Stephen Kenny on attitude issues in Irish football: 'We don’t think we’re good enough - that’s unacceptable'

Stephen Kenny wants Irish football to stop imposing limits on its own ambition.

“We can’t insist on perimeters on the way we can perform, we can’t limit ourselves,” the Ireland U21 boss said, in an interview with FAI TV.

“Traditionally, we limit ourselves on how we think we can play, we don’t think we’re good enough as a nation, we don’t think our players are good enough and to me, that’s unacceptable.

“We must demand more of ourselves. I want defenders who are comfortable in possession and can play out.

“I want to use the maximum width of the pitch and I want our attacking players to express themselves.”

Kenny was looking ahead to participation in June’s annual Toulon Tournament for U21 teams, in which Ireland have been grouped with Mexico, China and Bahrain.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us as a nation to go to this tournament and compete against these nations,” he said.

“The Toulon Tournament is hugely important with the gap between the U19s and U21s internationals being huge. It’s a huge step up for our players, good matches, and we want to give ourselves a chance.”

“Bahrain, China and Mexico are all in tournaments next year for Olympic qualification so they will be taking the tournament extremely seriously.

China have brought a great coach in, in Guus Hiddink and have played 10 competitive matches since September so it shows the resources they’re putting in.

“Mexico, traditionally, have had dynamic and impressive under-age teams, and Bahrain would be an unknown quantity to us but they’ve got a clear objective to qualify for Qatar 2022, as do we.”