WC Qualifiers looming - Do you think we can do it?

whiskeyman

Just wondering what the general feeling is here.
Of course our hearts are probably already in Germany for next year, but what are the heads thinking?

Necronomicon

I think we can do it, but took the cautious option "Don't know--too close to call."

jubbly

were going to beat the french and beat them ugly probably, we never did qualification easy.

The Muppet

I think we squandered our best chance of qualifying. I hope I'm wrong but I fear France will pip us to the post.

Jonny Arson

Luckily for us we are in a group where no one seems to want to qualify. If we were in any other group we would be out of it by now. I can't see us qualifying at all. We have been poor and I don't see us getting a result against the French. IMO Kerr is not the man for this job with the many lackluster perfromances from Ireland during his reign. Friendlies don't count, competitive matches do.

whiskeyman

May as well ad my 2c.
I actually think we wont qualify.
I just havent seen enough from this team over the past year or so.
Even though we have some quality players, I've never seen them play at their consistant best in a green jersey.
This is a huge problem for us as too many "bad games" cost us dearly.
However, there's that Irish knack of pulling out results when it matters in an ugly and gritty performance... let hope the lads prove me wrong!

Brian017

I don't think we will either.

ntlbell

sorry to admit it but can't really see it happening.

we have one decent player in duff,a half decent player in andy reid and an ageing keane but apart from that we're joe average all over the park i don't blame kerr for it tho, he can't make world class players own irish passports.

Big Ears

ntlbell wrote:

sorry to admit it but can't really see it happening.

we have one decent player in duff,a half decent player in andy reid and an ageing keane but apart from that we're joe average all over the park i don't blame kerr for it tho, he can't make world class players own irish passports.

Given is average is he ? , what a bunch of pessimists . I fancy us to beat the French and top the group . (yes I am overly optimistic , but they're my expectations)

Jivin Turkey

To be fair, if ever we were given the chance to be top of the group with two home games and an away game against Cyprus to play, before the start of any campaign, we would take it 100% of the time.

I mean what do people expect? Be ten points clear with our home games to come?

jubbly

exactly. I dont know why everyone is always so negative. We have all the advantages, full squad, playing at home, supporters, against an old french team. We will win !! and top the group.

por

Jivin Turkey wrote:

To be fair, if ever we were given the chance to be top of the group with two home games and an away game against Cyprus to play, before the start of any campaign, we would take it 100% of the time.

I mean what do people expect? Be ten points clear with our home games to come?

People expect to have at least 17 pts if not 19 in the bag by now, but no we only have 13 cos we f**ked up royally again Israel twice and to a lesser extinct away to the Swiss.

Why do we always have to do things the hard way, I believe they will get a draw at best against the French and possibly beat the Swiss at home (depending on what is at stake at that stage)

Whether that is enough to get us to the playoffs I don’t know, it’s too early for me to do the maths.

Kerr will be gone if we don’t qualify. To date he has only managed to get max points off the minnows in our groups Georgia, Cyprus and Faroe Islands and just about avoided a Israel type disiaster against Albania, drawing away and scoring in injury time to beat them at home.

ntlbell

Big Ears wrote:

Given is average is he ? , what a bunch of pessimists . I fancy us to beat the French and top the group . (yes I am overly optimistic , but they're my expectations)

no he's not average at all, given is probably one of the best keepers in the world atm imo.

i should have stated I was talking about outfield players.

ntlbell

jubbly wrote:

exactly. I dont know why everyone is always so negative. We have all the advantages, full squad, playing at home, supporters, against an old french team. We will win !! and top the group.

It's not so much being negative it's about being realistic.

we haven't been able to take 3 points from any half decent team so far, so what's changed in the last few months? nothing......

BaZmO*

Jivin Turkey wrote:

To be fair, if ever we were given the chance to be top of the group with two home games and an away game against Cyprus to play, before the start of any campaign, we would take it 100% of the time.

I mean what do people expect? Be ten points clear with our home games to come?

Thank you.

What is wrong with some people here. You'd swear we were going to play the French and the Swiss with only 8 men from the start.

We have a fantastic chance of qualifying, it's obviously not going to be easy, but the biggest advantage we have is that we will be playing the 2 most important games at home.

B.

BaZmO*

And while I'm at it. To the people that went for the

"No - We threw it away with some of our performance already and I dont think this team can do it."
option.

Why can't the same be said for the French or the Swiss? They've hardly set the world alight with their performances either. But as is the Irish way, many people would rather focus on our short comings rather than theirs.

B.

d22ontour

Going for don't know too close to call as we have a decent chance as we should be capable of beating both the swiss and french at home as neither have played great stuff this campaign.Though that said we fecked up twice against Israel and while i thought we had to beat them twice the only comfort is that none of the others did that.If we beat either of them we should finish second so that should be our aim.

LFCFan

ntlbell wrote:

an ageing keane

Yeah, he's really getting on at 25 :rolleyes:

Highlander

LFCFan wrote:

Yeah, he's really getting on at 25 :rolleyes:

Think he meant Roy

Brian017

He was joking.

LFCFan

He was joking

at least someone's awake today

jubbly

BaZmO* wrote:

And while I'm at it. To the people that went for the

"No - We threw it away with some of our performance already and I dont think this team can do it."
option.

Why can't the same be said for the French or the Swiss? They've hardly set the world alight with their performances either. But as is the Irish way, many people would rather focus on our short comings rather than theirs.

B.

POTM. Exactly. They all have been crap. Now there are 3 games left and we have 2 of them at home. Were going to win this group for the first time ever

Jivin Turkey

por wrote:

People expect to have at least 17 pts if not 19 in the bag by now, but no we only have 13 cos we f**ked up royally again Israel twice and to a lesser extinct away to the Swiss.

If you expected Ireland to have "at least 17 points if not 19 in the bag" from a possible 21 from any campaign Id say you either have serious mental problems or dont follow Ireland very much.

Now if you said that that was expected in a group with two teams that qualified for the previous EC as well as Israel, Id be certain about the mental problems.

Im not saying that we havn't dropped points that we probably shouldn't have, but the fact of the matter is that if we had won a single game against Israel (which no one else has been able to conincidentally) we would be looking at our best qualification campaign ever.

As it stands, we are still probably in the best position we have ever been in at this stage of a campaign on paper. And people are calling for Kerr's head even now? :rolleyes:

[Jackass]

Nice Poll.

Hmm, i feel we threw winning the group away with our performances against Israel, especially since the hard part (away to swiss and france) was over and went reasonably well...Kerr should take responsablity for that, and if we don't qualify should lose his job.

But i feel, regardless of what happens against France, we will beat cyprus and switzerland and finish second.

So i see the French game as a cup final almost, and will very possibly be the decider for first place in the group...with the three muskateers back, but us at home, i think it's to close to call...possibly a draw, but i'm confident of second place anyway.

(at least)

Seaneh

I agree with dub guy pretty much.
But even iff we do get second place we could end up losing to some sh!te asian team in a play off knowing our form.

Brian017

Seaneh wrote:

I agree with dub guy pretty much.
But even iff we do get second place we could end up losing to some sh!te asian team in a play off knowing our form.

Apparently, we can't play an Asian team in the play-offs.

jonny68

I thought we were unlucky against a decent Italian side a few weeks ago and i believe Kerr will have the players fired up for this one and i am pretty confident on us doing it

por

Jivin Turkey wrote:

If you expected Ireland to have "at least 17 points if not 19 in the bag" from a possible 21 from any campaign Id say you either have serious mental problems or dont follow Ireland very much.

Now if you said that that was expected in a group with two teams that qualified for the previous EC as well as Israel, Id be certain about the mental problems:

The 17, 19 pts are based on being 1-0 up and 2-0 up in both Israel games and 1-0 up is the Swiss game and throwing it all away.

It is not based on a preditction prior to the qualifing process.