Gavin Cooney reports from Estadio Algarve, Portugal

STEPHEN KENNY ADMITS his future as Ireland manager is out of his hands, though fully expects to be in charge for next month’s games against Netherlands and New Zealand. 

Ireland picked up a second win of a bleak campaign by beating Gibraltar 4-0 in Faro tonight, and it looks likely he will see out the year but then exit stage left. 

“That’s out of my control, I can’t affect that”, said Kenny at his post-match press conference when asked about his future. “For me, I’ve got to try and get a result in Amsterdam. It’s a big game. Holland need to win to qualify. They will be flying. We’ve got to put a performance in against Holland in Amsterdam, it’s a big challenge, it’s one we are looking forward to.

“Out of that, it’s out of my control. It may well be [the end]. I’ll give it everything against Holland and New Zealand. You know, there’s no doubt of course I want to be the manager of Ireland. It’s brilliant. I understand the Greek results, I understand that. Losing to Greece, That’s a 50-50 game, we lost it. There’s a lot of criticism because of that. That’s ok. There’s also been a lot of good football that people shouldn’t forget either.” 

Kenny praised his side’s professional performance in beating Gibraltar for what was the sixth – and biggest – competitive win of his tenure. “The players deserve credit because it was a professional job on the night, a good performance, we could have got a lot more goals”, said Kenny. 

Mikey Johnston got man of the match, with Kenny diverting to speak about his reverence for wingers. Many of his best club sides were built on highly effective wingers, but he has suffered from a lack of them at international level. Kenny and his staff have brought through Chiedozie Ogbene, while others have been recruited, including Johnston and the much less successful CJ Hamilton. 

Kenny also revealed the FAI are close to securing a declaration from a winger playing in the Championship, though stopped short of naming him as the paperwork is not yet completed. 

“4-3-3 is the system I’ve coached the majority of my life, I know it best, getting the wide players has been a real issue for us”, said Kenny. “We played Jason Knight there the other day. He can do it, but he’s better as a midfield player, as an attacking midfield player. It’s an issue for us in terms of getting a little bit of depth in that position.

“You’ve nothing off the bench in that system. These are the dilemmas that you have. I’m not complaining about that, it’s just the reality.

“I have no problem with the standard of the Championship but the relentless nature of is, it is relentless, with games every three days. The players are absolutely on their knees and what happens then is you have repeat hamstring injuries.

“Three Irish players had operations on hamstrings over the last year. The last resort for hamstrings is an operation. We’ve had three. And that puts you out for three months.
France, they never have anyone missing. The more players we get in the Premier League the better as it’s one game a week. The explosive players like [Chiedozie] Ogbene, we missed him in the summer, Callum Robinson, Callum O’Dowda, Troy Parrott – all had hamstring injuries.

“It’s tough and relentless. To have consistency in the squad would be ideal. It’s an occupational hazard. Particularly the explosive players suffer from hamstring injuries. Take Michael Obafemi, we should be building the team around Michael. He should be integral to our team, he is very talented, but he has not been able to get fit.”