Republic of Ireland midfielder Jason Knight has given his full support to beleaguered manager Stephen Kenny after the loss to Luxembourg.
Kenny enters the friendly international against World Cup hosts Qatar in Hungary with no wins from his first ten games in charge.
The opening World Cup qualification defeats to Serbia and Luxembourg mean that that the closest Ireland are likely to get to Qatar is by playing them, rather than rocking up at the tournament next year.
The poor run has drawn criticism from ex-players such as Richard Dunne, Paul McGrath, Phil Babb, and Tony Cascarino, who Kenny addressed yesterday.
20-year-old Jason Knight is one of the players Kenny will be placing his trust in as the manager attempts to realise a vision for Ireland's future.
And Knight has full faith in Kenny's methods.
"I think we can all see as players that he's trying to implement an attractive style of play for the senior international team, and that's going to take time like anything does.
"We're really behind the manager at the moment and it's looking good so far - obviously not the results, but we can see that we're going in the right place."
Knight says that Kenny has the force of personality required to drive the players on.
"You can definitely see in the group he's a really driven person and he wants to do his best for our country. All the boys are really behind him.
"I have been with him since the Under-21's and I have seen that first hand. It's been a really good learning curve for myself under him so far."
Derby County skipper Knight added that the debrief after the 1-0 defeat to Luxembourg was frank.
"Initially after the game, it was just a little bit of frustration, not just from the manager and the staff, but from us as players and we need to take responsibility for that as well.
"Ultimately we're out there performing and taking on the instructions of the manager and we need to do that better as a collective."
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