JAMES MCCLEAN HAS suggested Ireland would have had a better chance of qualifying for Euro 2020 had Mick McCarthy not been replaced by Stephen Kenny, and has backed John O’Shea to be appointed as Kenny’s full-time successor following a “farcical” search process.
McCarthy was initially scheduled to take charge of the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Slovakia, but the postponing of the game led to Stephen Kenny taking charge of that tie, ahead of schedule. Ireland lost the tie on penalties, following a goalless draw.
That play-off was actually secured by Martin O’Neill, by quirk of Uefa formatting that guaranteed Ireland a backdoor to Euro 2020 despite finishing bottom of their Nations League campaign. McCarthy took charge of the qualification campaign for Euro 2020, in which Ireland finished third behind Switzerland and Denmark.
In the context of recent comments by O’Shea on hoping his Irish side become “horrible to play against”, McClean – appearing on punditry duty for RTÉ ahead of Ireland’s friendly game against Portugal – took an unsubtle swipe at Kenny by saying Ireland had gone away from being “hard to beat.”
“It’s a trait that served us well”, said McClean of the old virtue of being “hard to beat.”
“We qualified for two tournaments, Euro 2012 and 2016, and got to a play off under Mick McCarthy, if Mick had been in charge we potentially would have got to three in a row under that style of play.
“Nowadays you can get sucked into the whole total football and statistics. ‘We had 59% possession’. But a lot of it was across the backline, and we lost the game. We have always been hard to beat and in the last three years we have gone away from that. We have built our foundations: being hard to beat and having that bit of nastiness about us. You will always get opportunities in games, and then we have to take the opportunities. Seeing the last three games, we have become hard to beat again.”
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— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) June 11, 2024
‘In the last three years we have gone away from that’ - James McClean says Ireland became easier to play against in recent years, losing some of their noted ‘nastiness’
📺@rte2 and @RTEplayer 👉 https://t.co/b2OI4OoWVJ pic.twitter.com/Gpnbg6Qdkw
McClean also endorsed O’Shea for the job full-time.
“You have nothing to lose by doing so”, said McClean. “People get fixated on him not having the experience, but how do you get experience? You get it by being in the role. I’m not saying John is Pep Guardiola but Guardiola had no experience when he got the Barcelona job, he had a year or two at Barcelona B.
“He has done pretty well so far. Look at the teams we have played so far, they are ranked a lot higher than us. We missed a penalty against Belgium, we probably should have won that game. Switzerland are a good side, we got beaten by a free-kick. Then we beat Hungary who had been 14 games unbeaten and had been going quite well.
“We are nearly a year into the process and they still don’t have a manager. It has been a bit of a farce in that sense. I think John has done his chances no harm.
“We are nearly a year on and each week there’s a new name mentioned, and this person has been interviewed. I would love to be a fly on the wall to have seen what has gone on in these interviews, I might be naive but I think it’s a pretty good job. For people to keep turning it down, it begs the question: what has been going on?”
McClean also kept the door ajar to his potential return to the Irish set-up in the future, saying he would weigh up his options if a call came to return.
He’s talking through his hoop. We were bad and getting worse during Mick’s last stint aswell. The standard of player has dropped drastically over the last ten years.
@Tom O’ Donnell: agreed, a bit of a plank sewing it into Kenny.
Maybe if we had a decent player on the left side of the pitch, we would qualified for more tournaments.
Plus, it wasn’t like McCarthy had gotten us to a play off, the play off was guaranteed before he was appointed.
McClean only coming out with this now tells you everything you need to know about him as player and as a person
@Adrian: While i do agree with you that the only reason McClean is bringing this up is that he has an axe to grind with Kenny and it is indeed bad form. We were also guaranteed that playoff spot, however what he said is he thinks that if we still had McCarthy there we would have had a better chance in qualifying. I think he is absolutely right regardless of his motives. If McCarthy was there we would have probably dug out a result in Slovakia, they were there for the taking, a poor side at the time.
@John Clifford: we lost that on penalties so being ‘hard to beat’ had nothing to do with that night.
We weren’t hard to beat tonight
@Tony Metcalfe: Slovakia were awful that night and we just didn’t take the game too them. Tactically Kenny got it wrong as he did though out his tenure. A manager with more bottle would have taken the game to them. I know him saying “hard to beat” doesn’t make sense, however it just stands that a more experienced manager would have got the job done that night, away from the fact that FAI should have let him see out the qualification campaign. It was bad form on all counts.
@Tony Metcalfe: we weren’t hard to beat tonight but that was down to formation (no three in the midfield), no high press, playing wing backs when we don’t have any decent ones, no intensity etc etc….basically when you have such limited players, you need a manager that is exceptionally good tactically. O’Shea is not that man , he needs to learn his trade elsewhere (lower level) before looking at a gig like this.
@John Clifford: I think you’ve memory holed that game a little. We had better chances than Slovakia, Conor Hourihane absolutely ballsed up a huge chance in front of goal. We did take it to them, but finishing let us down.
It’s hard to see us qualifying for anything for the foreseeable unfortunately.
@Ray Ridge: the Galway of international soccer maybe Ray?!
@Joe Kennedy: Both way off the top sides im afraid.
@Ray Ridge: pessimism correct on the soccer. But definitely lay off the rugby. Small country population wise and it’s our 4th sports. Always there there abouts winning six nations and can put it up to all blacks and springboks off this world. Call a spade a spade
@Gary Galligan: it’s not pessimism, it’s realism. When we win a knock-out game in the big one, then maybe.
@Gary Galligan: . We’re the only one of the nine major test playing nations never to have won a knockout game at the World Cup. There have been ten Rugby World Cup tournaments. Granted we were exceptional in the last World Cup but our record in what is by far the biggest tournament in world rugby is truly abysmal.
@Gary Galligan: How do you make out it’s our fourth sport considering there are more playing Soccer in the country than both GAA codes and Rugby, put it another way Soccer is the most popular sport participation wise in the country.
@Leonard Barry: . He means rugby is our fourth sport in terms of participation.
@Richard Ford: won last 2 six nations
@Ray Ridge: The Jimmy Sloyan of The 42. Insightful
@Gary Galligan: . Yup and delighted to see it but the Rugby World Cup is the really big one.
I don’t think that there will be many people trying to steal James McClean’s intellectual property!!!.
We don’t have the players, never mind manager. Ffs.
Wonder how many other players felt same way playing under Kenny?
@Shane: This stuff always amazes me. Is there no senior group amongst the players to be able to voice concerns like his to the management..
Kennys Reign was a disaster He should have been sacked after Luxemburg Beat us instead of being allowed to bring us down the rankings to sixty four In
The world. Everything has gone wrong. J o shea has been treated very poorly the 4 friendly arranged by the FAI have been too difficult.It’s like they want us to fail.