The wheels came off Ireland's Euro 2024 qualifying campaign in Athens on Friday night. In a group with France and the Netherlands, a draw away to Greece was the least Ireland could hope for tonight. But the performance was flat and in a tactical sense, Ireland were badly found out.
Kenny opted for his favoured 3-5-2 formation with Adam Idah starting alongside Evan Ferguson. That did not work out, Idah was withdrawn at halftime.
The defeat again opens the conversation about Stephen Kenny's future as Ireland manager.
While there were many annoying factors that contributed to Ireland's performance - the weather, the long lay-off for the bulk of the Irish team - questions will rightly be asked about Ireland's direction under Kenny.
The Virgin Media Sport panel have been some of the most critical voices on the Kerry era, and after tonight's game, Damien Delaney said the result would provoke some 'serious soul-searching' within the Irish camp. He added Kenny has been 'found out'.
With Brian Kerr's seat being filled by Keith Treacy, Delaney offered a stinging critique of Ireland's tactical faults with his immediate reaction to the game.
On, on, on all fronts, you know, we were pretty much beaten in every department.
The Greeks played some really, really good football, got their nose in front, we got, a life line with a header from Nathan Collins to get it back to 11.
But the Greeks were, were totally in control, absolutely dominant in what they did.
We said that the bare minimum for Stephen in this group was to finish third.
We've had a lot of progress and development and blooding young fellas and a lot of excuses for mixed performances and results. Tonight is where it should have come together and we should have gone to Greece and put in a performance and got a result and we didn't. There was no performance there. Tactically in the first half, Gus Poyet knew what was coming. we were absolutely taken apart because knew what was coming.
We were playing 3-5-2. They set up accordingly with 4-3-3, their full back pinned our wing backs in. Tsimikas looked like Prime Philip Lahm playing at full back for Germany and dominated the game.
They passing was sharper. Their intensity was sharper. Their tempo, everything about them was good, fully deserving.
And there need to be some serious soul searching after a performance like that in Athens.
𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍!
1️⃣ "Tonight is where it should have come together."
2️⃣ "Tactically we were taken apart."
3️⃣ "There needs to be some serious soul-searching."
Damien Delaney gives his initial thoughts on tonight's defeat in Athens.#COYBIG | #EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/e8TmI0kmuJ— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) June 16, 2023
Delaney would go on to make an even more damning assessment, saying it's time for Ireland to start looking for a new manager.
Ultimately, he's out of his depth. Four competitive wins in 23 is nowhere near good enough.
The manager over the last three years has cherrypicked statistics, framed time and results to have it in his favour.
He's been found out now. He's had enough time in the job.
Unfortunately, I now think we need to start looking at other options.
Ireland welcome Gibraltar to the Aviva on Monday. While the result might be a foregone conclusion, it looks like this result will haunt across the next year.
