Managerial changes have been made this week with Harry Kenny and Liam Buckley newly appointed at St Patrick's Athletic and Sligo Rovers respectively.
They face similar challenges of revitalising clubs who have been towards the bottom part of the table in the last two seasons following successful seasons earlier in the decade.
Pat's are at a crossroads following the departure of the league’s longest-serving manager. Buckley had been manager at Richmond Park for seven seasons.
In that time Sligo Rovers have had seven permanent managers (Ian Baraclough, John Coleman, Owen Heary, Joseph Ndo, Micky Adams, Dave Robertson and latterly Gerard Lyttle) as well as three caretakers (Gavin Dykes, Declan McIntyre and Brian Dorrian).
Any time a manager leaves after seven seasons, an eternity in modern football, a club will have to deal with a big change.
The Saints have made the decision to replace him with Harry Kenny but some major decisions have to be made on the pitch also.
How many changes Kenny decides to make to the squad and what those changes are will be key to setting the club back on a path to success.
Such is the nature of the league, with many players on short-term contracts, he should have a relatively clean slate to choose from.
We have analysed the age make-up of the current and recent squads which may be a key part of putting the right squad together.
Ages 24-28 are generally considered to be the prime of a players’ career and the 2013 league-winning squad had eight players with at least 10 starts in that age range.
In 2018, the squad only had three making 10 starts (Ryan Brennan, Dean Clarke and Jake Keegan) in that age range. That is the second-lowest to Derry City’s two.
The teams with the most in this age range are unsurprisingly Cork City, Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Waterford.
The 2015 season saw the break-up of much of the core of the squad that had won the league and FAI Cup in the previous two years for St. Pat’s. At the end of it Kenny Browne, Chris Forrester, Greg Bolger, Killian Brennan, Aaron Greene, Conor McCormack and James Chambers all departed. It would be the last season under Buckley that European qualification was attained.
The following seasons saw younger players like Michael Barker, Mark Timlin, Rory Feely, Sam Verdon, Darragh Markey, JJ Lunney and Josh O’Hanlon become more featured parts of the squad.
But in week 21 of the 2017 season, a loss to Cork City left them joint-bottom alongside Drogheda United with the fewest wins in the league at three. Lunney (19), Markey (20) and Feely (20), who had a combined 57 starts from the first 21 games, did not start again.
They were replaced by the experience of Killian Brennan, Billy Dennehy, Paul O’Conor and Owen Garvan.
The average age of the starting line-up went from 25.8 (one of the league’s youngest) to 27.4, 13 points from the next five games set them well up to survive.
By the end of the season the Saints had the highest average age of all players to make at least one appearance. That has continued to 2018 with the league’s second-highest average age of 26.27, just behind Dundalk at 26.44.
It has the most career league appearances combined at 3,672 and the second-most goals at 351.
Young forwards James Doona (20) and Thomas Byrne (19) were brought in during the off-season with Lunney and Feely having moved elsewhere. They have just seven and six starts respectively.
Typically, players at their peak years or slightly afterwards require the highest salaries and bring the most expectations.
A lack of Europeans qualification for a third successive year means the club probably cannot compete for the signings of the league’s best players in their prime.
The past few years has seen the club invest in both younger and older players with neither bringing the right success.
So does the appointment of Harry Kenny indicate the favouring of any particular philosophy?
The statement from chairman Garrett Kelleher wasn’t heavy on words but he did state "expect to be back challenging at the top of the table in 2019".
They may be empty words or an indication that there could be investment in bringing in a calibre of player capable of returning the club to the holy grail of European qualification. News that training will be moved to the morning certainly also hints at attracting full-time players of a high calibre.
They have already given out a trio of two-year contracts which will keep Simon Madden, Lee Desmond and Darragh Markey at the club until they are 32, 25 and 23 respectively, although two were before Kenny’s appointment.
While Kenny has spent 10 years at the FAI working with younger players, his one stint at management in the League of Ireland with Bray Wanderers saw him assemble a squad based on experience.
He built around 30-somethings like Peter Cherrie, Conor Kenna, Alan McNally, Tim Clancy with Karl Moore, Mark Salmon, Jordan Marks, Aaron Greene and Gary McCabe all in their late-20s.
Dylan Connolly and Darragh Noone were the only players under the age of 21 to make at least six starts in the 2016 or 2017 seasons. The 2017 squad had the highest average age of players to make a start.
The Saints Under-19s and Under-15s both won their divisions this year with the Under-17s coming second.
The year before their Under-17s and Under-15s both won their divisions. Kenny could choose to give opportunities to these players but also has to decide on the futures of veterans like Brendan Clarke, Barry Murphy, Killian Brennan, and Christy Fagan. Conan Byrne has already moved on after 250 appearances for the club.
There is no area of the squad which seems immune from the requirement for improvement. They scored 1.28 goals per game before Buckley departed, their worst since the disastrous 2009 under Jeff Kenna.
Defensively, it has been their second-worst of the summer era of following on from their worst year the season previous. The moves that Kenny makes in the coming weeks will show the beliefs he has on which is the right road back to success for the Saints.
A terrific welcome for our new manager Liam Buckley last night #bitored pic.twitter.com/Qub18o2hpW
— Sligo Rovers (@sligorovers) October 27, 2018
Liam Buckley moves from having the oldest squad in the league to the youngest. Sligo Rovers have been giving plenty of game time to its youth. John Mahon (18), Jack Keaney (19) and Edward McGinty (19) have all been regular starters recently.
They follow in the footsteps of Gary Boylan and Regan Donelon who have become established starters after emerging from the club’s youth system - they are both 22. As well, Liam Kerrigan, Niall Morahan and Darren Collins have also made appearances towards the season end and are all 18 years-old.
The Bit O’Red starting line-ups average an age of 23.60 in 2018– the next youngest to that is 24.52 of Bray Wanderers. It is a trend over the last few years as they had the third-youngest in 2017 and the second-youngest the year before. The loss of success and European money forcing Sligo Rovers to use more youth.
The Sligo Rovers squad that had won the league the year prior to St. Pat’s in 2012 had 10 players aged from 24-28.
The departure of key members such as Alan Keane, Gavin Peers, Iarfhlaith Davoren, Ross Gaynor, Danny Ventre, Seamus Conneely, Rommy Boco and Danny North has happened gradually over the years since.
That is down to six for the season just finished which includes Lee Lynch and Mikey Drennan who were added mid-season.
The proliferation of new managers looking to put their own stamp on the squad had left it devoid of any consistent identity in recent years.
Those younger players are already under contract for 2019 joining David Cawley, Mitchell Beeney, Patrick McClean and Kris Twardek in being committed.
That quartet has an average age of 22.75 with only Cawley over the age of 22. This leaves Buckley with less scope than most off-season managerial appointments in moulding their squad to the shape they would like.
At Sligo Rovers, Cawley at 27 is the third-oldest player in the squad behind Raff Cretaro and Seamus Sharkey. At Pat's, he would be the 12th oldest.
After watching Mahon score, Morahan's full debut and Kerrigan make a third consecutive start in a team with an average age of 21.88, which was the third youngest fielded by any team in the league this year, beat Shamrock Rovers on the season’s final night, Buckley said: "We will try and bring one or two of the younger players through. You can see how well they did this evening and I’m sure they’ll make some sort of impact next year."
Top priority for Buckley will be adding goals to his new team, especially in home games. They finished with just 14 home goals, three fewer than bottom-club Bray Wanderers and only above Limerick.
Only one team in the last 12 years have averaged fewer goals per game and avoided relegation, Bohemians in 2013.
Mikey Drennan was the main reason that wasn’t even worse with a late flourish of scoring in each of the last four. Before that they had failed to score in eight of the previous 10 Showgrounds games.
Since 2013, Sligo Rovers have had only two players reach more than eight goals in a season – Dinny Corcoran (12) in 2015 and Raff Cretaro (10) in 2016.
In those years Buckley’s Saints had a player reach that many 10 times. Buckley has already spoke of the importance having Drennan in his side for next year.
Only Patrick Hoban (7) has scored more than Drennan’s six in the last three months of the season.
Watch: There was another goal for @mikeydrennan, while @KWard102 equalised as @sligorovers and @bfcdublin drew 1-1 last night in The Showgrounds in the @SSEAirtricityLg. #SoccerRepublic pic.twitter.com/lbEEOgUvPY
— Soccer Republic (@SoccRepublic) October 23, 2018
Although the later seasons of Buckley’s era with St. Pat’s had his teams become less of a scoring force from his time at Sporting Fingal, his teams finished second, third, third and second in home scoring between 2010 and 2014.
In those years Sligo Rovers averaged 35 home goals per season but in the four since that has dropped to 19.
With his style of attacking, passing football, it will be hoped can create a high volume of opportunities.
Buckley will enter the transfer market too over the coming weeks. It will be interesting to see, budget-providing, how much experience he decides to add to the youth that he has inherited.
We have previously looked at how Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians have brought more youth into their squads.
It has given them hope that they may be able to start bridging that gap in the coming years.
Pat’s and Sligo can continue that in a league that is increasingly focusing on players with potential over established track records.
