If you’re explaining ...you’re losing
The hits keep on coming, but Kenny can’t dwell on where it’s gone wrong, he has 10 weeks to get it right...
IT’S not every week we mention US Presidents but, ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration, I thought of Ronald Reagan, another White House graduate with Irish roots, who famously observed: ‘If you’re explaining, you’re losing.’
Yet, Stephen Kenny has some explaining to do as to why Damien Duff and Alan Kelly both quit senior posts from the Republic of Ireland set-up within days of one another.
It’s a double blow for Kenny, who wooed Duff home from Celtic for a coaching post of considerable authority, but it can’t be undone.
A perfectionist, Duffer has flown the coop, to be followed last night by Kelly, the goalkeeping coach.
To lose two senior members of staff inside 96 hours is unheard of in the history of the Irish senior team and suggests something is clearly amiss on Kenny’s watch.
They are the latest set-backs to thwart Kenny, following a run of eight games without a win as manager, a single goal and all sorts of off-field trials, Covid, injuries, suspensions, retirements, and ‘Wembley-gate’.
The latter is tied up in the departure of both Duff and Kelly, without doubt.
Duff felt the FAI got it all wrong with their investigation into Kenny’s video and motivational speech prior to the England friendly in November.
Among those not impressed with the emotive language used by the manager was Kelly. It’s understood relations may have been strained between him and Kenny as a result and this has contributed to his exit after many outstanding years of service, as a goalkeeper, and coach under Giovanni Trapattoni, Mick McCarthy and Kenny.
Against a backdrop of grim results and shock resignations, what all football followers want f r om Kenny is what he was hired by the FAI to do: deliver success.
That’s measured in simple terms: winning enough matches to lead the team to a major tournament. If that can be achieved by playing like Brazil or Barcelona... brilliant. Should it require artisan graft over artistry, I suspect that’d be fine and dandy with most folk, too. After the angst of autumn when Ireland nose-dived out of the Euro 2020 play- offs and were almost relegated from the Nations League, scrutiny of Kenny is increasing and the double departure of Duff and Kelly ahead of World Cup combat doesn’t help the man who appointed them. Kenny aspires to oversee an Irish team that keeps the ball better, passes better, scores goals and wins plenty of matches.
It’s a worthy objective but will it butter the parsnips in terms of securing enough points for Ireland to come first or second in the 2022 World Cup qualifying group?
Perhaps a different tack is required, a return to old-fashioned Irish values combined with a new trick or two.
This is Kenny’s make-or-break year as Ireland manager, something he never expected to come about so quickly into his tenure.
Reaching the Euro finals, or securing promotion from the Nations League, would have bought him the time he is no longer guaranteed for his grand designs.
Indeed, if the opening games in March away to Serbia, currently without a manager, and home to Luxembourg go badly, Kenny could even be out of a job. That’s the reality.
The challenge for Kenny is to rattle the top seeds Portugal and Serbia, just as Mick McCarthy did 20 years ago when his team split Portugal and Holland on their way to the finals.
If Kenny can push the top two seeds all the way to the final round-up in November, there could be sufficient credit banked for a shot at the 2024 Euros, an easier qualifying nut to crack.
For the battle i n Belgrade, should Kenny instruct Shane Duffy to be more like Shane Duffy rather than Franz Beckenbauer, batten down the hatches and burgle a point, it would represent a very fine start to the campaign.
To see Duffy chewing grass again on Monday as Celtic conceded a late goal was a reminder of the gruelling season he’s having.
Asking him to dribble the ball out of defence in Belgrade may be inviting trouble.
Perhaps Kenny might rethink his strategy on the arm-band as it appears to weigh heavily on Duffy, who is not the colossus he was for Ireland from 2016 to 2019.
This column has long argued against the axing of Seamus Coleman as captain but that was Kenny’s call. Should he seek an alternative foreman, John Egan is ripe for the stripes.
As Kenny seeks replacements for Duff and Kelly, he has 10 weeks to be braced for Belgrade, where two new lieutenants will ride shotgun.
Strange times indeed.