Former Republic of Ireland defender Stephen Kelly has claimed that the current Irish team is in worse condition than the side Stephen Kenny took over in 2020.
On Wednesday, it was decided that Kenny's contract with Ireland would not be renewed going into 2024. He and the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) have parted ways after a three-year stint. Kenny replaced Mick McCarthy as manager in April 2020 but has presided over 17 losses in his 40 games in charge. This means that Kenny's win percentage of 27.5% as Ireland boss is the worst in living memory, and many feel that the FAI should have acted sooner rather than later. While the players under Kenny backed their manager to the end.
Ireland's Eileen Gleeson paid her tributes to her colleague today and claimed that it was a "sad day" for football, while also highlighting the work Kenny did with younger players during his Ireland stay. Gleeson claimed that Kenny's efforts to give over 27 debuts to younger players will give the next manager a great chance of making it to major tournaments.
However, not everyone believes that Ireland is in a healthy place going into 2024. Kelly, who played 39 times for Ireland, believes that is not the case. Kenny's efforts to transform football have been welcomed, but at the end of the day, according to Kelly, his football project with Ireland has been a failure.
"We are in a worse-off position than what we were when he took over football-wise, but there is no doubt about his commitment and energy. He went into it wholeheartedly, but it hasn’t worked," said Kelly to RTÉ Sport.
'This has been on the cards for a while' - RTÉ soccer analyst Stephen Kelly reacts to the news that the FAI has decided not to renew Stephen Kenny's contract as Republic of Ireland manager pic.twitter.com/zB0TT9lhqd
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) November 22, 2023
Kelly believes that Kenny should have tried to create a plan that suited all parties and not one that focused on one aspect. The risk of playing possession football was not one that reaped any rewards, claims the former Ireland player.
"You can overplay at times. Stephen when he first came in, there were a lot of games when we were getting pressure put on us, and we were conceding possession in our own half," he added.
"It seemed very risky, and we went slightly away from that, even though it was a possession-based game. There has to be a happy medium between both."
It was widely known that Kenny would not be the Ireland manager going into the 2024 season. It was a matter of when, not if the FAI would act.
Ireland's two wins in their qualifying group have sealed Kenny's fate. Kelly believes that it wasn't down to the defeats against the stronger nations like the Netherlands or the French that put the nail in Kenny's career, but the losses to the teams on a similar level or a tier below, like Greece, Armenia, Luxembourg, that cost Kenny his job.
"It's been coming a while now," he said. "The results just haven’t been good enough. It’s not even against the likes of France and Netherlands; it’s against the teams that we feel we should be competing against, the likes of Greece, Armenia, Luxembourg over the course of the three years of his tenure.
"Dropping points against those nations, losing to those nations, we never had a fighting chance of qualifying for a major tournament."
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