Stephen Kenny is not concerned about media reports calling his position into question ahead of Tuesday's World Cup qualifier against Serbia.
Reports that the manager would be relieved of his duties should his side lose to Serbia did not appear to bother Kenny in the pre-match press conference as he acknowledged that such suggestions come with the territory of international management.
And Kenny also dismissed the notion that players’ confidence would be affected by the string of poor results, with Ireland only winning one game in 15 since the manager took charge of the national side.
"That is irrelevant to me," said Kenny, regarding the media reports. "It’s part of international management, it comes with the territory. It is not something that I am concerned about.
"I don’t accept that at all," added the manager, when asked about the players’ confidence going into the final game of this week’s triple-header.
"The confidence of the players, they displayed the confidence.
"If you take the four matches that people are talking about in the campaign. In the games against Serbia and Portugal away, they are probably two of our best performances away from home in the last decade, without question.
"We lost 3-2 and 2-1. Against Luxembourg, we didn’t play well, it was a poor performance, but we still didn’t deserve to lose the game based on chances. The other night, we dominated, and we should have won well."
Kenny admitted that he was always building towards Euro 2024 as he felt that he had to rebuild a side since the "spine was ripped out of the team", however, his current contract only runs until the summer of 2022.
The manager said that he was not given any assurances that he would have his contract extended for the following Euros campaign, however, he praised the FAI for the support he has received in the job thus far.
"With Serbia and Portugal in the group, and the spine being ripped out of the team, and we haven’t qualified for the World Cup since 2002, did anyone think that we were favourites to qualify or that we should qualify?
"We certainly have a plan in place. I made the decision - right or wrong - that we would build this squad to be a really, really competitive team to qualify for Germany 2024.
"Well I’ve been given no assurances in that regard. I’ve taken the decisions I’ve taken regardless of the impact on myself here. I’ve not been given any assurances; I’ve just been given full support by the FAI behind the scenes. They’ve been brilliant."
Follow the Republic of Ireland v Serbia via our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player or listen to radio commentary on RTÉ 2fm's Game On.
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