It looks like the FAI are offering Mick McCarthy the job. I have massive reservations about this, for these reasons:
Mick McCarthy’s competitive managerial
record, 1996-2002
With
Roy Keane
Played 22, Won 12, Drew 7, Lost 3; Scored
43, Conceded 14.
Win record – 55%.
Wins against higher-ranked opposition – Croatia, Yugoslavia, Holland.
Other good results – draws away to Holland
and Portugal, home win vs. Iran in playoff.
Most damaging results - Lost in Macedonia in 1997. Failed to win Euro
2000 playoff v Turkey.
Without
Roy Keane
Played 18, Won 7, Drew 6, Lost 5; Scored
29, Conceded 19.
Win record – 39%.
Wins against higher-ranked opposition – none.
Other good results – draws with Germany and
Spain.
Most damaging results: Failed to win France
’98 playoff against Belgium. Drew in Macedonia, throwing away automatic
qualification for Euro 2000. Lost opening two games in Euro 2004 qualifiers - giving his successor, Brian Kerr, a mountain to climb.
What does this all mean?
It shows that Roy Keane had a disproportionately positive effect on this team for one player, especially after becoming captain in September 1998. It's not quite as dramatic a pattern as how the current Welsh team fares with and without Gareth Bale, (48% - 24% win records, respectively) but it's still a huge consideration. Like the present-day Welsh side, McCarthy relied on the presence of a genuinely world-class player for his side to be competitive. McCarthy's only successful qualifying campaign - for 2002 - was the only one in which Keane played all of the clutch games. The highest ranked team Ireland beat under McCarthy without Keane in a competitive game was Saudi Arabia in 2002 - a team which had lost 8-0 to Germany the week before.
However, Keane also missed far
too many games to be relied upon, and as a coach, he is a massive hypocrite for criticising players
like Walters and Arter for their absences.
The stats also show that without Keane, McCarthy’s win record was not much better than O’Neill’s, despite having established Premier
League players like Given, Staunton, Irwin, Carr, Harte, Finnan, Cunningham,
Kinsella, Holland, Carsley, McAteer, Kennedy, Kilbane, Duff, Robbie Keane and
Quinn, all around for the majority of his tenure.
By comparison:
Jack Charlton's competitive win record was 42% (with the caveat that he played more tournament games than any other manager, and fewer games against genuine minnows).
Brian Kerr’s was 44% (which looks decent, but out of his sixteen games, he only played six against higher-ranked teams, failing to win any).
Brian Kerr’s was 44% (which looks decent, but out of his sixteen games, he only played six against higher-ranked teams, failing to win any).
Stan’s was 36%.
Trap’s was 40%.
O’Neill’s was 38% - 43% if excluding Nations League games.
McCarthy is a likeable character, but if he gets the job, we'll have to hope that he has improved and matured as a tactician in his spells at Sunderland, Wolves and Ipswich. We can be misty-eyed about an Irish team that competently passed the ball at the highest level, given all that's followed in the last 16 years - but it's easy to remember that McCarthy faced savage criticism for most of his tenure. The jury was out on him in 1997, after some bizarre selections and underwhelming results against poor sides. The knives were out for him in 1999 after a series of conservative, panicky, inept performances had lead to a terrible collapse in the run-in.
His upturn in fortunes with that Irish team coincided with two things; firstly, Keane was fit, available and in the form of his career between 2000 and 2002. Also, from 2000 on, McCarthy stopped trying to be too clever, and settled on a solid, unchanging 4-4-2. Experiments with 3-5-2, 4-5-1 and midfield diamonds had ended in failure, as players looked confused as to their roles - and that fact doesn't bode well if he gets the job for the 2020 qualifiers, in an age of much more advanced tactical flexibility. Even if you ignore his baggage as Ireland coach, he has not managed in the top flight in England since 2012, and like Trapattoni and O'Neill, there is a real fear that the modern game may have passed him by.
His upturn in fortunes with that Irish team coincided with two things; firstly, Keane was fit, available and in the form of his career between 2000 and 2002. Also, from 2000 on, McCarthy stopped trying to be too clever, and settled on a solid, unchanging 4-4-2. Experiments with 3-5-2, 4-5-1 and midfield diamonds had ended in failure, as players looked confused as to their roles - and that fact doesn't bode well if he gets the job for the 2020 qualifiers, in an age of much more advanced tactical flexibility. Even if you ignore his baggage as Ireland coach, he has not managed in the top flight in England since 2012, and like Trapattoni and O'Neill, there is a real fear that the modern game may have passed him by.
