Athens has become a byword for underachievement by the Republic of Ireland under Stephen Kenny.
Against Greece in June, an Irish midfield trio hailing from Burnley, West Bromwich Albion and Southampton could not contain their international peers from AEK Athens, Panathinaikos and Trabzonspor. Tasos Bakasetas, the Greek captain, ruled the roost.
“When I looked at it, I didn’t see myself as a coach, in the team,” Kenny admitted this week. “I’m responsible for that as manager.
“We wanted to exploit the fact that their full-backs get forward all the time. We played 3-5-2, we wanted to exploit the space that they leave with our front two but it didn’t materialise. We were too keen to try and exploit it too early. The players’ passing – defenders, midfielders and forwards – weren’t in sync, their runs weren’t in sync with the passing.”
And yet, against France in Dublin the previous March, Josh Cullen, Jayson Molumby, Jason Knight and Chiedozie Ogbene forced Theo Hernandez and Eduardo Camavinga into difficult situations.
Granted, Camavinga stepped and glided out of trouble every time but Kenny’s Ireland produced a performance, if not a result, beyond most peoples’ expectations.
“We were probably somewhat of an unknown quantity in that regard,” he admitted. “They are a very confident team in themselves, they probably don’t overly worry about the quality of the opposition because they have a formidable team.
“There are areas we can improve on in that performance that we have looked at. That’s what we will be working on in the two days [the squad] have before Paris.”
As Ireland struggle to secure some midfield control, French midfield stocks are so plentiful that N’golo Kante and Paul Pogba cannot break into the squad as Didier Deschamps is happy with Real Madrid duo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouaméni, alongside Youssouf Fofana, Boubacar Kamara and Adrien Rabiot.
Evan Ferguson will never score the goals that get Ireland to a major tournament if he’s spending all his time chasing centre halves from sideline to end line. This much is clear.
Midfield has long been Ireland’s Achilles heel. Kenny does not need a heroic Roy Keane-style figure, just a bona fide Premier League distributor.
The FAI system, or lack thereof, failed to produce a stream of international calibre talent for a decade, or so Kenny says whenever his job comes under threat.
“We’ve given 18 players their debut, through our own system,” he said in June. “We’d nine years with nothing coming through, nothing!”
Irish football is producing goalkeepers again, full backs aplenty, jinky wingers too, and centre forwards come in all shapes and sizes, including a teenage prodigy. But midfielders, not so much.
Joe Hodge could be the chosen one. Only problem is the Ireland under-21 skipper pulled up with a grade two hamstring tear playing for Wolverhampton Wanderers in the EFL Cup this week. Still only 20, but already an expert of the weighted pass, Hodge is worth the wait.
In the meantime, perhaps Andrew Moran is the one.
“Andrew is a really talented footballer,” said Ireland Under-21s manager Jim Crawford. “I’ve gone over on numerous occasions to watch him at Brighton and I would have paid in. He sees passes, he can go by players and works exceptionally hard off the ball.”
Brighton loaned Moran to Blackburn Rovers where the slight Dublin teenager can grow accustomed to the more menacing operators that exist in the English Championship.
Jeff Hendrick was once supposed to be the one. Way back in 2016, his head-swivelling style promised so much. Hendrick secured a lucrative four-year contract with Newcastle United in 2020 but his club career quickly transformed into loan moves down the divisions.
Jason Knight escaped the third tier of English football with a move from Derby County to Bristol City, each of his performances in an Ireland shirt appear to demand automatic selection.
Josh Cullen is not the one. But the 27-year-old is currently Ireland’s midfield general and a Premier League regular for Burnley. Cullen has carved out a career for himself. An easy choice for the FAI senior men’s footballer of the year in 2022, his form appeared to dissolve this year as the Irish midfield was overrun in Athens. There was also a wayward pass that invited Benjamin Pavard’s winner for France in Dublin.
It got worse against Greece as the Irish midfield looked like UN peacekeepers – present but barely involved in the conflict. But Cullen should not shoulder the blame for a formation that invited the opposing midfield trio to shoot on sight.
“Josh has been made captain [of Burnley],” said Kenny on Thursday. “Josh played in League Two with Bradford and in League One with Charlton. Got a move to Anderlecht, and that really improved him.”
So much so that Vincent Kompany brought him back to English football from his Belgian sojourn.
In contrast, Moran and Hodge came through the underage ranks, looking like gifts from the football gods. Same goes for Hendrick. And Conor Coventry, but after a record 28 under-21 caps, the 23-year-old finds himself back in the West Ham reserves despite encouraging loan stints at MK Dons and Rotherham.
Will Smallbone might be the one, eventually. The 23-year-old’s form on loan from Southampton to Stoke City last season prompted Kenny to start him in Athens.
Despite Smallbone’s excellent corner for the Nathan Collins goal, most activity on the night went above and around him. He looked exposed while trying to help Matt Doherty cover Konstantinos Tsimikas’s raids down the left and come the 53rd minute he was replaced by Knight.
Trailing 2-1, with the Irish midfield in desperate need of some creativity, the man picked for his dead ball skills was unceremoniously hooked, which feeds directly into Greece manager Gus Poyet’s post-match assessment that under pressure Kenny’s passing revolution reverts to “the Republic of Ireland, with all due respect”.
“You depend on a corner, you depend on a long ball, you depend on fighting for second and third balls,” went Poyet’s damning assessment.
The Uruguayan was right. Poyet should know, he used to be the sort of midfielder Ireland need right about now.
