Lack of urgency in FAI manager hunt is hurting Irish football

119 days and counting.

That’s how long it has taken the FAI to find a permanent replacement for Stephen Kenny, from his departure on November 22nd to this article being published online on March 20th.

The announcement that John O’Shea will become Ireland’s interim manager for upcoming friendly fixtures against Belgium and Switzerland was greeted with one part bemusement and one part cautious optimism.

Not even the world of football is immune to nostalgia cash grabs.

A great joke in 30 Rock has Alec Baldwin’s TV executive present a pie chart of the station’s programming priorities with a part of the pie chart reading “make it 1997 again through science or magic,” and the FAI seem to have applied that logic to their managerial search. 

Brian Kerr being drafted in as assistant manager only adds to the belief that the FAI are trying to will the Celtic Tiger era of Irish football back into existence.

There is precedent even within Irish football for the assistant to be promoted to the top job; just last year, Eileen Gleeson was promoted from assistant to the manager of the women’s team.

There is one crucial difference here; the FAI acted proactively to give Gleeson the job and Gleeson had managerial experience within Irish football before being given the top job.

Gleeson was put in charge on a temporary basis as soon as Vera Pauw left the job in August and a string of good results led to her being made manager on a permanent basis in December.

The FAI parted ways with Kenny in November and it took them until the last week of February to even appoint an interim manager.

A final decision on Ireland’s manager is now not likely until April.

The FAI have claimed that some contractual dispute stemming from Kenny’s early departure is a cause of the delay, but that reeks more of an organisation trying to buy an excuse.

Granted, the men’s team haven’t had a fixture since November, but the principle of the FAI not being in a rush to hire a manager doesn’t sit well with fans.

Throwing a manager in at the deep end might work OK in club football but on-the-job learning is not what Irish football needs.

The 1994 Channel 4 documentary The Impossible Job was a fly-on-the-wall look at Graham Taylor’s ill-fated spell as England manager and an impossible job is what will await whoever is foolhardy enough to take over the Irish team.

They will have to be given time to chop and change and figure out player dynamics and tactics but must also restore Ireland’s reputation at a European level.

Whoever steps into the hot seat on a permanent basis will be expected to get Ireland to the 2026 World Cup and build a strong base for Euro 2028 qualification.

Time is the most precious resource a manager has at an international level; even when the team doesn’t play there is still a mountain of work for a manager to do and the FAI wasting over 4 months on a managerial search is a perfect microcosm of how toxic Irish football is.

It’s nearly a perfect metaphor for Ireland as a whole, isn’t it?

We are told that “top people ” are on the job, money is being spent and there is the vague idea of a long-term project being put in place; “don’t worry, the future is bright” we are told.

Are we describing the National Children’s Hospital, RTÉ or the FAI?

There are ice glaciers in the Atlantic Ocean that move quicker than the FAI; the lack of urgency with the FAI implies that they have put the work experience student in charge of the manager hunt.

O’Shea being put in the hot seat implies that the FAI have been turned down by at least a dozen managers and he was the only person who checked their emails that particular day.

A wild goose chase for Lee Carsley recalls the first episode of Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge where the host informs viewers that Roger Moore will be a guest on the show and tries to keep up appearances even as it becomes apparent Moore will not be showing up.

The FAI’s pursuit of Carsley could still bear fruit, as unlikely as that is, but if Carsley wanted the job he would have taken it by now.

Certain fans cling to the belief that Lee Carsley will see out his remaining European Championship qualifiers with the England under-21s before coming in to save Irish football and bring Elvis back from the dead while he’s at it.

Other names like Slaven Bilic, Gus Poyet, Steve Bruce, Neil Lennon, Paul Clement and Chris Hughton have been linked with the job, but we are just as likely to end up with John O’Shea, who has never managed a game of professional level football before, leading Ireland into World Cup qualifiers. 

O’Shea’s CV involves 3 years as an assistant at the Irish under-21s, assistant work towards the end of the Stephen Kenny era, and coaching work with Stoke, Birmingham and Reading.

He is a decent choice if you need to plug a gap for two friendly fixtures that mean nothing, but an awful choice if you want to rebuild following a disastrous qualification campaign.

There are famous examples of assistant managers stepping up from the right-hand man role to stepping into the hot seat; Joachim Löw went from Jurgen Klinsmann’s assistant at the 2006 World Cup to leading Germany to glory in Brazil in 2014 (with the caveat of having some managerial experience) and of course, Mikel Arteta served an apprenticeship as Pep Guardiola’s assistant before making Arsenal a respected team again.

There is every possibility that John O’Shea is just the man Ireland needs to bring the good times of tournament qualifications and upset wins against Italy and Germany back.

John O’Shea could also be hopelessly out of his depth as manager and we are back writing this article again in November 2027.

O’Shea told the press that he had a missed phone call from his old boss Sir Alex Ferguson following his appointment, stating that the wily old Scot is still in touch with him all these years later to wish him luck. 

The man who goes viral once a year for his 2003 nutmeg on Luis Figo now finds himself needing the managerial acumen of his old manager to dig Irish football out of a hole.