I’M UP TO THE CASC

Under pressure Kenny hits back at legendary Ireland striker’s ‘tactically ignorant’ claim and insists situation will improve

STEPHEN KENNY has refuted Tony Cascarino’s stinging claim that he is “tactically ignorant” but does admit his Irish attack is misfiring.

And the under-pressure boss also insists he is not asking too much too soon of the young players in his squad as they feel the heat of Ireland’s World Cup meltdown.

Kenny has shipped flak for breaking away from his preferred 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations to experiment with 3-5-2 and 3-4-1-2 against Serbia and Luxembourg respectively.

Particularly so in Saturday’s horror show against the group minnows when Ireland spent large periods of the 1-0 defeat with five men across the back.

Cascarino, who won 88 caps and featured at three major tournaments under Jack Charlton, claims Kenny’s team won’t win a match until he changes his approach. “Kenny’s method has backfired,” said the former striker, 58.

“Ireland are not good at retaining possession and they’re not entertaining. Giovanni Trapattoni and Martin O’neill worked with the players at their disposal and created overachieving squads.

“But Kenny is trying to implement a system that leads to the team not dominating the ball, not causing problems for the opposition and not scoring goals. It’s tactical ignorance. Every conversation I have with an ex-player or Ireland fan is about how bad we are.

“And there is now a risk of our better players choosing not to play for us.”

Cascarino’s waspish comments were put to Kenny yesterday but he refused to engage in a war of words with the player-turnedpundit.

Ahead of the Qatar clash tonight, Kenny said: “He’s certainly entitled to his opinion. He was a great striker for

Ireland, scored lots of goals as a centreforward. They’re strong words, people have to write articles. ‘Tactically ignorant’? I don’t think that would be the case. I wouldn’t agree with that. “Looking at Luxembourg, some of the criticism is justified. With all the possession that we had, we should have created more than we did. “We need to be more creative in that final third and have better combination play between our attacking players and our wingbacks and I accept some of that criticism.

“Aaron Connolly (inset) probably would have given us what we didn’t have against Luxembourg because of his different characteristics and ability to stretch a defence.

“People said he wasn’t that effective against Serbia but his constant running

behind completely opens up the play for someone like Alan Browne or Callum Robinson.”

Kenny also hit back at suggestions that he was asking too much of young players in high-stakes games.

Gavin Bazunu (19), Mark Travers (21), Dara O’shea (22), Jason Knight (20), Jayson Molumby (21), Josh Cullen (24), Troy Parrott (19) have all been pitched into qualifiers.

So too have Connolly (21), Adam Idah (20) while the likes of Stoke City’s Nathan Collins (19) will be called up soon.

Experienced key men like Shane Duffy and Jeff Hendrick have been dropped to the bench, while Robbie Brady and James Mcclean are not starting games either.

Kenny appreciates it was a lot of responsibility to place on young shoulders but feels it will bring the best out of them.

“It’s an opportunity to improve all the time,” he said. “Having that exposure is going to give them a great opportunity.

A lot of Ireland’s players are really talented players, whether they become top class international players only time will tell. You can’t be certain of that.

“But they’re going to have very good careers and a lot of them have potential to be very good. What’s more important is that they have exceptional attitudes and are really hungry to do well. They have a great leader in Seamus Coleman who is an immense captain. They can learn a lot from him and other senior players.”