Issues remain but time has come for Stephen Kenny's Ireland to deliver

Serbia possesses quality but remain an unknown quantity. With a new manager and Euro2020 disappointment fresh on their minds, they are Ireland's first World Cup opponents in the latest qualification process 

A view of Ireland squad training at the Stadion Rajko Mitic in Belgrade yesterday. Picture: INPHO/Nikola Krstic

Stephen Kenny will be four days shy of a year in the post of senior Republic of Ireland manager by the time this latest international window closes with a glorified but far from glamorous friendly against Qatar in Hungary next Tuesday.

A quarter of this latest World Cup qualifying campaign will be done by then, Saturday’s home game against Luxembourg banked and tonight’s opener away to Serbia already consigned along with it to the history books before Portugal and Azerbaijan merit a first mention.

This week will likely dictate the tone of the entire chapter.

The Dubliner has had precious little time to prepare a squad that only assembled in Manchester through Sunday and Monday, and he is without key influencers in Darren Randolph, John Egan, an in-form Conor Hourihane and midfield lynchpin James McCarthy.

And did we mention David McGoldrick’s retirement last year?

Add in the turbulence behind the scenes since the last gathering, with Damien Duff and Alan Kelly replaced on his staff by Anthony Barry and Dean Kiely, and Kenny has been man-marked by misfortune almost every step of the way.

That being so, there is little scope for further mitigation.

Injuries are endemic to football and, while the pandemic is still a factor, an Ireland squad fatally compromised by Covid across his eight-game winless streak in 2020 had recorded no such issues come close of business last night.

This is as ready as he and his team will be.

“Coming into here, I feel really equipped to prepare the team in the short space of time,” Kenny said in Belgrade. “We have learned from our experiences up to the last month, for sure. We have learned a lot.”

To be fair, he has never mined misfortune for succour, or for cover. He has repeatedly heaped praise on the quality of his players and his staff, stating again this week that the squad may lack in experience but not in talent.

Everyone who travelled has been declared fit. That includes Aaron Connolly and James McClean, both of whom have been absent from club duties lately with injury.

This is not a vintage Irish group although Kenny could name a back four of Premier League players — with a few left over — while an investment in youth amounting to 13 promotions from the underage ranks since he took over will be parsed for profit.

Some of these boys are particularly green.

Troy Parrott and Gavin Bazunu weren’t even born the last time Ireland played at a World Cup in 2002, but Dara O’Shea, Josh Cullen, Jayson Molumby, Jason Knight, and Connolly are among those recent graduates with realistic chances of seeing some action.

For now, the only confirmed starter is the 21-year-old Mark Travers.

The Maynooth man makes his competitive debut because Randolph and Caoimhin Kelleher are unavailable. It will be his first game of any stripe in seven weeks but Kenny has been in contact with him for much of that time, mindful that this was how the cards might fall.

“He’s been training very well and is in impeccable condition. They certainly put a lot of crosses into the box and have the capacity to score headed goals with their forwards. Mark is six-feet-four and is capable of coming out to take crosses and this will be important.”

Serbia possess quality but remain an unknown quantity. They line up under the eye of new manager and national treasure Dragan Stojkovic who hasn’t made significant changes to a squad that lost a Euro 2020 playoff to Scotland last year on penalties.

The hosts boast players playing, for the most part, at a higher club level in some of Europe’s best leagues and Stojkovic has made dismissive noises about the challenge of an Irish team who he sees as playing a ‘British’ style of game.

Kenny would likely take issue with that, privately at least. He was certainly definitive when asked if, given tonight’s occasion, location and opposition, it might merit a more defensive and, when in possession, direct approach than that adopted last year.

“The answer to that is a clear no on both fronts,” he said.

The full reply was much longer but the fact remains that the man is not, and never has been, for turning.

He will live or die by his principles, but his side has looked stretched time and again so far and will need to be be more compact at the Stadion Rajko Mitic.

Kenny’s record of seven goals conceded in eight games is actually identical to the stats recorded in the eight prior to that but the ongoing inability to find the net since his first game in charge away to Bulgaria has meant that one slip has always been fatal.

A 0-0 draw would be no bad thing, but Ireland have always had a grá for the 1-1 and that would fill the sails for a six-month, eight-game group that is more sprint than marathon.

“It’s a conversation we want to stop having,” Kenny said of the drought. “Even late on against Bulgaria (in Dublin), Robbie Brady’s shot comes back off the underside of the crossbar and comes out. You look at a team like Liverpool with the forwards that they have, they went a right number of games without scoring. It can happen to a team.

“There have been extenuating circumstances and I don’t want to be making excuses so it will be something that we will address soon enough. We need to address it quickly and we’ve got the game against Serbia. We’ve hit the post quite a bit and hit the bar so we need to just take our chances when they come.”