Would have rested Dunne. he is carrying an injury and there is a big game at Stoke coming up⌠Foley has been in the squad about two years and has fuck all caps. Give him a chance. He is decent going forward too.
:lol: I can never get that search button to work properly. At home to Andorra is the ideal chance for rotation but Kilbane scored a goal so fair enough. I think its a bit too much to expect Cunningham will be first choice for the majority of the games but if he cant be given a chance at home to Andorra why is he in the squad?
Rock - Certainly wouldnât be playing Foley and Cunningham. There is no point in making changes for the sake of it
Rock 5 mins later - Iâm debating the need to bring in two full backs at the same time.
He has flitted away another chance to make an impression. Hunt and Duff were out for these games. He will be back to fourth choice wide man.
Think I was watching a different game to some people on here. McGeady was about a 3. He was good and positive and jinky for about half an hour against shiâit opposition. I thought great, this will give him confidence. I turned to my mate beside me and said âthis game is made for McGeadyâ. He proceeded to give the ball away for the next hour. For me, McGeady isnât good enough for this level. Heâs just not capable of playing the percentage ball and his strengths just arenât enough to atone for it imo.
Keane was incredibly frustrating last night. Iâm a big fan but nearly every time he came to feet and spun when the ball was on its way to him. Fair play thatâs how he got his goal but he needs to be braver imo. Unlike McGeady I suppose his strengths do atone for the weaker parts of his game. But itâs still not nice to watch; he shirks challenges and headers.
Iâve a nasty feeling that Green is an accident waiting to happen against better opposition. Heâs full blooded but doesnât seem to realise that he doesnât have to go and win everything. Because of it, when he misses, he ends up wrong side and leaves us quite exposed. Gibson wasnât great when he came on unfortunately.
Donât know how anyone would dream of blaming St. Ledger rather than Dunne for the goal. I think he was trying to be cute, knowing who the opposition were and it backfired. St. Ledger won all his headers, with authority and looks very assured on the ball. Iâd have him in the team to stay now. OâShea and Lawrence have a decent understanding on the right.
I see something on the red tops this morning about Gibson telling Trap to keep his nose out of his club career, after he suggested that he should leave Man Utd.
All is not well there I take it.
If Gibson is happy only being a bit part player at Man Utd that that is his right I suppose but you cant blame Trap either for not selecting him on that basis.
Actually the main reason not to select him is that he has never shown anything for us that would indicate that he should be selected.
I thought McGeady was excellent in the first half albeit against poor opposition. Always keen to get on the ball and looked to take them on all the time. He nearly always broke the gain line (to use a rugby expression) and his final ball was pretty good.
On the goal, I thought that St Ledger switched off for a second and should have been more aware of Dunneâs knock down which wasnât the most convincing in fairness. I agree that he is in the team to stay, he has been in the team to stay since Paris.
Poor at controlling the game, dictating the flow, switching the ball, and general creativity as well.
Myself, Bandage and cesc were discussing whether or not McCarty can still play for Scotland given that he has yet to play competitively for our seniors. The consensus seems to be that he can given that he was born in Scotland and that is his national country. It would be different if he hadnât been selected for Scotland and wanted to play for Ireland.
Hard to believe that he hasnât got selected ahead of Green for instance.
I thought Whelan was worse than Green last night; I reckon Green did okay.
My respect and admiration for Kevin Kilbane has no limits.
St Ledger was facing over to the linesman with his hand in the air appealing for offside as Dunne went up for the header. The cameras didnât capture it properly but it was why he had to do a full circular arc to try to get a block in when the ball broke to their lad. Pretty fucking stupid and frustrating to do that and give away a goal but he was good otherwise, I thought. Dunne should have done better with the defensive header though.
I like Lawrenceâs moxy and he did well to win the ball back for Doyleâs goal. Brilliant strike by the Wexford man but I didnât think he was anyway near as good as last Friday generally.
McGeady was excellent for an hour but faded completely after that bar setting up Keogh late on, who fluffed his lines. He was superb for Keaneâs goal and it was excellent skill to go by a couple of them to win the corner for the first. I was interested by his starting position infield throughout the game rather than hugging the touchline but I see Trapâs quotes in praise of his display this morning noting that theyâd asked him to come infield to take advantage of probable space there after watching Andorra on DVD.
The Andorra #18 was hilarious.
John OâShea was assured again; heâs had a very good spell of consistent play under Trap.
Robbie Keane is a legend.
It was great to see all the Celtic players â Keane, McGeady and Lawrence â involved in all the goals.
Given. Nothing to do, no fault for the goal.
OâShea did fine, nothing going forward though. Kelly made a load of runs when he came on and offerred something fresh. His end product was non existant though.
Dunne. Solid, not the player he was last year though, a few more games will get him back there hopefully.
Ledger. Did fine, could take a bit of blame for the goal though. Doesnât really contribute from set pieces going forward.
Kilbane. Solid and a great goal. Strong in the air all night. A great servant to Irish football very limited though and needs to be replaced soon enough. For now though 62 international games in a row
Lawerence. Good game I thought, good set piece taker which is key to our game. Offers nothing out wide.
Green. The more I see the less I think of him. A worse version of Whelan.
Whelan. Needs someone beside him who will go forward with the ball otherwise he looks very pedestrian. Does a job but not international standard imo.
McGeedy. Wrong option everytime. A worse player than two or three years ago. Maybe a bit of coaching in Russia will help.
Doyle. Usual Doyle display capped with a great goal. Must have ten MotM trophies now.
Keane. Usual Keane display lazy, whinging, selfish, terrible decision making & moments of class. Took his goal well. Infairness was in good positions a few times only for terrible ball in.
Gibson. While the rest of them were passing accross the field he at least passed the ball forwards. He is not of this standard though and I can fully understand why trap is looking elsewhere. Needs game time somewhere.
Keogh. Nothing of note.
Trap: Will be happy enough, needs to give a few young fellas a chance, Cunningham, McCarthy, Stokes etc. If not to play then at least to give us options off the bench.
Hunt, Duff, Andrews wonât be too worried anyway. If anything the fellas who came in played their way off the team.
He can still play for Scotland alright. If he had played underage for Scotland and wanted to switch from Scotland to Ireland now he still could as far as I know because he was eligible to play for Ireland at the time he played for Scotland.
The difference with Arteta, which is where the comparison is coming from I guess, is that he wasnât eligible for England when he was capped at underage level for Spain so those appearances seem to have tied him to Spain, though I imagine he will be eligible for Euskal Herria when we get our independence.
On McGeady - Clarkey you know nothing it appears. Crucial role for the first goal. Assist for the third goal. Build-up play for the second goal (before OâShea gave it away). Created that chance for Keogh, played Keane in another time, put a ball on Kilbaneâs head that he should have scored, put another one across the box that Keane should have reacted to. It was an effective and encouraging performance from the Moscow Provo. He should have been taken off though.
On St Ledger - he was caught flat-footed because he was appealing for offside but he had at least got his positioning right. He was covering Dunne and was in a good place. He might have been slow to react because his hand was aloft but Iâd have more concern about Dunneâs header and about the midfielders who preferred to watch how the situation unfolded as opposed to getting back to compete for a knock-down if there was one. Not every midfielder will make that effort for every situation but thatâs what this particular central pairing are in the team for.
Dunne had no interest last night, really going through the motions. But the back four will be decent when we replace Kilbane, great servant, but his time has past.
Green was poor early on last night, giving the ball away too easily, ut he settled and had a decent second half. Whelan was poor, very poor and at least when Gibson came on he tried a few passes and he even got beyond the front men once.
McGeady was great and times, frustating other times. His pass for Keanes goal was class though, and he is the only player in the midfield with that ability.
Up front Doyle wastn at his best, but was good. Robbie would drive you mad, his runs are mostly brainless. Running down blind channels when he should be dropping out, spending too much time on the ball when he does get it in the final third, and generally driving me mad.
Still though 6 points⌠happy days.
Would like to see Coleman/Cunningham and McCarthy introduced sooner rather than later, they would give us far more in both defense and attack.
he was fairly cack alright, Trap said before the game he warned him not to get another yellow, so i wonder did this affect him? He is not there to pass but to close down and tackle, maybe he was too cautious?
I think a seriously telling stat would be the number of times he gave the ball away. He did some positive things sure but for me it was outweighed by the negative. If you canât keep the ball against Andorra, you wonât against a good side and thatâs not good enough at this level.
trap was very happy with him last night- said he was one of the better if not best players - nutsy & the irish times journalists all echoed that today- myself bandage farmer larryduff & hangbla all echoed this as well- we are the people on this forum that attend football matches - the gga lads on here that dont go to football matches at all(julio,kib,gav2 & rintintin) all were disappointed with him- thats very telling
McGeady has no cross. Is he not able to use his left leg?
I thought Green tried to get involved, showed well for the passes and kept the ball moving. He is too enthusiastic in the challenge though and can be taken out of position.
No way was there 40k there, it was 30k at most, huge areas were completely empty, upper deck (where we were) was perhaps 2/3 to 3/4 full, lower deck was perhaps 2/3, boxes were empty. Spin.
Gibson is right to stay there for now, look at John Oâ Shea, heâs a regular now. He will also be listening to Ferguson who heâs bound to have more time for than Trap, as Fergie has played him more.
Still not convinced by him in general, even though i didnât see last nights game, it seems most here are still unconvinced also.
Perhaps he should be. Villa will have a new manager in place for Monday and the last thing Trap needs is another player struggling to get his game. Dunne hasnt been at his best so far this season.
try not to take comments completely out of context but you have had issues with it in the past too so I dont think that will change. it is a bit of a defence mechanism but I think most on here see you as trying to cover up your own inadequacies as a poster through it at this stage. People were saying Cunningham should be replacing Kilbane for this campaign. I pointed out that to expect Cunningham to make the step up from a few appearances at club level was a bit ridiculous but naturally at home to Andorra was the perfect opportunity to get some experience of a competitive game, ditto Foley. We are one injury/suspension away from an absolute crisis at the back.
Anyway six points in the bag. Slovakia have made a very good start though. We could put Russia under serious pressure if we beat them in Dublin. Imperative we dont lose it anyway.
