Stephen Kenny said that he fully expects to be in charge of the Republic of Ireland until the end of the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
The manager's future has again been called into question following two defeats to begin the group in the quest to qualify for next year's tournament in Germany.
And while the opening loss did little to question Kenny’s capability as manager of the national side, as the team performed well against the World Cup finalists, coming out the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline, the disappointing defeat in Athens on Friday night, where his side, despite an intense and extended period of preparation, failed to really perform against the lower-ranked side.
"My contract is up until the end of the campaign and whether it's renewed will depend on how people feel the campaign went overall, but certainly I fully expect to be."
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) June 18, 2023
Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny feels he will remain in charge for all of Euro 2024 qualifying. pic.twitter.com/bEakZrqPwx
The campaign remains in its infancy with only two of the eight games played, and while Ireland can get points on the board against Gibraltar on Monday night, they face a very tough run of games from September onwards where they meet France and Netherlands within a few days of each other.
"Yes, I definitely do," said Kenny, when asked at the pre-match press conference whether he expects to remain as manager for the remainder of the campaign.
"My contract is up 'til the end of the campaign, and whether it’s renewed will depend on how people feel the campaign went overall, but certainly I fully expect to be.
"We want a positive result tomorrow and that’s firmly what I’m focused on."
The manager took full responsibility after Friday night’s game for the defeat to Greece, and feels that the accompanying criticism is irrelevant to how he goes about doing his job.
Kenny added that he did accept that some of the criticism is justified but also believes that some of it is unfair.
"It’s irrelevant, to be honest it’s irrelevant," said Kenny. "I just really focus on developing the team and preparing the team for tomorrow.
"There is a lot of criticism, some of it justified, and I have to accept that. Likewise, some of it inaccurate, that’s the nature of it.
"From my point of view, I’m not fixated with it. I’m just firmly focused on what we have to do and just focused on the task at hand, which is managing this group of players."
Looking ahead to the remainder of the campaign, Kenny stated that his side still have a realistic chance of qualifying from the group as he expects there to be a real battle between the Netherlands, Greece and Ireland for that final place behind expected group winners France.
"Yes," said the manager, when asked if Ireland can realistically finish in the top two. "It would have been a lot easier if we had won on Friday, we made life difficult for ourselves and we are just going to have to get some exceptional results between now and the end of the season.
"France, I think will win the group, that's pretty clear, Greece have to play Holland twice, we have to play Holland twice, play Greece in Dublin, so there's still a lot of football to be played. I said at the time of the draw there are four teams that are capable of qualifying.
"They all got to play each other. We got to take the set-back on the chin and bounce back, get a victory tomorrow and take it from there."
And the manager backed his players to get the campaign back on track, starting with a home victory against Gibraltar on Monday night.
"We’re not perfect but I really believe in the players, we've got a really talented group coming through.
"If we had won the other night against Greece everything would have been on track, we'd have been going into the Gibraltar game with everything great.
"Now because we didn't, it's a catastrophe, and I do get that, but we've got to focus on tomorrow and Gibraltar, make sure we are ready, I know the games were tight previously so we have to just get ourselves ready and make sure we get a home victory."
Watch Republic of Ireland v Gibraltar in the Euro 2024 qualifier on Monday night from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live radio commentary with Game On on 2fm
