According to this report, Mick McCarthy is about to leave his post as manager of the Republic of Ireland football team. Various opinions have been offered on the accompanying message boardlet.
What d’you lot reckon? Good thing/bad thing? Who next?
No idea who next for the Republic. The other interesting question is where next for McCarthy. Ipswich?
West Ham? If my lot beat them on Wednesday I wouldn’t be surprised to see Roeder depart.
What odds on George Burley changing his mind yet again and dumping Sheffield Wednesday for the Republic? Is it going to be a high-profile, high-risk manager (cf Berti Vogts at Scotland) or a low-profile, possibly very ordinary manager by comparison (Burley, George Graham etc)?
Ipswich have already appointed Joe Royle. Glenn Roeder is certainly under pressure, as is Terry Venables at Leeds (although he’ll have a comfortable compensation clause that would make him expensive to replace).
BTW, RTÉ are running the story that McCarthy has already gone:
but the FAI have denied that saying that the relevant meeting doesn’t take place until this evening.
Ah, damn, I’m one step behind on the manager swapmeet. Oops.
John Aldridge has said to Sky Sports News that he’d “swim across the Irish Sea for the job”.
Can’t believe nobody’s brought up the most important question: will Roy Keane come back now?
I can’t believe you’ve brought up the most important question but have not suggested an answer. My suggestion? He and Mick will be able to wave cheerily to one another as their planes cross the sea.
I’m also surprised no Irish people have expressed an opinion yet.
The latest from the BBC* confirms that McCarthy has indeed resigned, claiming that he wasn’t asked to but that it was “in the best interests of the Irish team”. David O’Leary says he’s not interested in an international job at this stage and Don Givens is in charge as caretaker. Joe Kinnear is the bookies’ fave at 2-1, John Toshack is at 9-4, John Aldridge 7-2, Martin O’Neill 12-1, Roy Keane 80-1.
*I think somebody there should apologise for including the Republic of Ireland in the list of “Home Countries”, but at least it does provide a handy shortcut for those of us that are interested.
Providing the manager and the squad want him, Keane will be back.
Mo opinion is that the main players that Keane had issues with (Staunton, Alan Kelly and to and extent Quinn) are all now retired.
I think he and Quinn have patched things back.
The younger members of the squad in Saipan perhaps went with the older members so they wouldn’t rock the boat.
And Judging by what the Sundays were saying, the squad do want him back.
As for McCarthy’s resignation, if you hear a stereo playine “Fiesta” by the Pouges, thats me, dancing a jig of relief that McCarthy is gone. Now that he is gone we dont have to put up with his loyal players being put on the pitch ahead of better players.
We wont have to put up with the “be loyal and hold your tounge or you get dropped” attitude in the Irish Camp. (Mark Kennedy gets dropped for a month while Babb got dropped for 18 months for the same incident).
We can see an end to the tactical stupidity of putting the worlds best winger in the center forward position.
And we can see the end of David “Couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo” Connolly stinking up the pitch.
The reason we did so well in the World Cup was that we worked hard as a team, not because of our manager.
I would like to see Kinnear get it, but I fear his ticker might not be up for the job. Toshack sounds interesting. Aldridge? I’d like someone with more top level experience. Martin O’Neill will never take it, and Keane would be a disaster.
Apparently, Aldrige has ruled himself out of the running.
yes, I have had a few pints.