The very factthat he has solicited himself to another job surely questions his conviction for the Ireland job . What will happen when the next manager gets fired in the premiership. I would think that the FAI should start their own search right now . Comments Barna Bee
You are joking, aren't you? Are you serious? We've lost two competitive games in three years and you're calling for Mick's head? Jesus, that's some set of expectations you must have for the man at Merrion Square... Come on, you understand how the media work. Speculation linking Mick with every job going, just like linking Martin O'Neill with the same, sells papers to the likes of you and me. Nothing more, nothing less. What proof do we have that Mick put himself forward for the Sunderland position in any case? The say-so of some two-bit tabloid muckraker? Hardly cast-iron evidence. And even if it turns out Mick did talk to Sunderland, it would be a contravention of European employment law to prevent him from doing so, FAI contract or no contract. Mick's the best manager we have. He's the only manager we have. So, for all our sakes, let's get behind the man and give him and the team a support to play for and be proud of... PP - Keep the faith...
Fair Point PP, But if only for the need to have a contingency plan. I for one would put the importance of managing my country well ahead of Sunderland or any premiership outfit. Mick did not out and out turn down the opportunity himself. Jesus , a win next week and nobody will give a sh1t I suppose . Barna Bee
Well if the swiss do well next wednesday it would be obvious to even the most ardent McCarthy fans that his position would become untenable -As for saying that he never solicited for the Sunderand job- What was his agent doing on the radio saying that he would speak to Sunderland for Mick if they wanted to talk to him??
That's what agents do. It's their job to scout out better deals for their clients, even if they aren't interested. And, by the way, he DID say that Mick wasn't interested. The only encouragement to Sunderland has been from Cathal Dervan, who has an obvious vested interest. Anyway, they have Wilko now
His agent is Liam Gaskin, not Cathal Dervan. Gaskin has all week denied any link between Mick and the Sunderland job. Needless to say that wasn't reported because it won't sell any newspapers. As for that clown Dervan, he was just selling himself as usual. In any event, who could blame Mick for looking to move on if a Premiership job is offered to him. He's lost three competitive games in three years and people are calling for his head. It's phucking madness. No matter who replaces him, when he inevitably goes, they'll never match that record. People don't realise how good the results have been, most of the players are journeymen who have consistently over performed. For once they under performed in Russia and immediately the knives are out. If the team don't become affected by the negative vibes that are currently surrounding the team, they will qualify for Portugal by topping the group simply because, mediocre and all as our players are, they are better than any other team in the group. Hopefully we'll get a resounding win next week and people will get off Mick's back and finally shut up about that deranged wanker that's more interested in Lancahire cricket than Irish soccer.
That's what I said. Amen to that. Two games, by the way........I still refuse to acknowledge Brazil's WC win in '94
Who exactly have over preformanced? Harte, Kilbane et all have always been crap for Ireland, they're just compensaited for some brilliant players like Duff, Keane, Carr, Finnan, Given et all. In fact, some have under preformed. Duffs world cup for example, I've seen him play far better for Blackburn. Far better, because his manager knows where to pick him. He was rubbish in every first half, only came good in the mid way through the second half, I wonder why?
Duff under-performed at the World Cup ! What a load of horsesh1t. There weren't many complaints, Mr. Sausagepump excepted, about Harte until he lost his way about this time last year. Remember he was in the Premiership team of the season two years ago. Kilbane worked tirelessly and effectively throughout the WC qualification campaign and ran the Dutch raged in Amsterdam. Holland and Kinsella played well above themselves in Japorea. As for the centre back combination of Dunne and Breen which got us out of Amsterdam and Lisbon unbeaten well you can hardly say that they didn't over perform in doing so. Individually both are rubbish, collectively on those two nights they were magnificent. Loads of other examples of McCarthy getting the very best out of relatively poor players e.g. Staunton and Breens performances at the World Cup.
Have to agree with barna there, For one McCarthy never ruled himself out of the job... something that could have been easily done but wasnt. All this can hardly have a positive effect on a team preparing for an important game against the swiss. Surely Mick and his advisors should have moved quickly to quash the rumours before it went out of control. One wonders how close was he to getting the sunderland job?. Bookmakers had suspended betting on the man getting the post... but yet according to skysports it was rumoured that the sunderland board ruled out a move sighting lack of premiership managerial expierence. (They must have looked at his record with millwall....). I do think the FAI may have got a eye opener, as you can guess they would have liked to see McCarthy speak out and totally rule himself out of the running as soon as he was linked with the post. They for sure must be thinking to themselves they wont be able to hang onto him forever. More than likely there will be another premiership managerial casualty and you can bet your bottom dollar Mr McCarthy will be the first on the usual suspects list. I think youve hit the nail on the head Barna!
of course mccarthy shouldn't be sacked but i'd completely understand if he resigned. some people want him hung for treason because he didn't spit on a sunderland flag at the first suggestion that they would consider him as their new manager. like the man said - that's the price of success. everybody has faults but at least ours aren't discussed in national newspapers. irish hacks have been quick to jump on the bandwagon in order to fill their pages and make unfounded accusations against the man. being the ireland manager is a job not a vocation and football management is one of the most volatile trades around, so you always have to look after no.1. mick could walk into a club manager's job tomorrow with a 200% pay rise - but he doesn't. why is that? it's all too easy for us to pick teams and post opinions but only 1 man actually has to live with the consequences of making such decisions. mick's record as manager is excellent. barring some controversial team selections we have very little to complain about. we all moan about the need to replace kilbane and harte but even we can't come up with a suitable alternative after exhaustive discussions so cut the guy some slack! we all learn form our mistakes and i'm sure mick will too.
Who exactly are the journeymen: Steve Carr, Shay Given, Harte(okay up to a year or 2 ago), Steve Finnan, Roy Keane, Damien Duff, Robbie Keane, Steve Staunton, Denis Irwin, Fact is that, in his reign, MacCarty has caused the international retiremant of two of Ireland's best ever players, Dennis Irwin and Roy Keane, Imagine asking one of the best full backs(Left or right) of the last ten years to prove himself?
This thread is just plain silliness... ...and I suppose had Ireland got to the quarterfinals of K/J, you would have demanded his firing immediately after the club's return!
CrewToon , this is not a silly thread for Ireland fans . In fact for those of us who feel that it is time for the national squad to get serious and do things professionally with more of the Roy attitiude and less of the "Let's go on the P1ss attitude"...this is a very pertinent thread indeed. Why should we settle for less ...no other country would allow or accept their team going on the rampage during the WC??
Re: Duff under-performed at the World Cup ! Harte was good two years ago, fantastic. Kilbane ran the Dutch ragged in Amsterdam? As in the sitter he missed to win the match for us, that Kilbane? Effective in the world cup? Did you see the open goal? his otherwise poor preformances? Dunne preformed well that night, but Dunne preformed well at the start of his Everton career, then he hit the p!ss, had nothing to with McCarthy. Breen wasn't outstanding or anything near it. Breen and Stan had a good world cup because of an understanding they devoloped and because the teams we played suited them (Didn't look so hot V Spain) Nowt to do with McCarthy. Him getting the best out of players is a myth.
Slash said that McCarthy "getting the best out of players is a myth". If that's then case, then please tell me what players have been under-performing for Ireland compared to their club form? I cannot think of a single player that plays better for his club than he does for Ireland. Maybe Mark Kennedy. In any event, who could Ireland get as manager that would do a better job than McCarthy (2 defeats in 3 years)? p.s. would the site administrator please note the difference between GMT and BST. The current time is not 10.20 GMT, it is 9.20 GMT or 10.20 BST.
Re: Re: Duff under-performed at the World Cup ! Now the very next sentence. Uh-oh!! Someone forgot to take his bi-polar medication again.
Or maybe someone forgot how to read. "If that's then case, then please tell me what players have been under-performing for Ireland compared to their club form? I cannot think of a single player that plays better for his club than he does for Ireland. Maybe Mark Kennedy." Damien Duff. Anyway, I mean, it's a myth he takes average players and turns them into world beaters.
I thought I agreed with the thrust of that view. However, I heard a Niall Quinn interview midweek and he said that what gives Ireland its edge in terms of team spirit is that they ARE a bit less pro than the likes of a Germany, that the culture IS a bit less intense ahead of matches. Start chipping away at that and you remove what has driven Irish teams since, arguably, 1990. At the end of it all, we're a team that generally needs to pick at least a few fringe players from top division clubs and then usually a few more lower-division players to make up a squad. YET, we then go out and muscle it with large and successful footballing nations such as Germany, Spain, etc. The question is if we were a bit more pro would we have beaten Spain, but if we were that bit more pro would we have gotten there in the first place? Despite both the calibre of clubs from which it picks its squad and their FA's highly professional set-up, why does the England national team not completely outclass us? Like I said, I thought I saw Keane's point-of-view. But in attempting to bring this team on to the next level are we in danger of destroying what got us as far as it has, i.e. that unique team spirit that the team possesses?
Re: Re: Should Mick be fired anyway? 1)McCarthy was in Tehran, Keane wasn't. 2)What the ************ do you consider the next level? They got out of a group unbeaten that included Portugal and Holland (I myself had written them off the day of the draw), and then impressed everyone during the world cup. McCarthy didn't miss the penalties, and don't tell me practice schedules were the reason. Could they have done better? Sure. Will they miss out on Europe because of one loss to Russia? Hell no.
Re: Re: Re: Should Mick be fired anyway? How far did Portugal get in the World Cup? Doesnt mean they are not a great team but they expected to walk through a supposedly easy group but the USA and South Korea showed them this is a team game. The next level is not being beaten in the second round of the world cup and actually qualifying for the quarter finals. Remember afterall, Spain were playing with only 10 men for the last half hour. Pity that the boys in green on the field didnt know about it.
Re: Re: Re: Should Mick be fired anyway? Firstly, get to know me before wading in half-cocked with this sort of post. You've apparently been on this board long enough. Anyway, whaddya mean what's the next level? We've a bunch of players all moving into the prime of their careers. Forget what happened in the WC. That can't be changed. We can only go forward and preferably upwards. The question I was asking was how can we, or even should we, balance traditional Irish strengths such as team spirit and a never-say-die attitude with the more colder and professional methods say employed by England or Germany? Pretend for a moment that we brought in some new manager along the lines of Vogts or Sven. Would someone like that improve the team or wreck everything that makes supporting Ireland such a different experience to probably any other decent European footballing nation? Is that what we want? (There's no right answer to that, by the way. It comes down to your personal thinking on football.) Ultimately, McCarthy is doing ok. Sure he's made some bad decisions. But so has any other manager I can think of. That said, is the team diminished without Keane? Unquestionably. Does everything feel a little poisonous right now? Yup. Do I think we can beat the Swiss? Yes. Will that make all the difference? I hope so. In the end, life is too short and there's plenty of real things to lose sleep over.
Sense at last Don Homer said "Ultimately, McCarthy is doing ok. Sure he's made some bad decisions. But so has any other manager I can think of. That said, is the team diminished without Keane? Unquestionably. Does everything feel a little poisonous right now? Yup. Do I think we can beat the Swiss? Yes. Will that make all the difference? I hope so." At last somebody is starting to speak some sense on this thread. Slash's policy of slagging off Damien Duff and Mick McCarthy was becoming laughable in light of the contribution both have made to Ireland's relative success over the past two years.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Should Mick be fired anyway? The truth here is that the Portuguese team who turned up at the WC were not a patch on the team that stormed through the qualifiers. Now, there is a saying that a team doesn't get bad or good overnight, but Portugal just might be the exception that proves the rule. The USA did a very good job on them, no doubt, but the fact that Portugal played 1 (or was it 2) friendlies after their last qualifier in October also probably had much to do with their loss of form. I didn't see either Portuguese game against Holland, but saw both against Ireland - Lisbon live - and the team I saw in Korea was not in the same league. I'll even allow for them being surprised by the US, but their performance against S. Korea was useless. Actually it is. 1.You qualify 2. You get out of the group stages 3. You get past the 2nd round 4. You win the QF, SF and Final That's how Brazil did it and no team was gven a bye from 2nd round play. I've thought about this. I've played a bit of footie in my time - played it at an organised level, not Dog and Duck. Here's one thing I know. I played left back and for the whole game I was always aware of who I should be marking and who to expect down my wing. If my opposite player was subbed, I knew immediately. If my opposing player was switched to the opposite wing, I knew immediately. And if my player was sent off, I definitely knew about it. How come players who are way better than I had ever dreamed I could be, didn't realise that Abdela was off? When he came on for Morientes, he assuming an attacking position, and none of Finnan, Breen Cunningham or Kelly noticed that he suddenly wasn't there? OK, McCarthy should have noticed, BUT one of the players should have called it first. A manager reacts to what happens on the field, but he has to have feedback from the players. McCarthy has to shoulder some of the blame, but in my opinion, the defense must shoulder 75% of the blame here. If I, playing at a subterranean level of football knew to look for my player, surely the international player should pick that up so much quicker? This blaming of McCarthy of everything from playing his mates - (BOLLOCKS, BTW) to getting the tea wrong at half time to global f ************ing warming is getting so old and tedious.