AS a pundit, not many people take Jason McAteer seriously. He incurred Brian Kerr’s wrath earlier this year when the pair disagreed over an account in McAteer’s autobiography.
In his book, the former Republic of Ireland midfielder recalled Kerr, who was manager in the early-to-mid-Noughties, asking him to do a joint press conference with Roy Keane as a show of solidarity between the pair after a well-documented spat during a Sunderland-Manchester United fixture.
At that time, Kerr was paving a way for Keane to return to the international scene, post-Saipan. When the claim of a joint press conference of McAteer and Keane was put to Kerr, the Dubliner described the claim as “bullshit”.
“My memory is very good on most things,” Kerr said. “At no stage did I ever talk about him, or anybody else, sitting up and having a press conference. That would’ve been outrageous.”
In an interview last week, McAteer insisted his recollection was accurate before slating Kerr’s stewardship as senior international team manager and dismissing the training sessions under the former underage coach as “very basic”.
Injuries dictated McAteer didn’t feature in many of Kerr’s squads.
In the same interview it was no surprise when McAteer cast a shadow over Stephen Kenny’s ability to be a success with the Republic of Ireland senior team, with everything seemingly pitted against the halcyon days of Jack and Mick.
“I’m always worried about the pedigree of a manager stepping into an international role,” said the 52-times capped Ireland player.
Other ex-international stars from the Charlton and McCarthy eras hinted at similar concerns over Stephen Kenny’s applicability for the big job.
And they might be right about Kenny. He may well fall flat on his face as senior manager. I doubt it. But he might.
Just as with the Kerr era, there is an overwhelming sense that football’s 'blue-bloods' look down their noses at anyone who emerges from the League of Ireland and has the temerity to think they are fit to do the big job.
Kerr and Kenny didn’t reach any great heights as footballers, which is always another unspoken reason to cast doubt over their ability to motivate top players and get results.
This backdrop of scepticism among a few former players is something Kenny will simply have to get used to. Every tactical decision he makes against Bulgaria and Finland next month, every 'naive' piece of defending, every time his team over-plays, pundits will be wheeled out to bemoan the entire, dreamy project.
And they’ll whisper: ‘Out of his depth. League of Ireland manager. Dreamer.’
It’s strange how football has moved on since Kerr’s time in charge. The Drimnagh man was heavily criticised for spending too much time on video analysis.
During Martin O’Neill’s time, some players didn’t think there was enough analysis being done.
When members of the Irish media met Kenny in Dublin for his squad announcement for the upcoming Nations League games against Bulgaria and Finland last Monday, one reporter shoehorned a question referencing McAteer’s criticisms.
Kenny swatted McAteer’s words away with the same casualness of a blue bottle buzzing around the room.
“No, listen, to be honest with you, I’m actually not offended by that easily,” he said.
“Things like that don’t really bother me that much. I’m in it too long. I’ve great respect for Brian Kerr and Chris Hughton – Brian and Chris would have taken the training sessions and he [McAteer] was criticising Brian and Chris’s training sessions. I’ve great respect for both of them.
“But it’s not relevant. We’re in a high-performance, modern coaching environment now. Jason was a great player for Ireland, he did really well for them. I’ve no issue with him.”
Kenny’s body of work with Dundalk was bordering on the incredible.
Reaching the group stages of the Europa League in 2016, where they competed brilliantly against elite opposition, was of many glowing aspects of Kenny’s managerial capabilities.
Nearly every press conference with Kenny morphs into a football tutorial but not in an egotistical sense. You ask him a question, he’ll give you a thoughtful answer.
During that memorable Europa League run with Dundalk four years ago I met Kenny to talk about his coaching philosophy.
It was one of the best hours I’ve spent in this job.
“There was a narrative [from] ex-players… Some people feel we’re more suited to playing a direct style, but I don’t accept that that’s in our DNA,” he explained.
“Part of your job as a coach is to make players better - [to say we have to] accept that they’re always going to be mediocre, that we’ve to play within certain confines… it’s sometimes too easy to say that.
“We have to think about the game differently, we have to think how we can dominate possession, no matter who we’re playing.”
He talked about how it was his team’s objective to string together “eight or 10 passes” regardless of how good the opposition was.
He even delved into the minutiae of how he tweaked the angled runs of his sitting midfielder at Dundalk, Chris Shields, when accepting the ball from his goalkeeper to initiate passing moves and to launch attacks.
After raising all boats with the U21s and enacting a passing style that will be replicated throughout all Irish international landscape, Kenny is a man with a vision for Irish football.
You will always have ex-international stars making noise and lauding the great successes of by-gone days while looking down their noses at something or someone that is home-grown.
Maybe they don’t have a deep enough appreciation of what Stephen Kenny has done with his coaching career.
