Georgia vs Ireland - Group D Euro Qualifier - 07/09/2014 - 17:00

TaosHum

ROCKMAN wrote: »

I'll run for cover after this ...

A lot of people are getting caught up in the panel /media v O'Neill debate and not addressing the elephant in the room and that]is the standard of the Irish team at the moment. We are IMO no way near the level needed to get out of this group and yesterday's performance reflected this,

I fail to see how Scotland have a better pick of player than Ireland currently have.

Backstreet Moyes

ROCKMAN wrote: »

I'll run for cover after this ...

A lot of people are getting caught up in the panel /media v O'Neill debate and not addressing the elephant in the room and that]is the standard of the Irish team at the moment. We are IMO no way near the level needed to get out of this group and yesterday's performance reflected this, Unfortunately I see us struggling to compete against Scotland and Poland for the runners up spot ,

God I hope I'm wrong and that I'm made eat my words in 18 months time.

That bolded part is a load of nonsense. Besides Germany we are at worst on a par with Scotland and Poland. To say we are nowhere near the level to get out of the group is just wrong.

Francie Barrett

It's really very frustrating looking at where this Ireland team is. We effectively have one standout player, we're unfortunate that he plays in an area where he just cannot influence a match. The rest of the defence is a mess. At this stage of his career, Ward never will be a trustworthy option at left back and there is precious little behind him. Central defence is almost as bad. Wilson is not a natural central defender, one can only assume he is there because the other options are worse. O'Shea while decent is aging, and let's be honest, even at his best, he couldn't touch Dunne for ability. Central midfield is totally insipid. We know for a fact Whelan offers very little, but it's not like others in central midfielder have been pulling up trees. The fact some people have Hoolahan has type of saviour shows just how poorly stocked we are. Other than McGeady, we really struggle to have any attacking options who can frighten players with speed. The fact that Keane still starts is damning in its own right. It was clear his legs started to fail 2 years ago and the situation is a lot worse now. We desperately need players who can run at the opposition, beat players and stretch the opposition. Right now the team is just so static and we're far too predictable to defend again. I wish I could say there was an answer, but the sad truth of things looks to be that there isn't one. I watch the odd under 21 game and from what I've seen, the only decent attacking player we might have coming through is Grealish.

ROCKMAN

TaosHum wrote: »

I fail to see how Scotland have a better pick of player than Ireland currently have.

maybe the individuals (debatable) but its the standard been reached by the team as a unit that has me worried , can you honestly see us matching the Scotland's performance yesterday in Germany. Yes they lost but there was a hell of a lot more positives to be taken by them from that game that your own performance.

TaosHum

ROCKMAN wrote: »

maybe the individuals (debatable) but its the standard been reached by the team as a unit that has me worried , can you honestly see us matching the Scotland's performance yesterday in Germany. Yes they lost but there was a hell of a lot more positives to be taken by them from that game that your own performance.

TBF, you stated that the standard of this side is not good enough. Yet we have as good (better IMO) a pick of players than Scotland. People seem to forget Scotland lost their first two competitive games under Strachan and yet they have been able to turn it around and become better and stronger as a unit.

Martin O'Neill has won his first competitive game with Ireland and yet we are not good enough to qualify?

I'm not defending the performance yesterday nor team selection/tactics, but with that being his first meaningful game in charge I'm hoping he learns from it and the team can progress. Will need to if we want to qualify but I'm not going to condemn our campaign as a failure after one game.

Pro. F

Arghus wrote: »

John's response to Darraghs question if he wasn't pleased with the performance- “oh yeah”.


Eamonn saying it was a mess of a performance- “Very, very poor indeed”.


Brady thought you couldn't pick a single player who had a good performance. Even McGeady.

All of those statements are fair. You are fooling yourself if you think the team performance was anything other than awful, and even with the goals it's fair to say McGeady did not play particularly well.

noodler

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

From what I can gather some people seem disappointed at some of the seeming continuity between a Trapp competitive selection and yesterday - I.e. Whelan, Ward and Keane starting ; Hoolohan not selected. There also seems to be surprise and disdain that we had to labour to victory and struggled to push the tempo throughout the second half.

Now maybe I'm crazy or maybe I'm a hopeless Trapp apologist but if we're seeing consistencies then maybe:

- these are the players we have and different coaching set ups see eye to eye on rating Whelan and Keane higher than you do and Hoolohan lower;
- our players are limited and under pressure and, particularly in the absence of any world class stars, they struggle to escape those limitations irrespective of who the coach is and whether he speaks English or not;

Just a thought. It might also be worth noting that things take time. It was O'Neill and Keane's first competitive game. Maybe things will change as more games come along.

I thought it was a great result, and that should be the big takeaway. I'm going to struggle to see the doom and gloom when a bunch of Irish lads found a last minute winner to take 3 points from a hostile atmosphere. You'll have to excuse me on that point.

Trap is not really relevant to this discussion as the issue was more about a lack of urgency.

The team was settling for a point before McGeady's intervention - that is the real issue.

The atmosphere wasn't very hostile at all according to all sources anyway.

roanoke

roanoke wrote: »

Did McGeady just say "**** you" at (a whinging) Keane? :pac:

Deleted User wrote: »

No, I don't think so. Just frustration at the miss, I thought

Yes, you could be right. I thought maybe McGeady said something to himself under his breath in response to Keane after Keane had said something to him.

If anyone's interested the McGeady effort and reaction is at 1:55:20
http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10321460/

Pro. F

kevinroche3333 wrote: »

And if anyone who thinks Glenn Whelan is useless i challenge them to watch full replay of the match and focus soley on Whelan for the 90minutes. I think they will see a guy who offered himself 110% for the match, did his best to control the pace and keep possession and was well worth a place on the winning team on the night.
But no he is crap and a guy who couldnt get a game for Norwich last year should have been playing because he is good playmaker etc when the midfield role is about so much more as his managers have shown with their selections.

Offering 110%, trying his best and other such barrel scraping, attitude based praise doesn't cut it. We were awful in midfield against poor opposition, the team struggled to string a few passes together all night and Whelan showed limited ability on the ball just like usual.

Contrast that to the games where McCarthy, Meyler and the like were in deep central positions, Hoolahan was in the team and we had wingers on both wings and it's night and day. In those games we passed the ball and controlled the possession quite well.

That's all forgotten now though and the collective delusion that Ireland don't have the players to out pass the likes of Georgia is back in strength.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

From what I can gather some people seem disappointed at some of the seeming continuity between a Trapp competitive selection and yesterday - I.e. Whelan, Ward and Keane starting ; Hoolohan not selected. There also seems to be surprise and disdain that we had to labour to victory and struggled to push the tempo throughout the second half.

Now maybe I'm crazy or maybe I'm a hopeless Trapp apologist but if we're seeing consistencies then maybe:

- these are the players we have and different coaching set ups see eye to eye on rating Whelan and Keane higher than you do and Hoolohan lower;
- our players are limited and under pressure and, particularly in the absence of any world class stars, they struggle to escape those limitations irrespective of who the coach is and whether he speaks English or not;

Just a thought. It might also be worth noting that things take time. It was O'Neill and Keane's first competitive game. Maybe things will change as more games come along.

I thought it was a great result, and that should be the big takeaway. I'm going to struggle to see the doom and gloom when a bunch of Irish lads found a last minute winner to take 3 points from a hostile atmosphere. You'll have to excuse me on that point.

The two managers are both cut from the same cloth, that's where the consistency comes from. You were saying it yourself when O'Neill was appointed.

8-10

Nuts102 wrote: »

That bolded part is a load of nonsense. Besides Germany we are at worst on a par with Scotland and Poland.

World Rankings say differently

Banjaxed82

Francie Barrett wrote: »

It's really very frustrating looking at where this Ireland team is. We effectively have one standout player, we're unfortunate that he plays in an area where he just cannot influence a match. The rest of the defence is a mess. At this stage of his career, Ward never will be a trustworthy option at left back and there is precious little behind him. Central defence is almost as bad. Wilson is not a natural central defender, one can only assume he is there because the other options are worse. O'Shea while decent is aging, and let's be honest, even at his best, he couldn't touch Dunne for ability. Central midfield is totally insipid. We know for a fact Whelan offers very little, but it's not like others in central midfielder have been pulling up trees. The fact some people have Hoolahan has type of saviour shows just how poorly stocked we are. Other than McGeady, we really struggle to have any attacking options who can frighten players with speed. The fact that Keane still starts is damning in its own right. It was clear his legs started to fail 2 years ago and the situation is a lot worse now. We desperately need players who can run at the opposition, beat players and stretch the opposition. Right now the team is just so static and we're far too predictable to defend again. I wish I could say there was an answer, but the sad truth of things looks to be that there isn't one. I watch the odd under 21 game and from what I've seen, the only decent attacking player we might have coming through is Grealish.

Who's that?

LuckyLloyd

Pro. F wrote: »

The two managers are both cut from the same cloth, that's where the consistency comes from. You were saying it yourself when O'Neill was appointed.

Well yeah, I'm not even a little surprised at how yesterday played out - it went absolutely as expected...right down to the result.

ThunbergsAreGo

Pro. F wrote: »

Offering 110%, trying his best and other such barrel scraping, attitude based praise doesn't cut it. We were awful in midfield against poor opposition, the team struggled to string a few passes together all night and Whelan showed limited ability on the ball just like usual.

Contrast that to the games where McCarthy, Meyler and the like were in deep central positions, Hoolahan was in the team and we had wingers on both wings and it's night and day. In those games we passed the ball and controlled the possession quite well.

Dont understand the massive difference in peoples attitudes between McCarthy and Whelan, both play almost exactly the same for us an offer us a very similar (so far) level of performance

ctrl-alt-delete

naughtb4 wrote: »

Dont understand the massive difference in peoples attitudes between McCarthy and Whelan, both play almost exactly the same for us an offer us a very similar (so far) level of performance

McCarthy is more comfortable on the ball and a better passer for me, just based on Ireland performances.

What I would like to see would be McCarthy playing the holding role and replace Whelan with someone who likes being on the ball, who will show for it and who has a bit of a creative mind.

I think Walters was a massive problem with why Coleman went missing too, he had no support from him whatsoever.

LuckyLloyd

naughtb4 wrote: »

Dont understand the massive difference in peoples attitudes between McCarthy and Whelan, both play almost exactly the same for us an offer us a very similar (so far) level of performance

McCarthy is super cool though and was hyped as the next big thing while in the SPL while Whelan is just another Cherry Orchard lad who worked his way through the English League system.

People don't like hard work, it's dull. Whelan is an unfashionable rock of a player who'd be sitting up in the stands if he hadn't worked his ****ing balls off to be out on the field. We have retarded fans, that's the truth of it.

Francie Barrett

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Who's that?

Coleman.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

Forde - 6. Did alright. Kicking was poor at times though. Maybe a tad flat footed for the Georgian goal?

Coleman - 7. Thought he looked the most likely to create something apart from McGeady. Dwelled on the ball too much at times though

O'Shea - 6.5. Grand. Solid enough when questions were asked, didn't have an awful lot to do

Wilson 7 - Mostly solid and showed attributes of a modern centre back with his surging runs into midfield. Good passing

Ward - 6 - A bit harsh to blame him for the goal imo. It was a world class piece of skill by the Georgian player

McGeady - 9. Stepped up to the plate and delivered. We all knew he had it in him by it was always just a question of being consistent, by far Ireland's most talented player. A few poor crosses stop it from being a perfect 10

McCarthy - 6. Nice play in the build up to the goal but otherwise underwhelming

Whelan - 6. Meh.

Quinn 6 - Like the 2 above worked hard but mostly contributed just uninspiring sideways passing.

Walters - 5. Can't remember him doing much apart from him being a bit of a bellend trying to get the Georgian player sent off for headbutting

Keane - 5. Wasn't entirely his fault because he was up against two huge bruisers of center backs, but I felt his movement was poor

Subs:
Brady - 5. Got fouled
Long - 4. Overhit a few crosses

ionadnapokot

Whelan is not a good passer of a ball. Truth. Whelan gives his 100%. Truth. Whelan/McCarthy/Hoolahan/Quinn/Gibson cant run a 1 man midfield. Truth.

ionadnapokot

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

McCarthy is super cool though and was hyped as the next big thing while in the SPL while Whelan is just another Cherry Orchard lad who worked his way through the English League system.

People don't like hard work, it's dull. Whelan is an unfashionable rock of a player who'd be sitting up in the stands if he hadn't worked his ****ing balls off to be out on the field. We have retarded fans, that's the truth of it.

Whelan is not a good passer of a ball. Truth. Whelan gives his 100%. Truth. Whelan/McCarthy/Hoolahan/Quinn/Gibson cant run a 1 man midfield. Truth.

Pro. F

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Well yeah, I'm not even a little surprised at how yesterday played out - it went absolutely as expected...right down to the result.

So even though you know Trap and O'Neill share similar approaches (emphasising graft over skill and resulting in turgid football) you'll still try to pass off the fact that they both make similar selections and produce a similar style of football as evidence that our players don't have the skills to play another way. Your argument is dishonest.

Billy86

I think it's a bit comical if some fans and the Three Stooges at RTE expected us to turn into some quality unit out of the blue to be honest. The performance last night was not great but we did at least get the three points in a country where others have faltered recently.

All this talk of our opponents being poor last night, that we should have dominated the match, etc is somewhat delusional. The fact is that we do it, and for several years have not, had much talent ourselves across the squad. Martin O'Neill was a quality manager at Leicester, Celtic (not Leicester Celtic! ) and to an extent Villa, but in some respects he has increasingly looked like the game has passed him by to some extent over the years. Now that doesn't mean we are doomed to failure under him or anything, he has a lot of other good attributes besides tactics/style of play, but we are not going to be playing hugely aesthetically pleasing football under him for my money. Yet some seem to expect to see this, despite the fact that it was never really how he has approached the fame through his entire managerial career.

I think he can get results, and a lot of that goes down to the mindset he will need to put into the players (Trappatoni to be fair was dull as anything imaginable, but did well giving us the mindset to not e beat until he lost the players after Euro 12, now O'Neil needs to take the next step and progress that into a mentality of not being beat and also to win). I do not however expect a lot of fluent play from him as a manager or from the talent at our disposal in our squad, and can't help but think that Dunphy and co are on a pure wind up when they complain about a lack of it.

I will be interested to see how/if we build around Gibson and McCarthy in midfield though, especially with the advantage of them playing together at club level (if of course Gibson comes back the same player).

Pro. F

naughtb4 wrote: »

Dont understand the massive difference in peoples attitudes between McCarthy and Whelan, both play almost exactly the same for us an offer us a very similar (so far) level of performance

McCarthy has more skill on the ball than Whelan. It's true that McCarthy doesn't make enough use of his skills and the end result is not a huge amount different to Whelan in some games - although I would say that he is still more effective and does offer us more. If it was just an issue of Whelan being selected ahead of McCarthy you could make an argument in support of that, but it's a whole lot more than that. It's Whelan deep in possession instead of the more skilful players; it's Hoolahan not on the pitch and a hard working target man on the wing. All of those choices from the manager are obviously going to lead to the team struggling to string a few passes together.

Pighead

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

McCarthy is super cool though and was hyped as the next big thing while in the SPL while Whelan is just another Cherry Orchard lad who worked his way through the English League system.

People don't like hard work, it's dull. Whelan is an unfashionable rock of a player who'd be sitting up in the stands if he hadn't worked his ****ing balls off to be out on the field. We have retarded fans, that's the truth of it.

Or it could be something as simple as McCarthy being simply a better player than Whelan. I think most people would agree with that. McCarthy's last season in the premiership beats anything Whelan has ever done. Don't get me wrong, Whelan is a solid pro who is nowhere near as bad as some people make out but he's simply not as good as McCarthy.

Also who's to say that McCarthy doesn't work just as hard as Whelan?

Pro. F

Billy86 wrote: »

I think it's a bit comical if some fans and the Three Stooges at RTE expected us to turn into some quality unit out of the blue to be honest.

Expecting Ireland to be able to out pass Georgia is not comical. Stop believing the negative propaganda. Ireland is not a wasteland for talent. We do have some skilful players and we are capable of playing much better than we did last night.

LuckyLloyd

Pro. F wrote: »

So even though you know Trap and O'Neill share similar approaches (emphasising graft over skill and resulting in turgid football) you'll still try to pass off the fact that they both make similar selections and produce a similar style of football as evidence that our players don't have the skills to play another way. Your argument is dishonest.

My argument isn't dishonest Pro. F. I know O'Neill and Trapp share some similarities (the difference being that one is up there as one of the greatest managers of all time and the other is spoken about as a 'great' manager when he's never been anything like it). But irrespective of that, two coaching staffs are already demonstrating a remarkable consistency in their rating of the player's abilities.

You'll also be aware that O'Neill attempted to employ a more fluid and expansive style during his friendly games before yesterday and it was an experiment that fared very badly.

We reverted to what I believe is our strengths yesterday and we dug out a result - by far and away the best 90 minutes of the O'Neill reign to date all told too.

I think you and the rest of the vocal anti Trapp brigade will find the next year or so very frustrating. In fairness to yourself, you didn't kid yourself about O'Neill bringing in a veritable revolution on that score.

LuckyLloyd

Pighead wrote: »

Or it could be something as simple as McCarthy being simply a better player than Whelan. I think most people would agree with that. McCarthy's last season in the premiership beats anything Whelan has ever done. Don't get me wrong, Whelan is a solid pro who is nowhere near as bad as some people make out but he's simply not as good as McCarthy.

Also who's to say that McCarthy doesn't work just as hard as Whelan?

Yeah but at some point who McCarthy is as a Premiership footballer has to stop mattering when he is consistently a shadow of that in an Irish jersey.

john why

IRISHSPORTSGUY wrote: »

Forde - 6. Did alright. Kicking was poor at times though. Maybe a tad flat footed for the Georgian goal?

Coleman - 7. Thought he looked the most likely to create something apart from McGeady. Dwelled on the ball too much at times though

O'Shea - 6.5. Grand. Solid enough when questions were asked, didn't have an awful lot to do

Wilson 7 - Mostly solid and showed attributes of a modern full back with his surging runs into midfield. Good passing

Ward - 6 - A bit harsh to blame him for the goal imo. It was a world class piece of skill by the Georgian player

McGeady - 9. Stepped up to the plate and delivered. We all knew he had it in him by it was always just a question of being consistent, by far Ireland's most talented player. A few poor crosses stop it from being a perfect 10

McCarthy - 6. Nice play in the build up to the goal but otherwise underwhelming

Whelan - 6. Meh.

Quinn 6 - Like the 2 above worked hard but mostly contributed just uninspiring sideways passing.

Walters - 5. Can't remember him doing much apart from him being a bit of a bellend trying to get the Georgian player sent off for headbutting

Keane - 5. Wasn't entirely his fault because he was up against two huge bruisers of center backs, but I felt his movement was poor

Subs:
Brady - 5. Got fouled
Long - 4. Overhit a few crosses

Who out of that Scottish team would get into our first 11, Mulgrew marshall and maybe naismith.

Shanotheslayer

john why wrote: »

Who out of that Scottish team would get into our first 11, Mulgrew marshall and maybe naismith.

Definetly Naismith.

Billy86

Pro. F wrote: »

Expecting Ireland to be able to out pass Georgia is not comical. Stop believing the negative propaganda. Ireland is not a wasteland for talent. We do have some skilful players and we are capable of playing much better than we did last night.

I never said we are a wasteland for talent?

I said we are not as good as some seem to think we are, at times we can be just as bad at overeating our own players as we often laugh at the English over. And as has been mentioned, the Georgians are not some awful team or anything, with players across Russia, Holland, Italy and Portugal on their books. In home
2014 qualification, Spain struggled against them and only won thanks to an 86th minute goal from Soldado, France beat them thanks only to a penalty, and France couldn't beat them at all.

We have the talent to beat a team like that in an away game, but we don't have the talent to be expecting to dominate throughout and walking away with it.

In terms of style of play anyone with sense knew what we were getting with MON (I think you alluded to this in a previous post), and in truth that is what I have been particularly amused with in recent months, with rising expectations of us playing like a Swansea, Southampton, etc (smaller team getting results with very attractive football).

Pro. F

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

My argument isn't dishonest Pro. F. I know O'Neill and Trapp share some similarities (the difference being that one is up there as one of the greatest managers of all time and the other is spoken about as a 'great' manager when he's never been anything like it). But irrespective of that, two coaching staffs are already demonstrating a remarkable consistency in their rating of the player's abilities.

Two different coaching staffs who have a very similar approach to football (graft over skill), making similar selections and decisions resulting in similar performances proves extremely little in relation to what the team are capable of.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

You'll also be aware that O'Neill attempted to employ a more fluid and expansive style during his friendly games before yesterday and it was an experiment that fared very badly.

We reverted to what I believe is our strengths yesterday and we dug out a result - by far and away the best 90 minutes of the O'Neill reign to date all told too.

You are comparing two samples of widely different size and quality.

Billy86

john why wrote: »

Who out of that Scottish team would get into our first 11, Mulgrew marshall and maybe naismith.

Maloney, Morrison, MacArthur, Scott Brown, McCormack, Steven and Darren Fletcher and Jordan Rhodes would all at least be in strong contention. I don't think there would be many "shoe ins" from either side to be honest.

Joshua J

I get the impression people have the wrong idea about McCarthys role. I'm an Everton fan and watch all the games and he's not a ball-playing centre mid. He's a destroyer of worlds. Breaking up play, getting into covering positions and hitting every blade of grass. He's not an advanced midfielder and he cant really play the role Whelan played yesterday cause he's not very comfortable in possession. They're not his strengths.

I think that since it was an away game MON wanted to keep it tight play 3 natural CM's but I think at home he'll play McCarthy and A.N.OTHER with Wes behind the front man.

Pro. F

Billy86 wrote: »

I never said we are a wasteland for talent?

I didn't say you said it. You are talking like you are convinced by Trap and O'Neill's approach, which seems to be founded on that assumption and which people defend by making those types of claims all the time.

Billy86 wrote: »

I said we are not as good as some seem to think we are, at times we can be just as bad at overeating our own players as we often laugh at the English over. And as has been mentioned, the Georgians are not some awful team or anything, with players across Russia, Holland, Italy and Portugal on their books. In home
2014 qualification, Spain struggled against them and only won thanks to an 86th minute goal from Soldado, France beat them thanks only to a penalty, and France couldn't beat them at all.

We have the talent to beat a team like that in an away game, but we don't have the talent to be expecting to dominate throughout and walking away with it.

In terms of style of play anyone with sense knew what we were getting with MON (I think you alluded to this in a previous post), and in truth that is what I have been particularly amused with in recent months, with rising expectations of us playing like a Swansea, Southampton, etc (smaller team getting results with very attractive football).

I saw the Georgian team playing last night. To describe them as anything other than a very poor team is inaccurate. Looking through where their players play, I see nothing to be fearful of either. So we should have nothing to particularly fear from them, and yet we set up extremely negatively, were rubbish in possession and were extremely lucky to get a win.

I did not expect that we should dominate throughout and walk away with it. Just that we should actually play well, try to pass the ball about a bit and not be so frightened of the opposition that we start picking grafters over our better players.

Billy86

Pro. F wrote: »

I saw the Georgian team playing last night. To describe them as anything other than a very poor team is inaccurate. We should have nothing to particularly fear from them, but we set up extremely negatively, were rubbish in possession and were extremely lucky to get a win.

I did not expect that we should dominate throughout and walk away with it. Just that we should actually play well, try to pass the ball about a bit and not be so frightened of the opposition that we start picking grafters over our better players.

You see that's the thing though, I am sure if a neutral unfamiliar isn't any players on the pitch last night watched they would assess that there were two pretty poor teams lacking in talent and quality out there, with neither having a lot of scope to improve on that in terms of the talent at their disposal.

For all we know, georgianboards.comski currently has an argument going on about how Ireland are just not a very good team, and how they should have played better themselves because they have the talent at their disposal to beat us.

The truth is neither team is exactly flush with talent. We have more yeah, but not a great deal more and they have a made far more talented teams than our struggle and look poor in their home games in recent times.

I mean in general I agree with some of your points, but from the minute we announced MON as manager that was always going to be the case, and will be for as long as he is here.

Banjaxed82

Billy86 wrote: »

You see that's the thing though, I am sure if a neutral unfamiliar isn't any players on the pitch last night watched they would assess that there were two pretty poor teams lacking in talent and quality out there, with neither having a lot of scope to improve on that in terms of the talent at their disposal.

For all we know, georgianboards.comski currently has an argument going on about how Ireland are just not a very good team, and how they should have played better themselves because they have the talent at their disposal to beat us.

The truth is neither team is exactly flush with talent. We have more yeah, but not a great deal more and they have a made far more talented teams than our struggle and look poor in their home games in recent times.

I mean in general I agree with some of your points, but from the minute we announced MON as manager that was always going to be the case, and will be for as long as he is here.

Pighead

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Yeah but at some point who McCarthy is as a Premiership footballer has to stop mattering when he is consistently a shadow of that in an Irish jersey.

Agreed. His performances for Ireland thus far have been underwhelming. However, he's too good not to establish himself as Ireland's best midfielder for this qualifying campaign. In fairness to him he only really became a regular for us last year and was man of the match in two of our group games. But yeah he needs to grab this qualifying campaign by the scruff of the neck and establish himself as the main man.

Billy86

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

That both teams would not exactly be a threat to any of the bigger nations, and that the problem is far more to do with a lack of top end talent than how that talent is being utilised.

EDIT: there was also a typo, meant to say "a neutral unfamiliar with any of the players".

Pro. F

Billy86 wrote: »

You see that's the thing though, I am sure if a neutral unfamiliar isn't any players on the pitch last night watched they would assess that there were two pretty poor teams lacking in talent and quality out there, with neither having a lot of scope to improve on that in terms of the talent at their disposal.

For all we know, georgianboards.comski currently has an argument going on about how Ireland are just not a very good team, and how they should have played better themselves because they have the talent at their disposal to beat us.

The truth is neither team is exactly flush with talent. We have more yeah, but not a great deal more and they have a made far more talented teams than our struggle and look poor in their home games in recent times.

I mean in general I agree with some of your points, but from the minute we announced MON as manager that was always going to be the case, and will be for as long as he is here.

Did you watch the games where Georgia got these good home results?

Maybe Georgia can play better, maybe they have the players to do so, but they aren't selecting them for some reason. Or maybe they can't and don't, and parking-the-bus lucky results is the best they can hope for against bigger teams. I don't particularly care. What I do know is that the team who played last night were far from anything special.

Any neutral who watches a game can't assess what talent is available to the team unless they are familiar with them. Based on one game, all they can assess is the talent that is put on the pitch by the manager. I don't give a fiddler's fúck what some neutral might mistakenly assume about the talent available to Ireland based off O'Neill's cowardly selection. I know more about the Irish players than a neutral would and from that knowledge it is obvious that we have better options than were used last night and can play much better than we did.

Banjaxed82

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Pro. F wrote: »

Did you watch the games where Georgia got these good home results?

Maybe Georgia can play better, maybe they have the players to do so, but they aren't selecting them for some reason. Or maybe they can't and don't, and parking-the-bus lucky results is the best they can hope for against bigger teams. I don't particularly care. What I do know is that the team who played last night were far from anything special.

Any neutral who watches a game can't assess what talent is available to the team unless they are familiar with them. Based on one game, all they can assess is the talent that is put on the pitch by the manager. I don't give a fiddler's fúck what some neutral might mistakenly assume about the talent available to Ireland based off O'Neill's cowardly selection. I know more about the Irish players than a neutral would and from that knowledge it is obvious that we have better options than were used last night and can play much better than we did.

I must agree. I don't see what relevance a neutral has to with anything??

A neutral last night wouldn't know they were watching a team who just won the world cup a couple of months ago.

I don't see your point, Billy?

Billy86

Pro. F wrote: »

Did you watch the games where Georgia got these good home results?

No but the results and match reports speak for themselves.

Maybe Georgia can play better, maybe they have the players to do so, but they aren't selecting them for some reason. Or maybe they can't and don't, and parking-the-bus lucky results is the best they can hope for against bigger teams. I don't particularly care. What I do know is that the team who played last night were far from anything special.

And my point was that almost everything you said there is also attributable to the current Irish team.

Any neutral who watches a game can't assess what talent is available to the team unless they are familiar with them. Based on one game, all they can assess is the talent that is put on the pitch by the manager. I don't give a fiddler's fúck what some neutral might mistakenly assume about the talent available to Ireland based off O'Neill's cowardly selection. I know more about the Irish players than a neutral would and from that knowledge it is obvious that we have better options than were used last night and can play much better than we did.

As I have said time and again, there were other options MON could have gone for, but anyone remotely familiar with him would have expected Ted what we saw last night from start to finish. Not sure why some people are so surprised and upset over this when it was coming a mile off.

I am however curious what team you would have picked that would have done so much better?

Banjaxed82

Billy86 wrote: »

No but the results and match reports speak for themselves.

And my point was that almost everything you said there is also attributable to the current Irish team.

As I have said time and again, there were other options MON could have gone for, but anyone remotely familiar with him would have expected Ted what we saw last night from start to finish. Not sure why some people are so surprised and upset over this when it was coming a mile off.

I am however curious what team you would have picked that would have done so much better?

Hoolahan plays 8 out of 10 friendlies, then gets dropped when it comes to the crunch. You should check the team sheets & the style/approach the team has made in the last 10 months. Coming a mile off it definitely wasn't.

Billy86

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Hoolahan plays 8 out of 10 friendlies, then gets dropped when it comes to the crunch. You should check the team sheets & the style/approach the team has made in the last 10 months. Coming a mile off it definitely wasn't.

Yes, yes it was. This has always been MONs approach to competitive games. His tactics and style of play have been very consistent through his career, have served him quite well in that time, and were not going to change with his approaching his mid 60s.

LuckyLloyd

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Hoolahan plays 8 out of 10 friendlies, then gets dropped when it comes to the crunch. You should check the team sheets & the style/approach the team has made in the last 10 months. Coming a mile off it definitely wasn't.

Our friendly results have been abysmal though? It would have been careless to continue with same?

keeponhurling

john why wrote: »

Who out of that Scottish team would get into our first 11, Mulgrew marshall and maybe naismith.

I would have thought that the only ony players who would make the Scottish team would be Coleman and McGeady.
Maybe McCarthy (though not on international form), and at a stretch O'Shea.

Marshall ahead of Forde or Given
Whittaker over Ward
Anya / Naismith over Keane/Long
Fletcher, Brown, Mulgrew over Whelan, Gibson, Hendrick or other

Shaun Maloney is only a sub, he'd be starting for Ireland

Idbatterim

World Rankings say differently

we were second seeds, scotland 4th. Ireland consistently make play offs or qualify, where have scotland been since, Euro 96 was it?

Utopia Parkway

keeponhurling wrote: »

Shaun Maloney is only a sub, he'd be starting for Ireland

Would he?

Hoolahan and Long didn't start last night. Not sure why Shaun Maloney would?

Fletcher, Brown, Mulgrew over Whelan, Gibson, Hendrick or other

You left out McCarthy but overall there is much of a muchness between those choices.

8-10

Idbatterim wrote: »

we were second seeds, scotland 4th. Ireland consistently make play offs or qualify, where have scotland been since, Euro 96 was it?

As it stands currently I'd have Scotland as the better side. Sure we'll see soon enough anyway!

Twas Not

8-10 wrote: »

As it stands currently I'd have Scotland as the better side. Sure we'll see soon enough anyway!

Ireland have the better team but are managed by neantherdal donkeys.

Billy86

Twas Not wrote: »

Ireland have the better team but are managed by neantherdal donkeys.

We're not as good as we think we are, sadly.

billymitchell

Billy86 wrote: »

We're not as good as we think we are, sadly.

Do people genuinely think we are good? I'd say average at best, occasionally punching above our weight. We are lucky our group has a few other teams in the same boat.