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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Robert Hynes

Republic of Ireland fans make Roy Keane call following latest defeats

Pressure continues to mount on Stephen Kenny after Ireland began their Nations League campaign with consecutive losses to Armenia and Ukraine.

The Ireland boss had wanted to top the group, but the Boys in Green instead find themselves bottom after two games, although Kenny refuses to accept that his side are in a relegation battle to League C.

There is some concern within the FAI as to how quickly momentum has ground to a halt and Kenny's position could be under threat if further poor results follow against Scotland on Saturday and Ukraine in Poland on Tuesday.

But some Ireland fans are already calling for change, with a few of them wanting former assistant Roy Keane, who had a number of notable fall outs with players during his time working with Martin O'Neill, to replace Kenny.

One tweeted: "@FAIreland do things right and get rid of Kenny, it's a results business. Bring Roy Keane in."

Another said: "Anything to be said for giving Roy Keane a crack at it? Kenny isn’t up to it."

Someone else commented: "I'd love to see Roy Keane get the job."

One other post read: "Roy Keane and anyone he decides isn’t good enough, isn’t actually good enough.

"Give Roy full control, without interference and Ireland do far better than they could under anyone else."

But it is understood that even if Kenny did leave his role, the FAI would be very reluctant to offer Keane the job.

The Manchester United legend has not managed in his own right since leaving Ipswich in 2011.

Previously speaking about his time as Ireland assistant, he told Gary Neville on The Overlap: “In terms of job satisfaction, the Irish setup was brilliant.

“We had a good dressing room and group. It was well short in terms of quality, but we had a good group.

“At the end, with Ireland, one or two players started pissing me off. Not training properly, talking a good game and I eventually fell out with one or two players.

“I think that is part of the game and I think you are supposed to fall out. People don’t fall out with people. I think people need to challenge each other.”

On the arguments he had with Ireland players while a coach, Keane added: “I’ve heard some players saying that they fell out with me.

“I go, ‘I never fell out with you?’ I think they enjoy the buzz.

“They think they challenged me. No, I fell out with one or two players with Ireland because they were turning up not wanting to train.

“I was looking at all their stats, watching them every week, and I was looking at them going, ‘You are not playing and you don’t want to train. You are idiots.

“But these lads were idiots anyway. People might think it is just because they are footballers. No, they’d be idiots if they were working on a building site.”

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