As Ireland prepare for their friendly against New Zealand tomorrow night, it seems certain that Stephen Kenny will take charge of the team for the final time in the fixture at the Aviva Stadium.
The team's disastrous Euro 2024 qualifying campaign has all but guaranteed that he will not be offered a new contract to continue in the role. There was a huge amount of goodwill from Irish supporters towards the former Dundalk boss, but the lack of results means that it is impossible to keep him in the job going forward.
The loss to the Netherlands on Friday evening was the latest in a long string of poor performances.
While the 1-0 defeat is hardly the most eye-catching of score lines, the way in which Ireland completely failed to show up for the game was perhaps indicative of the Stephen Kenny era as a whole. The team played without any sort of direction and were dominated in every facet of the contest.
In saying that, the manager has defended the performance by pointing out some of the shortcomings of past Irish teams.
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Stephen Kenny defends Dutch loss with Ireland results dig
Losing 1-0 away to the Netherlands is certainly not a shameful result. However, it is that result and performance taken in context with the rest of the Euro qualifying campaign that has resulted in some heavy criticism in recent days.
Speaking at his press conference ahead of the game against New Zealand, Stephen Kenny said that while Ireland deserved to lose, the result and performance was not a bad one. He would then refer to poor results picked up by other Irish managers in comparison.
No question, Holland were the better team. We fought to the end of that game, we didn't create enough, we know that, and we defended for our lives when we needed to.
It wasn't like we lost 4-1 to Wales or got hammered in Cyprus or Macedonia the other night, it was a tight game in Holland that we lost 1-0 and deserved to lose. It was one of those games, I think a bit of perspective on that...
If it is my last game, so be it, if there is a new manager to follow me in that regard, I’ll wish him well, if that is the case and they make that decision.
Regardless of what decision is made and if there is a new manager to come in after me, I’ll wish them well, and I’ll wish the team well moving forward, and I’ll always support Ireland.
Ireland lost 4-1 to Wales in the UEFA Nations League back in 2018, a campaign that ultimately cost Martin O'Neill his job. The other results mentioned are the 5-2 loss to Cyprus in 2007 under Steve Staunton and the 3-2 loss to Macedonia under Mick McCarthy in 1999.
Those results were certainly much poorer than the one against the Dutch, although many will question why Stephen Kenny opted to bring them up on this occasion.
He has not suffered many heavy defeats during his time in charge of the side, but the lack of positive results over the last three years is now likely to cost him his job.
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