Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny says that he is not looking past his side's final Euro 2024 qualifying games after pressure continues to grow on him.
Ireland will finish their qualifying Group B campaign with games against Greece and Gibraltar in October and a trip to the Netherlands in November as well a friendly with New Zealand.
A 2-1 defeat to the Dutch on Sunday evening effectively ended Ireland’s chances of automatically qualifying for Euro 2024 and leaves the Boys in Green with just three points from five games, sitting second from bottom in the table.
Kenny’s record in competitive games now stands at just five wins from 26 games and Euro 2024 will be the third consecutive tournament Ireland are absent from if they cannot find a backdoor way in through the Nations League.
While speculation on Kenny’s future continues to grow, the manager insists he is fully focused on Ireland’s upcoming games.
"It’s a privilege to manage your country," he said. "You are not going to turn that down, the opportunity to do that.
"I’m just focusing on October and November and getting ready for those games.
"Obviously ultimately these things are not my decision, so I think just getting ready for the two games in October and the games in November… and we’ll see whether we are in a play-off or not, and we’ll take it from there.
"We are disappointed we have gone out. It’s our intention to qualify, we haven’t qualified, but we have to wait and see if we can get a play-off and take it from there.
"It was an exceptionally tough group, but we’ve got to finish strong against Greece and Gibraltar."
While the results may not have always been there for Kenny’s Ireland, the manager can point to other positives from his time in charge so far, not least the blooding of a new generation of players.
Sinclair Armstrong’s introduction from the bench against the Netherlands saw him become the 20th player to be given their first cap under Kenny and the manager is proud of his record of bringing through some much-needed youth to the senior team.
"[We had] an absolute jilted generation of players," he said. "Alan Browne, he’s the only player in that eight-year period who came through the 21s.
"I’m after putting 20 in two years through the squad, because that was needed," he said. "Obviously we have had quite a few injuries, so that was needed to supplement that."
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