{"id":58506,"date":"2025-09-12T01:27:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T01:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/58506\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T01:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T01:27:18","slug":"roy-keane-criticises-fai-following-irelands-defeat-to-armenia-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/58506\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Keane criticises FAI following Ireland\u2019s defeat to Armenia \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\/\">Republic of Ireland<\/a> international <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/roy-keane\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/roy-keane\/\">Roy Keane<\/a> has criticised the FAI after a 2-1 away defeat to Armenia on Tuesday dealt a hammer blow to Ireland\u2019s hopes of qualifying for next year\u2019s World Cup in North America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Speaking with former team-mate Gary Neville on the Stick to Football podcast, the former Manchester United captain said the FAI \u201ccouldn\u2019t organise a p***-up in a brewery\u201d when asked about the most recent managerial appointment process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The role remained vacant for eight months following Stephen Kenny\u2019s departure in November 2023, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/heimir-hallgrimsson\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/heimir-hallgrimsson\/\">Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> confirmed as his successor in July 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Keane was previously assistant manager of the national side during Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s time in charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/soccer\/2025\/09\/09\/ken-early-irelands-defeat-to-armenia-was-an-utter-farce\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ken Early: Ireland\u2019s defeat to Armenia was an utter farceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Asked by Neville \u201cwhat\u2019s your main gripe at the moment with Ireland?\u201d, clarifying \u201c[is it] lack of players, managerial choice?\u201d, Keane replied: \u201cA bit of everything.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI still don\u2019t think players are playing enough at the highest level for some of the bigger clubs. There\u2019s a few obviously making a living in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s been tough on the manager. Physically they\u2019re not great, they\u2019re not mobile. We got a couple of defenders there, oh my goodness&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Asked by Neville if he spoke to the FAI about the manager job, Keane confirmed he did speak to the association, adding: \u201cBut I think they spoke to everybody, to every Tom, Dick and Harry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cYou speak to them because the reason you might take the job is that you might help the team. You obviously think you can help them, whether it be the issues they might have lacking quality, you think you might get them organised, get a bit of fight and a bit of spirit in Ireland. I know that\u2019s not enough always, they do lack real quality as well of course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cBut yeah, I would have spoken [with the FAI] about the job. Even that was a farce. They were speaking to every[one]. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe amount of people who have come out in the last six months saying they were offered a job, or they spoke to them, but that\u2019s the FAI again, they couldn\u2019t organise a p***-up in a brewery.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Republic of Ireland international Roy Keane has criticised the FAI after a 2-1 away defeat to Armenia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,21278,17065,19,17,6634,5788,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-58506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","10":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","14":"tag-roy-keane","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}