The Irish manager clashed with one journalist over a perceived lack of respect as pressure mounts.
Gavin Cooney THAT THE GREECE defeat is followed by a home game in Gibraltar is a regrettable quirk of schedule for Stephen Kenny, as this is the kind of game that can’t make anything better. It can only make things worse.
Kenny narrowed the context of his answer in a bid to avoid talk about his own future but he did so in vain. James McClean sat beside Kenny before the pre-game press conference as ahead of what will be his 100th cap, but celebrations of his remarkable milestone were overshadowed by another fraught cross-examination of Kenny’s own job prospects.
Given the expensive, lengthy lead-in, the game was a failure both total and entirely on Kenny’s own terms. For those reasons it has weakened the resolve of his allies at the FAI, and his future will remain the back-page topic regardless of the result against Gibraltar: board member Packie Bonner is slated to do a media event in Donegal on Tuesday, where Kenny’s future will be a natural line of questioning.
A: “It’s about time we had a bit of respect from you to be honest. The lack of respect at times at press conferences shouldn’t be tolerated, do you know what I mean, to be honest? It’s absolutely terrible at times.” Matt Doherty is suspended after his late red card against Greece, but Stephen Kenny is promising further changes. McClean will replace Callum O’Dowda, with Alan Browne likely to come in for Doherty. Kenny insists Evan Ferguson and Adam Idah can play together, but Michael Obafemi’s goal record makes him a more compelling option to play alongside Ferguson if Kenny decides to go with a 3-5-2, as he has recently done against Latvia, Malta, and Armenia.
Whichever way Kenny goes, he must find a way of better involving Evan Ferguson, who had just one touch in the Greece penalty area across all of Friday night’s game. That was the header which set up Nathan Collins’ goal, which meant Ireland’s best goalscorer didn’t get a single penalty-box touch from open play. This is plainly untenable.
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