Stephen Kenny expects to remain in charge for rest of Euro campaign

Macdara Ferris reports from FAI HQ in Abbotstown

After Friday’s night’s loss in Athens, Stephen Kenny spoke on Sunday about the disappointment with that defeat and his own position in charge of Ireland after the Boys in Green lost their opening two EURO 2024 qualifiers.

Asked about the speculation on his managerial future and whether he expects to be in charge for remainder of campaign, he said: “Yeah, I definitely do. My contract is up till the end of the campaign and whether it’s renewed will depend on how people feel the campaign went overall but certainly I fully expect to be.

“There is a lot of criticism, some of it justified, and I have to accept that. Likewise some of it inaccurate, that’s the nature of it. From my point of view, I’m not fixated with it.

“It's a game we are disappointed to lose, there's no doubt about that. Greece performed better than us on the night so we can’t have any complaints but, obviously, the goals were just turning points at critical times for us,

“I think, two teams are probably ranked along similar lines. I think they had more experience, I feel we’ve more potential. It’s a narrow defeat, a very, very narrow defeat, we lost by a goal. We just have to make sure we respond well and win on Monday."

It was Ireland’s fifth defeat in their last eight competitive games across the EURO 2024 qualifiers and UEFA Nations League. The losses have all been by just one goal, with the wins coming at home against Armenia (3-2), Scotland (3-0) and Lithuania (1-0).

“If we had won the other night against Greece everything would have been on track, we'd have been going into the Gibraltar game with everything great.

"Now, because we didn't it's a catastrophe, and I do get that, but we've got to focus on tomorrow and Gibraltar, make sure we are ready, I know the games were tight previously so we have to just get ourselves ready and make sure we get a home victory.”

The Boys in Green are only kept off the bottom of Group B on goal difference by Gibraltar who they will on Lansdowne Road on Monday. Qualification seems a very distance prospect.

“It'd have been a lot easier if we had won on Friday,” said Kenny about their qualification hopes. “We made life difficult for ourselves and we are just going to have to get some exceptional results between now and the end of the season.

“France I think will win the group, that's pretty clear, Greece have to play Holland twice, we have to play Holland twice, play Greece in Dublin so there's still a lot of football to be played I said at the time of the draw there are four teams that are capable of qualifying. 

"They all got to play each other. We got to take the set back on the chin and bounce back, get a victory tomorrow and take it from there."

James McClean to captain Ireland as he hits century mark of capshttps://t.co/IjdhvuUyXrpic.twitter.com/t6UBMV4K97

— Extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) June 18, 2023