheted it in to the net. At that precise moment, Stephen Kenny had experienced his first dollop of good fortune since he became our international gaffer. And about feckin’ time too.
Stephen Kelly got greedy. “I wouldn’t put it past us to go and get the winner,” he hollered. But a draw it was, George and Stephen exultant about the performance, the panel a bit ‘hold yer horses’. “But an endorsement for Stephen Kenny, I have to say,” said Liam.
Back off Sam O’Allardyce, no need for any fancy-dan foreigners just yet.
