Is Kevin Doyle now Irelands star striker?

darkman2

All the comments about Robbie Keane in recent months appear to be true IMO. Robbie Keane has a habbit of scoring when its gifted to him on a plate and I find him to be a lazy player in general who trys to do skill we all know he does not have. However this kid seems to be the complete opposite. If you look at every goal he has scored for Ireland (particularly his headers) he has made something out of nothing like all good strikers do. Im not saying Robbie Keane is useless, I just think he needs a kick up the arse tbh and he needs to know he is not gaurenteed a starting posistion. At this moment I think Doyle is a better player then Robbie Keane and unlike Robbie Keane he actually has potential to be world class.

Who else have we got - Shane Long? - Cant see a real challenge from him, not yet at least. Stokes is too young though he showed in the USA he will probrably be key in the future.

IMO Robbie Keane should be considered second to Doyle from now on as Robbie Keane has not delivered. Another big advantage Doyle has on Keane is his heading capability.....I cant remember the last time Robbie Keane scored a header

Is there anyone else that could even push Keane into 3rd place striker or is that pushing it a bit? Opinions?:)

Seaneh

Yeah Robbie keane hasn't delivered.

He's only our leading all time scorer, scored crucial goals in play offs, wualifiers and in the world cup and all this at the age of 27?

****ing waster!

Bring back david connelly!

darkman2

Seaneh wrote:

Yeah Robbie keane hasn't delivered.

He's only our leading all time scorer, scored crucial goals in play offs, wualifiers and in the world cup and all this at the age of 27?

****ing waster!

Bring back david connelly!

I dont think many will care what he did when he was 23/24/25 - What has he done in the last year?

sofireland

Stan don't have the stones to drop his captain. Even if he deserves it.
Thing is with Robbie Keane, he nearly always hits a roll of form in the last 3 months of the season at club level, he just doesn't seem to bring it to international level.

Mark

I think Doyle should be considered a definite starter ahead of Keane and that Ireland should stick to the 4-5-1 with Robbie as the support striker/attacking midfielder.

darkman2

sofireland wrote:

Stan don't have the stones to drop his captain. Even if he deserves it.
Thing is with Robbie Keane, he nearly always hits a roll of form in the last 3 months of the season at club level, he just doesn't seem to bring it to international level.

All he has done for Ireland this season is show up. He has actually contributed to the teams posistion in the group because of his stupid backheels and pointless attempts at overhead kicks (two right in front of goal I might add) that never have and never will come off. If he kept it simple he would an asset but I actually think he is a liability now. You dont see that with Doyle.

Vokes

He's one of our few player who can could score from a moment of magic.

Not sure why you're so concerned with having a star striker.

Ireland play 2 up front - Doyle and Keane compliment each other well - one leads the line, the other drops deep to pull markers out of position. Just a shame they haven't played together as much cos of injuries.

sofireland

I agree, i think we saw the best out of Robbie when he'd a target man to feed off, a la quinn, berbatov.
They do compliment each other well, when they play together.
Now if we get midfield sorted we should be ok!

darkman2

Mark wrote:

I think Doyle should be considered a definite starter ahead of Keane and that Ireland should stick to the 4-5-1 with Robbie as the support striker/attacking midfielder.

Agree. If we lose any of our remaining matches we are out and I think big decisions have to be made and Doyle being first choice is one of them. Mind you, im not sure about Kilbane now either. I saw him playing in the US tour and he looked slow or something. Like John O'Shea he looked a bit feckless on the ball. In fact I dont think he had one good passage of play through both matches. Then again who else have we got. At least there are options up front.

darkman2

One point in favour of Keane is one ive already mentioned. Doyle is a great header of the ball. However would you want Doyle relegated to being a feeder for Keane?

eirebhoy

I think Doyle is similar to Steve Finnan in that a lot of his work is unappreciated. Despite very few full backs in the world being as good as Finnan defensively he rarely gets the credit he deserves. I don't think Doyle will ever be regarded as a "star". He's one of those players that you don't see anywhere near the best of him from the TV screen. His performance against Slovakia was top class.

Some people still have doubts over Doyle which says it all. He's well proven at premiership level now and there's no chance of him drifting into mediocrity. If Doyle and Keane form a partnership I don't care which one's the star.

shatners basoon

darkman2 wrote:

One point in favour of Keane is one ive already mentioned. Doyle is a great header of the ball. However would you want Doyle relegated to being a feeder for Keane?

How is setting others up for goals = relegated to being a feeder? An assist is a damn good thing to get and its much better for Doyle to have someone to head the ball down to than noone if a hopeful ball is punted up to him.

Both players could easily make a good partnership together and its definately the most sensible option imo. Our squad is just not good enough to drop players who have the talent Keane has.

PHB

Yeh, Keane and Doyle wil be a great pairing imo. If I absolutely had to pick one, I'd always pick Keane, but luckily, I don't have to do that.

jesus_thats_gre

Keane and Doyle up front with pace on both wings with a decent holding central midfielder would make for a nice Irish team.

Thanx 4 The Fish

eirebhoy wrote:

He's well proven at premiership level now and there's no chance of him drifting into mediocrity.

One reasonably good season hardly makes him proven at premiership level. We may also be seeing small club syndrome, where a player looks amazing when at a smaller club but not so good when playing for one surrounded by stars (Maybe Saha as an example but there are plenty of others).

eirebhoy

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

One reasonably good season hardly makes him proven at premiership level. We may also be seeing small club syndrome

I think you can tell safely say that Doyle has made it so to speak. I understand the points you're making but they're all confidence issues more than anything. I just think it's easy enough to tell that Doyle just won't fail. No more than Berbatov will. Shevchenko isn't doing it at Chelsea because he can't handle the pressure. David Healy looks world class for Nortern Ireland because he's playing on a cloud of confidene. All this "second season syndrome" and "small club syndrome" are all mental issues and Doyle definitely doesn't look like someone that will suffer from that.

The same way it's pretty easy to tell Andy Reid won't suffer from much from confidence you can say that Kevin Kilbane will.

I don't know what I'm trying explain this with words for. I'll just trust my instinct.

Bounty Hunter

yes Doyle is great for Ireland but as others have said why have a 1 or the other we play with 2 strikers and Keane and Doyle should compliment each other very well IMHO.

Keane is in great form for spurs but recently has simply not carried this form over to his international games, why? because he tries to do too much with Ireland because as much as we might not like to admit it he does not have as good players around him (at least not usually, as we never seem to have our fully fit starting 11). Maybe now that he has doyle beside him a player he will have confidence in this should stop and a good partnership can form just like he has with Berbatov.

sprinkles

Robbie is a great player but his stly of play can seem like he's lazy sometimes. He needs goo dplayers around him and when he has a good strike partner he'll bang them in (ala Berbatov). I think Doyle is good enough to provide Robbie with the openings he needs and also finish the ones he creates.

The whole "star player" attitude doesn't belong in international football. No-ones place should be guaranteed

GuanYin

Keane is a good player, but he's lazy and he's a showboater. The very best players are the very best because first and foremost, they do the simple things the correct way. One of the simple things is keeping possession and the other is knowing when to release the ball. Keane does neither well for Ireland.

He does do a much better job for Spurs and the reason for that is down to competition. Keane knows that at Spurs he's replacable. The attitude of Keane after he was dropped at Spurs was much different than before.

For that reason alone, I think that the dawn of a strong Irish attack will be good for Keane, so long as Staunton is prepared to drop him. Certainly Doyle is throwing in better performances but Murphy, Stokes and Long all have the potential to be good players for us and if they develop over the next season we may see Keane forced to change his attitude.

KdjaCL

All gone downhill for Doyle since he left pats tbh


Keane is our best striker and the things he tries for ireland work when surrounded by good players, i always go with fans view of players and Spurs voted him their player of the year once or twice so in a good side he plays well put him with a bunch of unattached players and div 1 reserve players and you see how bad he can be.

kdjac

darkman2

KdjaCL wrote:

All gone downhill for Doyle since he left pats tbh


Keane is our best striker and the things he tries for ireland work when surrounded by good players, i always go with fans view of players and Spurs voted him their player of the year once or twice so in a good side he plays well put him with a bunch of unattached players and div 1 reserve players and you see how bad he can be.

kdjac

But Keane is not our most prolific striker atm, Doyle is.

shatners basoon

Doyle has played how many games for Ireland? Plus Keane's goalscoring record this season in the league has been excellent, scored some real crackers too.
they're both very different strikers though so its pointless comparing them.

I'll say it again though that if Keane has a good strong partner beside him (like berbatov or Quinn back in the good ol' days) he'll probably play a hell of a lot better than we've seen him recently. As said before we havent seen enough of the pair together yet so wouldn't it be nice to say they should play together rather than which should be the first on the team sheet- as stated before too- stars don't belong on the international front.

LostinBlanch

Before San Marino, Keane scored his last competitve goal in Japan against Germany. He drifts in and out of games, spends too much time whinging at the ref instead of trying to get in position to score. He's in danger of dissipating his talent.

Doyle hasn't done anything like that, is playing with a great attitude at the moment. I'd certainly have him as number 1 choice ahead of Keane. Might give him a kick up the arse and he'd then bring his club form to international games.

That would be a win win scenario.

Blackjack

shatners basoon wrote:

Doyle has played how many games for Ireland? Plus Keane's goalscoring record this season in the league has been excellent, scored some real crackers too.
they're both very different strikers though so its pointless comparing them.

I'll say it again though that if Keane has a good strong partner beside him (like berbatov or Quinn back in the good ol' days) he'll probably play a hell of a lot better than we've seen him recently. As said before we havent seen enough of the pair together yet so wouldn't it be nice to say they should play together rather than which should be the first on the team sheet- as stated before too- stars don't belong on the international front.

The thing with Keane is he needs good delivery. He's a hard worker which is his biggest problem to an extent. If the midfield/front line does not help him out and deliver to him, he has a tendancy to fall back into midfield to try to bring the ball forward.

This was the problem with him at Spurs in the past while Defoe was quite happy to stand in front of the keeper and wait for the ball to come to him.

Keane and Berbatov have proven to be quite an explosive partnership this year- this is largely because Spurs have a decent midfield and Berby and Keane can deliver to each other. Having seen them (admittedly on the telly) they have an uncanny ability to deliver to each other - Keane probably being the greater deliverer on occasions, but still getting enough feed from Berbatov to score 20+ this season.

Doyle and Keane could quite easily be the same, it remains to be seen if the conditions were right (i.e. Decent midfield) for both of these to threaten for goals enough for Ireland to qualify for any real tournaments during their International careers.

eirebhoy

LostinBlanch wrote:

Before San Marino, Keane scored his last competitve goal in Japan against Germany.

Well first of all he scored against Spain after the Germany match at the world cup too. Since then he has scored against Albania, Georgia, Cyprus, Faroes (x2), Israel and San Marino (x3).

Miroslav Klose has scored 33 international goals. 6 of those were in qualifiers against Albania, Greece, Faroe Islands (x2), San Marino (x2).

Thierry Henry has 39 international goals and the following in qualifiers: Malta (x4), Cyprus (x2), Israel, Ireland, Faroes, Italy.

At the end of the day, even though he rarely scores against the best teams Keane has scored 16 goals in qualifiers and another 3 at a world cup.

Blackjack

eirebhoy wrote:

Well first of all he scored against Spain after the Germany match at the world cup too. Since then he has scored against Albania, Georgia, Cyprus, Faroes (x2), Israel and San Marino (x3).

Yeah, but the last time he scored a competitive goal in JAPAN was against Germany.

Mind you, I'd like to see how many other European Players have scored for their countries in Competitive games in Japan. I suspect the number is quite small.

~Rebel~

Blackjack wrote:

Yeah, but the last time he scored a competitive goal in JAPAN was against Germany.

Mind you, I'd like to see how many other European Players have scored for their countries in Competitive games in Japan. I suspect the number is quite small.

umm no, as has been said, he scored in the game against Spain in Japan, Irelands last game in the tournament..

S.M.B.

darkman2 wrote:

All he has done for Ireland this season is show up. He has actually contributed to the teams posistion in the group because of his stupid backheels and pointless attempts at overhead kicks (two right in front of goal I might add) that never have and never will come off. If he kept it simple he would an asset but I actually think he is a liability now. You dont see that with Doyle.

That perfect pass that left Stephen Ireland 1 on 1 with the keeper in our single goal victory against Wales was just as significant as Ireland's finish. We didn't create enough chances in that game except for the one 'bit of magic' as an other poster mentioned that came from Keane that day.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Blackjack wrote:

Yeah, but the last time he scored a competitive goal in JAPAN was against Germany.

Are you being serious ? It is obvious that the poster thought that the germany game was the last time Keane scored a competitive goal.. And you saying the in Japan bit to try and prove him right was even incorrect as I believe that the Spain game was in Japan... :rolleyes:

Mitch Connor

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Are you being serious ? It is obvious that the poster thought that the germany game was the last time Keane scored a competitive goal.. And you saying the in Japan bit to try and prove him right was even incorrect as I believe that the Spain game was in Japan... :rolleyes:

seriously?

Is it not stinking obvious the poster as havin a laugh?

I think we need to implement some sort of sarcasm or "tongue in cheek" tags for forums.

how bout this? anything writen like this can, and will always, be seen as 'havin a bit of fun' in a banterish sort of way

shane86

The bad thing about Keane/Stan is that no matter what his form he will always start games. Saying that, his form for Spurs this year has been great (partly down to Berbatov mind). Alot of us remember a time 5 plus years ago when watching an Ireland match consisted of simply waiting for Keane to score, it was pretty much a given that he would. I think Doyle still has alot to prove simply because we havent seen enough of what he can do for Ireland (San Marino at home only half counts in my mind, he hasnt had enough competitive matches to judge yet). Keane certainly hasnt been on form in the qualifiers, the commentator normally only has reason to mention his name when he starts throwing a fit at the ref. Unfortunately in internartional football there is a tradition of certain players who can not and will not be dropped. In the world cup its a miracle Ronaldo scored at all given his fitness, and it was a risk that paid off mostly down to chance, as I think most of us wouldnt have played him given his physical condition.

Mitch Connor

i think we will see an up turn in Keanes form for Ireland, now that we actually have someone to play up front with him. He is a player that likes to drop deep, he simply isn't the lead the line striker we have been playing him as. Hopefully, with Doyle up top with him, he'll be freer to play his game.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Tauren wrote:

seriously?

Is it not stinking obvious the poster as havin a laugh?

I think we need to implement some sort of sarcasm or "tongue in cheek" tags for forums.

how bout this? anything writen like this can, and will always, be seen as 'havin a bit of fun' in a banterish sort of way

Ahhh Tauren, nice to see you only pick up on my post despite somebody else making the same point as me only a post or two earlier. (If I had only seen it I could have saved myself the embarassment of being talked down to on the internet :rolleyes:)

Of course tone is something that is very hard to judge on a text based forum but of course you knew that and that is how somebody could make the mistake of not interpereting something that you see as stinking obvious in a different way to you. But you having to ask if I was serious (first word of your post) shows that you too have trouble determining tone on text based forums. Your TIC tags sound like a great idea though, perhaps we could also just talk into the computers and save each response as a wav file. That may help in your quest.

________________________

And back on topic, how is Doyle Irelands most prolific striker ?

skysports as the source.

2006/2007 Season Stats Competition Team Apps G YC RC
Barclays Premiership Tottenham Hotspur 18(8) 11 2 1
Euro 2008 Qualifiers Republic of Ireland 6(0) 3 2 0
UEFA Cup Tottenham Hotspur 8(1) 5 0 0
Carling Cup Tottenham Hotspur 1(2) 1 0 0
FA Cup Tottenham Hotspur 4(1) 5 2 0
Barclays Premiership Tottenham Hotspur 1(0) 1 0 0

Barclays Premiership Reading 28(0) 13 0 0
Euro 2008 Qualifiers Republic of Ireland 3(0) 2 0 0
Carling Cup Reading (1) 0 0 0
FA Cup Reading 1(0) 0 0 0
Int Friendlies Republic of Ireland 1(0) 1 0 0

Not sure why prem is there twice for Keane but 26 goals in 38 starts this season versus 15 goals in 32 starts this season tells it's own story.

marco_polo

It does piss me off the way Robbie Keane is held up as a scapegoat for all of Ireland's shortcommings. Yes he can be infuriating to watch at times, but I don't believe that anyone could question his workrate for Ireland, if anything he goes to deep looking fo the ball in games. The reason he plays so well for Spurs is that he has a good coach, a good strike partner and a pretty good service from midfield. As I recall he scored goals regularly when that was the case with Ireland too.

Unfortunately the standard of play and coaching of the Ireland team and since 2002 has been fairly poor to put it mildly. ( Am I now a Mick McCarthy fan :eek: ). However there are signs that some of that is getting put right, we have some good young midfielders comming through and we know has a decent strike partner along side him. At least let Doyle and Keane play more than about two games together before comming to a judgement on which is the #1.

Zebra3

Doyle is Ireland's number one striker without a doubt.

Bounty Hunter

a lot of people here complain that Robbie will not be dropped / Stan wouldent have the bottle to do so. but right now (so no if he starts playing crap answers) would anybody here drop Keane?

i know i wouldent. its great we have Doyle now, finally we have two decent forwards for a change. If our good midfielders can stay fit and we can give them good supply we should be able to score a good few goals in games for once.

LostinBlanch

Eirebhoy, Rebel,

thanks for correcting my mistake.
Thanx 4 The Fish I had tried to put the Spain game out of my memory (a bit too successfully).

Marco Polo you do have a point about the standard of play and coaching. But one thing about him that does really piss people off (myself included) is his continual moaning to the referee instead of trying to play his game. This doesn't do him any favours with refs.

Maybe I haven't phrased it well, but it's not an either or situation. But Robbie has needed competition for a while now. Doyle will give him that. Like anyone else I'd like to see both of them work well together and score shedloads of goals.

GuanYin

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Not sure why prem is there twice for Keane but 26 goals in 38 starts this season versus 15 goals in 32 starts this season tells it's own story.

You've nicely fudged the stats in your favour by by having goals/starts as opposed to goals/appearance, although Keane may have won that one too.


The correct way to compare would be goals/minutes played.

Blackjack

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Are you being serious ? It is obvious that the poster thought that the germany game was the last time Keane scored a competitive goal.. And you saying the in Japan bit to try and prove him right was even incorrect as I believe that the Spain game was in Japan... :rolleyes:

The game against Spain was in Korea. :rolleyes:

Blackjack

~Rebel~ wrote:

umm no, as has been said, he scored in the game against Spain in Japan, Irelands last game in the tournament..

Ummm, No. As I said, He scored his last competivite goal in JAPAN against Germany. The goal he scored against Spain was scored in Korea.