BRIAN KERR LAST night slammed Ireland’s record over the last two years under Martin O’Neill as “abysmal”.
And that was before the hosts drew 0-0 with the North at the Aviva Stadium in yet another performance to forget.
Before a ball was even kicked, the former Ireland boss was heavily critical of the Boys in Green, their recent form and their management, highlighting damning statistics in doing so.
How big of a game is this for O’Neill, with all of the negativity of late, in comparison to what his counterpart Michael O’Neill has done with the North, presenter Tommy Martin asked on Virgin Media TV.
“It would generally be considered that we have better players to pick from,” Kerr said. “Obviously Michael doesn’t have the same depth or the same band of players to pick from.
"Since the start of 2017, we've played 17 games. We've won 3, drew 6 and lost 8. And in those 17 games we've only twice scored 2 goals. That's abysmal."
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) November 15, 2018
Brian Kerr on Ireland's recent form and performances in comparison to Northern Ireland. #IRLNIR #VMSport pic.twitter.com/1qWH3bKk1S
“But it is also the style of football and that they seem to create lots and lots of chances, even though the results haven’t been so good for Michael [O'Neill] recently. They’ve had a go at matches, taken teams on and created numerous chances. We have created very few.
“Since the start of 2017, we have played 17 games. We have won three, we’ve drawn six and we’ve lost eight. And in those 17 games we have only twice scored two goals and no more. We scored two against Moldova and two against USA in a friendly. That’s abysmal for our international team: 17 international matches, three wins.”
And after the match in Dublin, Kerr picked up where he left off:
“As I said earlier, now we have three wins in 18 games…. that, I thought was a dreadful performance.
“One team had concentration, confidence, composure and a pattern of play. The other team were us. We had none of those qualities. We were all over the place.
“We were outplayed everywhere on the pitch, awful with the ball.”
"One team had concentration, confidence, composure and a pattern of play. The other team were us."
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) November 15, 2018
Brian Kerr is scathing of that Ireland performance tonight. #VMSport pic.twitter.com/MJfblZ8PIW
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He’s right as well, Martin O Neill and Keane should have been sacked long ago but when you’ve nutters like John Delaney in charge of the FAI we’re never going to progress, sad times for International football
Would love him back in some capacity in the fai. Bring Niall Quinn in as chief executive, and Stephen Kenny as manager. Can’t believe o Neill gets that amount of money. Disgrace.
Ireland dont have the players I agree 100% but keano and MON are not getting the best out of what they have for that reason they be given the bullet
Can we not just give the job to a football manager. That will be great.
Hold on a minute Brian, you had better players and couldn’t qualify, o Neil has only championship and league 1 players to pick from…our players are useless!
@Martin Redington: plenty of premiership players to pick from aswell
@Martin Redington: he was only giving two years to manage which was far too short. He also took over that campaign with three or four games done in which we lost are first two games so he was on the back foot already. True the tactics in the Swiss game didn’t work out but what tactics are used now.
@Stephen Bolger: are all the premiership players starters or bench warmers?
@Martin Redington: Your right, the days under Kerr were hardly champagne football, however,he’s still entitled to an opinion and in this case he’s spot on. This game was a irrefutable evidence that MON is not getting the best out of this team because we were playing a team with less individual quality and resources than we have. They made a show if us at home to boot. 3 wins in 18 matches is misleading because USA played their U12′s against us. 2 in 17 is a better statistic. Anything is better than this. #thebuckstopswithme
@Martin Redington: qualification places have increased since Brian’s time and so easier now!!
@Paddy Norton: yep that was euro 2004 they had some of games played when he took over, he had full World Cup campaign for 2006 and failed to qualify, everyone wanted him out after that.
@Paul: Yes, they are the facts Paul. He had 1 and a bit campaigns when it was more difficult to qualify- unlike Euros these days. The mad thing is we have endless chances to qualify for the upcoming Euros, and thats why MON is being so hard-headed.
Not everyone wanted Kerr gone though. It was Delaneys decision. It was also Delaneys decision to give Stan the job. Its also Delaney who insists on over-paying for all the managers since Kerr. It wont matter if we sack this management team. We need to overturn the FAI.
Is it really true tickets were free? Were in debt FFS.
@John Mc Glynn: I agree, something needs to happen, played off the park by Northern Ireland for god sake
@Martin Redington: ah sure why bother letting the facts get in the way of your argument. You are right Kerr didn’t get as much out of a quality squad as he should have. But this team is much better than you make out. There was no league 1 players in our squad the last time around and only. Last night it was only Curtis and he was only being given a chance. Our team is primarily upper end of championship players….. Northern Ireland on the other hand have quite a bit of league 1 and yet completely outplayed us
I think o neill is stone brutal but you also have to remember most of our players are diabolical.
@Macca: about as diabolical as the NI players but they’re sent out to play football and try and score
@BMJF: be interesting to see what a new manager would do. If we were still as bad, what would people say then
@Macca: We’d then have to accept that the current crop of players are really just plain useless and that no manager could get more than MO’N is getting out of them at the moment. Someone else should at least be given a chance, it can’t get much worse than this.
Get rid of Delaney and the other dinosaurs I the FAI . It’s time for some no blood and some new ideas.
Irish football needs to start again and start investing in our young players here in Ireland .
Doesn’t matter what ya do, unto that fiend John Delaney is removed we will go nowhere, he and his cronies are bleeding the organisation dry and putting nothing back!!! The only country to reward ineptitude at every level