Stephen Kenny believes he still has the FAI’s full backing despite a horror show against minnows Luxembourg.
“That’s not even in question and I’m not concerned about that at the moment,” he said after the shock 1-0 defeat killed World Cup hopes just two games into the campaign.
But Kenny held his hands up after Gerson Rodrigues smashed a late winner and said: “I take responsibility for the whole thing, it’s not good enough.”
Asked if his philosophy is asking too much of players, he added: “I don’t think so but you have to back it up with performances. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”
Skipper Seamus Coleman went a step further and said “It's a shocking result, an embarrassing result.”
But the Everton man refused to pin the blame on Kenny and said: “That's on us as players, we should be embarrassed.”
Kenny has yet to win in 10 attempts but won’t throw in the towel on the World Cup mission, even though Ireland face mission impossible.
They now have little to play for in the six remaining qualifiers.
Kenny said: “It’s very early to say that but it’s a terrible result and you can’t get away from that. It’s really, really disappointing and not good enough.
“To go from the Serbia performance to losing to Luxembourg is completely unacceptable and we’re very disappointed.
“Anything I say sounds like I’m making excuses. It’s just not good enough.
“A lot of players are not playing for their clubs and some are struggling for it. We made subs and Matt Doherty was injured at half-time and had to come off.
“But it’s just not acceptable to lose at home like that
“I take responsibility for changing the system. It worked well in Serbia. The players are a lot better than they showed in this match tonight.
“It was chalk and cheese compared to Serbia. Just very disappointing and we have to accept the criticism that will come our way.”
Kenny continued: “When we got chances in the game, we lacked composure in front of goal but we should have created more than we did.
“It’s a bad night, a very bad night, and we have to dust ourselves down and go again. We’re all gutted.”
