Richard Dunne slams Stephen Kenny’s approach as Euro 2024 hopes fade

Simon Kelly

“You want your manager to step up.”

Richard Dunne has laid into Stephen Kenny after Ireland’s 2-1 defeat to the Netherlands left Ireland’s Euro 2024 hopes all but dead in the water.

After sprinting out the traps on Sunday night with an early penalty, converted calmly by Adam Idah, things were looking up for the Irish on the night. However, the Dutch quickly responded with a penalty of their own, slotted home by Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo.

Richard Dunne slams Stephen Kenny’s approach as Ireland Euro 2024 hopes fade.

Despite some spirited attacks from Kenny’s men, hope started to fade early on in the second half, when half-time substitute Wout Weghorst made an early impression to put the Dutch ahead, making it a very tough hill to climb.

When it resorted to a 31-year-old Shane Duffy playing up front the writing was on the wall, and Kenny’s future looks as bleak as it has ever been, with all hope lost of qualifying for next year’s tournament in Germany.

After the match, critics didn’t hold back with criticism of Kenny’s approach. Ex-Ireland international Richard Dunne was among them, condemning the manager’s lack of response to going behind early on in the second half.

“When the Netherlands take control of the game and start knocking it around, it looked like we needed to take a bit of guidance, so you want your manager to step up,” Dunne told Virgin Media Sport.

“You want him to tell everyone to get behind the ball for ten minutes to work this out, to see what they have done.

“It took going a goal behind to make some changes. The manager must recognise that, he must have a coaching staff that’s going ‘right, we need to drop guys back, we need push wingbacks up…’

“There was no reaction, there was nothing.”

“It all comes down to can we get (Shane) Duffy up front, can we get balls into the box and we were told we were being led away from that. We didn’t have any creativity at all.”

Richard Dunne felt the Ireland team needed more help from the touchline tonight.

🗨️ "I felt we were a little bit lost in the game. We need a little bit of guidance, you want your manager to step up."

🇮🇪 1-2 🇳🇱#IRENED | #EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/MNBtBjGvnc

— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) September 10, 2023

While criticism has plagued the Ireland manager throughout his tenure, there seems to be an acceptance now that his time may soon be up, with Kenny himself saying he doesn’t know if he’ll remain in the job.

The RTÉ panel also delivered a unanimous verdict on Kenny, saying that the time has come for the FAI to start the process of looking for a new manager.