Republic of Ireland Team 2023/24 [old thread]

Hyperbole much?

Given had a 20 year Ireland career, spent his career in the Premier League, his error to games ratio was very, very low. While Bazunu has been immense and has such a high ceiling, it's far too early in his career to be labelling him as our best ever.

Yup - so you agree hardly a measure of anything. I love the way you are moaning about the 4-1 win against Andorra when Mick scraped a 1-0 against Gibraltar.....fooking Gibraltar!!! You're some laugh though. This is fun.

Just waiting for the "he got us to a play off" line now that must come out every month after games.

Name some of the managers they could target for €500k p.a there for a laugh please.

This is deliberately mis-using statistics to create an agenda.

Two of those games where we had 500+ passes were the 1-0 defeat to Luxembourg and the 1-1 draw with Azerbaijan.

The irony is that in the return legs to both games that we won 3-0, we achieved it using far fewer passes as we changed the tactics changed and we mixed it up with some more direct play

The 3-0 win against Azerbaijan stands out in particular. Azerbaijan had a whooping 577 passes, as opposed to our 342 - https://www.uefa.com/european-qualifiers/match/2030929--azerbaijan-vs-republic-of-ireland/statistics/

People need to stop fetishizing attempted passes as some sort of barometer of success.

Every player these days is not better than the 60's, that is absolute nonsense.

The game is about more than fitness.

Hendrick isnt fit to lace Giles boots.

Giles was two footed, had a great footballing brain, a good shot, could tackle and was deceptively fast.

To think he wouldnt be able to catch Hendrick or any other modern day player is utter delusion.

Ya Giles had 2 feet in an era with way slower closing down and way less ground covered per player. He would be utterly gassed by half time.

Comparing players from different eras is pointless which is why I said players need to be compared with their level compared to peers. Comparing Kelly to Bazunu directly is nonsense. Look at that famous "amazing" Banks save and you will see a ton of current goalkeepers who could pull that off but it was seen as insanely athletic at the time

No Hendrick isn't fit to lace Giles boots because Hendrick is a barely average player compared to his peers where as Giles was one of the best of his generation. But put Hendrick in the 60s using a time machine and he would look unreal

The players love playing for him. The fans who actually go to the games clearly love him. For the first time in forever we are actually playing modern, attractive football and there's a great atmosphere surrounding Irish football with a genuine excitement for the future, but you're hellbent on getting rid of him with no obvious successor because we finished 3rd in a group when we were expected to finish 3rd?

You've been blinded by your odd hatred of Kenny. You want him gone and are certain the FAI will find a better coach out there who'll move to Ireland and take the job for €250k (net), but yet you cannot name a single coach as an example.

You're all deluded.

The main thing for me is Irelands games are exciting regardless of which way you look at it.

Your heart can be on your mouth at times while they mess around with it at the back and then you're on the edge of your seat after the 25th pass in the passage of play puts us through on goal.

Comparing average players from today to the best of yesteryear is a little bit pointless. Yes, technically if you beamed Jeff Hendrick back to the '60s he would be far fitter than everyone else that that would make him stand out. Similarly if you were able to beam '60s era Giles to the modern day he wouldn't be able to last the pace of the modern game. The thing is though, in time both of them would probably adapt to the regimes of the day they were in. There is an argument that in Giles' case he might not have the natural physical fitness to keep up with the modern game even if he trained. Similarly, Jeff Hendrick might not be able to adapt to an era of awful pitches, heavy balls and being absolutely clattered by opponents on a regular basis.

As Giles himself is fond of saying: You can't really compare players from different eras.

Not is was poor but looked back at the stats and Georgia had more possession and we had 2 shots on target in the whole game. The key difference being that we won so the mood music afterwards was positive. If it had been a draw the reaction would've been very different. Like it was a few months later in Tbilisi after that 0-0 draw.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard someone argue that a match is a dead rubber after it was played.

The Georgia game was a crucial one, and considering we could still qualify it was hugely important for us to get a win there to have any chance considering our last 2 games were against the Swiss and Denmark.

The same night we played Georgia Denmark beat the Swiss, a win would have meant a draw in Switzerland would have us almost there because Denmark would have most likely secured qualification before getting to Dublin.

Us settling for a draw in Georgia basically put the final nail in our campaign.

Giles played until he was nearly 40 , saw him regularly live for Ireland and Rovers, he was completely fit. Where did this stupid idea that players today are now fitter than players in the 60/70/80's come from? Never mind Giles, Hendrick can't compare with the likes of Liam Brady or Gerry Daly from that era.

Here's just 1 study. But even without science it's plain to see from watching games from the 60s and 70s

Couple of questions on this:

Until when do you give him?

What do you expect to learn about him between now and then that we haven’t learned about him since he took over?

Also I think this notion that there’s top quality managers out there just ready to hop into the job on the FAIs budget fanciful at best. The majority will be looking for another club job and wouldn’t give Ireland a second look, and odds are the ones that would want it on that money probably aren’t an upgrade.

As long as I’ve supported Ireland this has to be the most critical fans have been about a manager(Staunton excluded). Managers nearly always get 2 campaigns, why should this be any different?

Not to mention in Giles day in particular creative players got kicked all over the place. Watching any clips of Brady and Giles you can see what great football brains they had/have. Saw the pass great movement always seemed to have time. Mentioning Hendrick in the same sentence as those two great. . It might as well be Paul Green you’re talking about!

Did you watch us under Mick's stint? The rubbish in Gibraltar or the horrific performance in Tbilisi??