Stephen Kenny insists his Ireland side continues to improve, even if victories remain a precious commodity for the Boys in Green.
Ireland take on Armenia at The Aviva tonight (7.45) in their final Group B1 game after a campaign that provided one sparkling performance and decent spells in other games but ultimately, delivered little in terms of positive results.
So while Ukraine and Scotland meet in the Polish city of Krakow this evening to see who tops the group to secure League A football in 2024, the Irish must avoid defeat to ensure they don’t commence the next campaign in lowly League C.
READ MORE: All on the line for Stephen Kenny who needs to start marrying performances with results
Kenny’s competitive record of three successes and eight draws in 20 games is, as this evening’s clash confirms, relegation form.
The evidence gleaned from the 3-0 hammering of the Scots in Dublin in June, the subsequent 1-1 draw with the Ukrainians in Poland and last Saturday night’s 2-1 defeat to Steve Clarke’s side in Glasgow is that there has been an improvement in the quality of performance.
But qualifying campaigns are judged over every game so this one — that opened with the embarrassing 1-0 defeat to Armenia in Yerevan — has failed to deliver for the Irish despite the fact that Kenny boldly declared as long ago as last October that his team intended to seek to top this section.
The 2020 Nations League yielded three wins and three defeats while the recent World Cup qualifying group saw the side only beat Azerbaijan and Luxembourg, edging out Luxembourg — who triumphed 1-0 in Dublin — for third spot on goal difference .
So for any manager to proclaim there has been progress in the past two years is a bit of a stretch.
While the FAI will continue to back Kenny in the €550,000 per year post — unless the side loses tonight — there are former Ireland internationals and managers wondering when all these ‘great’ displays will translate into wins and campaigns that see the team competing at the business end rather than scrapping for survival.
“I’m certainly not getting into a debate now on, overall, where we are,” said Kenny yesterday.
“This game is very important for us. We want to go and try to beat Armenia, this is a press conference for that.
“If you’re asking what progress we’ve made, then I suppose the fact that we’ve integrated 16 players that have come through and have been given their competitive debuts in the last 18 months in a team that needed that.
“Obviously, there was a team at the end of its cycle and it needed to be reinvigorated.
“Plus we had these talented young players coming through so the timing was good for that.
“These players have come through, got a lot of experience and played some terrific stuff, consistently.
“Obviously, we’ve mixed that with a performance like the one in Armenia which was a disappointing performance.
“I think you can see the improvement in the team, you can see the way the team is playing, that it’s really evolving, that it’s exciting and attacking.
“People are excited about it but we want to win more games, there’s no more doubt about that, and we want to win tonight.”
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