Fans' bleak acceptance tells the story. Once apathy sets in, you’re done

The reaction from a crowd of just over 40,000 was telling.

Fri, 13 Oct, 2023 - 22:07

Alan Smith

Stephen Kenny’s moribund march towards the exit trundles on and the most miserable aspect of all is that there is at least another month to come before everyone is put out of their misery.

In a campaign packed with lows, this plumbed new depths - summed up by a non-event second half in which the Ireland players looked devoid of ideas and more than one threw their arms up in exasperation because team-mates were not showing to receive passes.

They were outdone by themselves rather than supreme quality from opponents in the same weight-class as desperate, basic defensive errors reared their heads again.

Greece managed the match well and were not ruffled beyond a good start from Ireland that only served to build hope before knocking it back down. But Gus Poyet’s team are no world beaters.

These were, at least, different mistakes from what has gone before as poor positioning and a weakness on the counterattack did for Ireland’s hopes of what is now a rare win.

Still, at least they did not concede from long range or at the start of the second half … Cheap gags aside, the reaction from a crowd of just over 40,000 was telling.

The fans who had turned out in healthy enough numbers were not even that furious when the first goal went in and when the second arrived the inevitable boos felt half-hearted. This was not red-hot fury but a display of bleak acceptance.

Once apathy sets in, you’re done. Football managers can rightly embrace the good times, the moments of anger can be channelled into performances. But the moment a feeling of resignation arrives there can be no time to turn things around.

Kenny is stuck between a rock and a hard place ahead of Monday’s trip to Gibraltar, a match with nothing on the line that could still pile yet more embarrassment on a man whose vision has always had much to admire only for the execution to continuously fall short.

The only logical reason behind the FAI allowing Kenny to see out this diabolical campaign can be to give the replacement a clean slate rather than inherit a mess where the number of positives dwindle every game.

It could be easily forgotten considering what followed but the opening five minutes last night was a display of free-flowing, attacking football.

In those early stages, it was almost as if a pressure valve had been released. Ireland were proactive and the young players the nation hopes can bring better days were at the centre of it.

Will Smallbone had the first attempt, producing a solid save from Odysseas Vlachodimos, before Evan Ferguson dropped deep, drove forward and sent a snapshot off the post with an explosiveness that has been sorely lacking throughout the Kenny reign.

This was a fleeting sign of what is certain to come from the Brighton striker in the coming years and anyone fortunate to have watched him regularly up close at the Seagulls cannot but buy into the hype.

Yet the start of Ferguson’s Ireland career has been stop-start (although the results were unlikely to have been much different if he was involved against France and the Netherlands last month) and more consistent showings will come in time when he gels with those around him.

Chiedozie Ogbene will be one of the more prominent partners. He is quickly becoming a cult hero since joining Premier League new boys Luton Town with his directness and flair a rare highlight for a club operating on a shoestring budget and struggling to survive.

At 26, Ogbene is not far off being one of this Ireland team’s elder statesmen, yet he is also a late developer who is growing in stature for club and country.

The uber-critical will say he reacted too slowly as Konstantinos Tsimikas won possession from a 50-50 and pushed on for Greece’s first goal and he was unlucky when miscontrolling in the build-up to the second.

But in a team with so many ill-fitting parts, he is undoubtedly one who is destined to feature heavily.

Unfortunately for Kenny that is where the positives end and his empty grimace when the full-time whistle went and more tepid jeers rolled down from the fans who decided against heading home early was a neat encapsulation of a project doomed to fail.

Wholesale changes should come on Monday night, opportunities must be given to fringe members who had to endure their team’s shortcomings from the bench.

But this particular trip will be an academic one and eyes must now turn to who picks up the baton.