JUST AS BAD AS IT LUX
Humiliating defeat to lowly ranked Luxembourg ends qualif ication hopes and piles pressure on Kenny
STEPHEN KENNY’S future as Republic of Ireland manager is under growing scrutiny after lowly Luxembourg inflicted a massive World Cup embarrassment last night.
A humiliating 1-0 home defeat by the team ranked 98th in the world has left Kenny (right) fighting for his job and Ireland without a point after two games in Group A. It’s the worst World
Cup start ever by an Ireland team still without a win in 10 games under Kenny, who took charge a year ago.
Gerson Rodrigues scored the match-winner in the 85th minute as sheepish Ireland stumbled in shame to a defeat like no other.
Asked on RTÉ if his job is at risk after this, Kenny countered: ‘That’s not even a question, I’m not even concerned about that at the minute. I’m concerned that we had a really poor result.’
Kenny insisted it was ‘too early to say’ if the
2022 World Cup dream was over but he acknowledged ‘a terrible result’ and a display ‘that’s not good enough, completely unacceptable.’
‘Anything I say will sound like excuses,’ he said. ‘We didn’t underestimate Luxembourg. I take responsibility for changing the system. It worked very well in Serbia. I take responsibility for the whole thing. That was chalk and cheese compared to Serbia.’
Kenny was asked if it was too much for the players to buy into his style of management. ‘I don’t think so. But I’ve got to back it up with performances.
‘It was a bad night. We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again. We’re all gutted.’
Gavin Bazunu, the 19-year-old goalkeeper on his debut, was one of the few positives on a depressing night for Irish football after which Irish captain Seamus Coleman didn’t dodge the enormity of the performance, or the outcome.
‘It’s a shocking and embarrassing result,’ he said. ‘Let’s not hide behind anyone, that’s on us as players. I’ve no words.
‘As players we need to have a good, hard look at ourselves. You need people demanding the ball out there and I don’t think we did that enough.
‘Maybe if we’re building up one side, you need players on the other side wanting it. We didn’t hear enough voices.
‘I’ve got to come out and do an interview but there’s no words for that, it’s embarrassing.
‘On behalf of players, to the people at home, we as players take it on the chin. It’s nowhere near what we wanted.
‘There’s anger. There are no words I can say to make people at home feel any better.’
Coleman felt for Bazunu who spared Ireland from further anguish.
‘As players we should be disappointed to have Gavin’s debut tainted like that.
‘He’s a great young lad, a fantastic player and we senior players should be taking that on the chin.
What now for Ireland’s future under manager Kenny?
‘I can’t say we deserved anything from the game but the only way to react is by coming through the storm, by being resilient.
‘We’ve now got to show some pride in the shirt because we didn’t do that tonight.’
Everton stalwart Coleman never flagged, even after Rodrigues rocked Ireland but his rallying call went unheeded as Ireland lost with a whimper.