Serbia v Republic of Ireland Match Thread - K.O 19.45 24/03/21 - Mod Note in OP

Fromvert

To win games with such a poor keeper you need to be better every where else. And sadly we aren't better than Serbia man for man. Travers must be terrified of his goal line, on his six yard box when a cross is coming in and the first one was just

Doctor Jimbob

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

We can't play this style. We will always lose to technically superior teams

We need to play to our strengths.

What strengths?

raclle

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

We can't play this style. We will always lose to technically superior teams

We need to play to our strengths.

I thought we played pretty well compared to previous campaigns. It was only an inexperienced player and a piece of brilliance that killed us

statesaver

statesaver wrote: »

Another one of those gallant defeats that Irish people love.

Has the style of posting always been of this quality? I remember match threads being a bit better than this

tom1ie

Jesus there are some negative fookers on this thread tonight!
We score 2 goals away to a team we weren’t given much of a chance against, while missing our no1 keeper and people are calling for kenny’s head 1 game into the campaign.
Mad!

Nunu

George Hamilton’s some gerbil... "Inadvertently, Stephen Kenny gets a performance"

ctrl-alt-delete

polarbearhead wrote: »

What can you say at this stage about Hendrick, Brady and McClean?

Wind them down for me. I might be being harsh but Hendrick offered close to nothing, Brady always had a name for set-piece delivery and that but that is few and far between these days and McClean has about a 5% chance of getting a decent cross in.

How can it be so hard to find lads who can beat the first man at corners or look up and whip a decent ball into a decent area?

Long will do a job off the bench for another while, as he proved tonight.

breezy1985

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

Obviously, the defeat is hard to take - but there are quite a few positives to take from that.

The biggest positive for me has nothing to do with results or performance but I actually like that team and the good young players despite the mistakes.

The Irish team of the last few years was the only one I just couldn't muster the excitement for and I even defended Stans players if not the manager himself

edgecutter

athlone99 wrote: »

My god the amount of people posting here who havent a notion about football is staggering. Great to have knowledgeable fans..����

The amount of fans that arrived in here thinking we had a chance to qualify just blows my mind. It's like they never looked at our squad and see how poor the options are.

TheCitizen

polarbearhead wrote: »

Ah stop!!!

Nah, you stop. Give it a rest.

TheRiverman

Oat23 wrote: »

We need to develop better players capable of playing a modern style of football.

Like some of us have been saying here for a decade.

Just give it time.

We need to develop players who can kick a football properly.

PhilipsR

ACitizenErased wrote: »

That second goal could prove vital come the Serbia game in Dublin

Yep, coming on to say just this. If the group results go the way of the seeding, a 1-0/2-1 win in Dublin would put us ahead of the Serbs.

LuckyLloyd

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Never underestimate the ability of an Irish team to pull together as a group and make a go of a tough assignment. We have a great bunch of players who always give us their best effort.

I think we will hang around this game and make a fist of it. Come on Ireland!

Apart from a sloppy 15 min period that cost us the game, that was a very competitive performance. They were brilliant for long stretches.

FixdePitchmark

Great performance - just no goalkeeper.

All 3 goals were poor - got near nothing , never made a save.

Even with 40 seconds to go he was in the other box - and nearly could have been lobbed again.

2 goals after a previous 450 minutes with zero goals is a positive I suppose

PabloAndRoy

noodler wrote: »

Mitrovic is a 15 goal a season striker most seasons tbf.

Granted he's having a quiet one this year but not sure about some of the faux shock on here.

Not so much shock, more a bit of "of course he bagged two tonight"

fullstop

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Surely Kenny will go now?

What a load of nonsense. Don’t know if you’re on the windup looking for this reaction (I suspect so) but who the hell sacks a manager or resigns one match into a qualifying campaign after a 3-2 loss away to higher seeds? Have a word with yourself.

Bleating Lamb

Brian Kerr giving Kennys tactics a hammering on TV now....bit harsh on his part.

MrMusician18

tom1ie wrote: »

Jesus there are some negative fookers on this thread tonight!
We score 2 goals away to a team we weren’t given much of a chance against, while missing our no1 keeper and people are calling for kenny’s head 1 game into the campaign.
Mad!

Yeah, because the campaign is as good as over.

gormdubhgorm

My name is URL wrote: »

'A lot to be positive about'

This be the rhetoric until the next match

It sounds a bit like a bald man thankful he has bits around the back. Players are not there in fairness to Kenny. He can’t be enjoying it. I feel sorry for the fella.

Irish_rat

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

We can't play this style. We will always lose to technically superior teams

We need to play to our strengths.

Losers attitude.

We have only played that style for a few games. It takes time, patience and getting used to the system particularly when changing from offensive to defensive mode.

Nerdlingr

Brady barely hitting the near post with all his corners and McClean just lumping it into the box not even trying to pick someone out....So infuriating.

breezy1985

tom1ie wrote: »

Jesus there are some negative fookers on this thread tonight!
We score 2 goals away to a team we weren’t given much of a chance against, while missing our no1 keeper and people are calling for kenny’s head 1 game into the campaign.
Mad!

The calling for every managers head every week is just a sad side effect of Irish fans reading too many English tabloids

wadacrack

Should have brought on Jack Byrne.

For Forks Sake

polarbearhead wrote: »

What can you say at this stage about Hendrick, Brady and McClean?

..Kenny is under no obligation to include any of them in a squad? Just a thought.

Soups123

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Brian Kerr giving Kennys tactics a hammering on TV now....bit harsh on his part.

It is harsh. Have Randolf in goal tonight and we atleast draw that, tactics where fine

statesaver

God I cannot stand Richie. I'd say he loves himself.

The Big Easy

Yeah, we should give up and concede the remaining fixtures!

Solid home win against Luxembourg and start again, there'll be twists and turns ahead, there always are.

edgecutter

TheCitizen wrote: »

McClean did nothing wrong when he came on, brought a bit of energy to the game. Usual stuff with some on here with certain players targeted.

I'm hardly having a go. He came on and kept trying to cross in poor areas and gave the ball away cheaply. He didn't need to do it, but he kept doing it far too many times.

crushproof

edgecutter wrote: »

The FAI seriously need to get an academy going and asap

Spot on, it's going to be a decade at least before we qualify for another major tournament. The lack of talent coming through is shocking however the football on display tonight shows that we can play against superior sides without having to hoof the ball up at every opportunity.

Get the underage football sorted out and we can have a bunch of kids coming through who can compete at the top level.

castletownman

Ramsdale is probably the worst keeper in the PL currently, yet Travers could never dislodge him at Bournemouth. His footwork is amateurish at best.

Coleman is unfortunately not the same player post-injury, but can't be faulted tonight.

O'Shea is limping back towards the championship with Clarke sleepwalking the same direction.

Doherty has been a disastrous signing for Spurs so far, and can't get a game ahead of the maligned Aurier.

The one metric Brighton have completely flattered to deceive in all year has been scoring, yet they never seem to trust Connolly to stop that rot.

The great white hope up front, Troy Parrott, has scored one professional goal in his career.

The less said about McLean, Long and Hendrick still getting game-time, the better.

So actually, in that context, tonight's display wasn't disastrous. But I have made peace with the fact I will probably never see Ireland qualify for a World Cup again, even with more pathways to qualify for them, and more places to boot, than ever before.

Mr.Nice Guy

Kenny's decision to bring on Hendrick for Molumby resulted in them putting the game to bed. They gifted us a goal late on but that was where things started to go wrong.

Stephen Kenny’s record as Ireland boss:

9 games played; 0 wins, 3 draws, 6 losses.

3 goals scored, 10 goals conceded.

Needs a win against Luxembourg to avoid getting to double figures without a victory. Can't imagine too many Ireland coaches have faced that prospect.

Faugheen

Underground wrote: »

With Randolph in goal I think we walk away with a point tonight.

Has to be Bazunu between the sticks in the next game for me.

Don't know where the idea that Bazunu is any better comes from. He's playing regularly but he's had his fair share of mares as well this season.

Father Hernandez

Ireland were never qualifying from this group IMO.

Portugal will top the group followed by Serbia.

If Kenny can get these lads playing decent ball where we're not relying on hoof ball and Shane Duffy headers, actually being competitive whilst playing decent football, I'll take it.

It won't happen overnight and won't happen over 12 months.

We could've drawn that game had Randolph been in goals, willing to 'write this campaign off' as never felt we had a chance anyway.

Luxembourg on Saturday will strangely be a huge test to see where we are with Kenny, decent performance with a couple goals will be great progress. If we struggle, heat will be on Kenny.

Mantis Toboggan

2 shots on target, that's a positive given how bad we've been under Kenny.

Hammer Luxembourg the weekend and we're capable of a point in Lisbon, plenty of time to get a few players back.

noodler

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

We can't play this style. We will always lose to technically superior teams

We need to play to our strengths.

I don't see how you can attribute the goals conceded to the style of play.

Like, ANY of the three goals.

Kermit.de.frog

It's a shocking record. He should be gone imo.

noodler

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

It's a shocking record. He should be gone imo.

Ohhh now I get you

breezy1985

crushproof wrote: »

Spot on, it's going to be a decade at least before we qualify for another major tournament. The lack of talent coming through is shocking however the football on display tonight shows that we can play against superior sides without having to hoof the ball up at every opportunity.

Get the underage football sorted out and we can have a bunch of kids coming through who can compete at the top level.

There is a big correlation between money spent on development and success in international football and we have none thanks to John and his buddies

noodler

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Kenny's decision to bring on Hendrick for Molumby resulted in them putting the game to bed. They gifted us a goal late on but that was where things started to go wrong.

Stephen Kenny’s record as Ireland boss:



Needs a win against Luxembourg to avoid getting to double figures without a victory. Can't imagine too many Ireland coaches have faced that prospect.

I'll grant you that.

Unless it turns out he was injured, that seemed like an unnecessary decision.

kona

Not a stephen kenny fan but its the first game in ages where i can take positives.
A goalkeeping howler away from a result. 2 goals away from home, brilliant.

mzungu

A good performance by our boys.

Francie Barrett

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Apart from a sloppy 15 min period that cost us the game, that was a very competitive performance. They were brilliant for long stretches.

I think so too.

For decent portions of the game, we were competitive. The difference between us and Serbia was Tadic, a player who was by far the best player on the pitch.

The only criticism I'd have of Kenny is that he probably should have made changes sooner. We looked to be running out of steam as early as the first half.

Irish_rat

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Surely Kenny will go now?

This really needs the ban hammer.

raclle

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

It's a shocking record. He should be gone imo.

So you'd rather go back to the dinosaur crap that hasn't got us near a World Cup in 20 years?

Faugheen

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

It's a shocking record. He should be gone imo.

Who would do better with this crop?

It's all well and good just saying 'sack the manager', but there's this notion that we should be competing with the big boys when fact is we have a squad of bang average players with only Coleman seemingly playing well at a high level.

RonanG86

sheroman01 wrote: »

Never take anything too seriously on these threads - lads blaming Travers for all 3 goals. Jaysus. Shows the level of knowledge of the posters on here.

I said my bit on #1. Not a 'should save' by any means, but he never gave himself a chance to save it by not getting set and ended up falling over (wasn't even really a dive) in the wrong direction.

#2 is obviously his fault and it changed the game.

#3 looked bad at first, but on the replay from behind the goal you can see Mitro places it fairly well and I don't think Travers could've done much about it.

Overall his performance was very shaky, his distribution was poor, he didn't command his area, and the end of the day Serbia scored 3 goals from 4 (I think?) on target. Kelleher or Randolph playing today would've made a big difference imo.

As for Kenny his goalkeeper options were: Travers. We saw what happened. Bazunu who's 18 and as others have said has made some mistakes this season. This is because he's a kid. Could've had the same outcome. O'Hara. Lost his place at League One Burton Albion, I believe? Hardly suggests the reincarnation of Packie Bonner. Hindsight is wonderful, but he picked what was on paper the best option going into the game.

Overall I think he picked the best team available to him in the formation best suited to them. I wouldn't have brought on Hendrick as my first sub, but since it coincided with Travers gifting them a goal, it's hard to tell how much of the subsequent performance was down to him and how much was down to basically handing Serbia the game on a plate.

Oat23

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Kenny's decision to bring on Hendrick for Molumby resulted in them putting the game to bed. They gifted us a goal late on but that was where things started to go wrong.

Stephen Kenny’s record as Ireland boss:



Needs a win against Luxembourg to avoid getting to double figures without a victory. Can't imagine too many Ireland coaches have faced that prospect.

Let's throw all logic out the window and ignore the vastly different standard of player Stephen Kenny has to work with compared to previous managers...

The Hendrick decision was bad. I agree there.

Brock Turnpike

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Kenny's decision to bring on Hendrick for Molumby resulted in them putting the game to bed. They gifted us a goal late on but that was where things started to go wrong.

For once I agree with you.

No coincidence in my mind that we fell apart when Hendrick came on. The invisible man of international football.

Mantis Toboggan

TheCitizen wrote: »

McClean did nothing wrong when he came on, brought a bit of energy to the game. Usual stuff with some on here with certain players targeted.

100% agree, McLean actually looked lively when he came on despite not being fit, he almost got twice as many touches of the ball in his 10 minutes than Connolly got in the game.