[quote=“Bandage, post: 773399, member: 9”][FONT=Calibri]It has now been confirmed that thedancingbaby[/USER] and [USER=68]Tipper are going to the Ireland game instead of the Scottish Cup Final on Sunday week. Turning their backs on Ireland to go and watch Ireland in some diddy friendly. Shame on them.[/FONT]
[/quote]
Sure I won’t even watch the 2nd half of the cup final due to a clash with the Donegal vs Tyrone match.
When will Wilson pull out of the squad? Can’t be far off now.
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Norwich winger Anthony Pilkington has been withdrawn from the Republic of Ireland squad, the Football Association of Ireland has confirmed.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Pilkington scored for the Canaries in their 3-2 win at Manchester City yesterday, but because of a knee injury will not be fit for the friendly against England at Wembley on May 29 and the game against Georgia in Dublin on June 2, in preparation for the qualifier against the Faroe Islands at the Aviva Stadium five days later.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“The Football Association of Ireland today (Monday) confirmed that Anthony Pilkington has pulled out of the Ireland squad for their upcoming summer games under the advice of Norwich’s medical team,” a statement from the FAI said.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“Anthony will undergo treatment on his knee over the coming weeks in preparation for the season ahead. There has been no replacement called up.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]The 24-year-old - who qualifies via his Dublin-born paternal grandmother and was capped by the Republic Under-21s in 2008 - has been forced out of Trapattoni’s plans once again to allow himself enough recovery time over the summer, during which he will also get married.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]However, while it is clearly a disappointment not to be involved for the games, which end with a trip to face European champions Spain in New York, Pilkington feels the added time off will set him up for the challenges ahead of both club and country in 2013/2014.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“The (Norwich) management and the physio have pulled me out - I have been struggling with my knee so I need to get treatment through the summer and an extra four games is not going to help me through pre-season,” Pilkington said in the Eastern Daily Press.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]"I need a rest and I need the treatment that I am going to be getting through the summer in the off season, so hopefully I can put that behind me and come back pre-season 100% fit.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“It is unfortunate these injuries have popped up at the worst times for me, but like I say, I have got to put that behind me now, get right for next season and then hopefully see if I can get back in the (Ireland) squad.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Pilkington added: "It wouldn’t be right for me to go away and then come back in pre-season struggling.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]"I have had to manage the (patellar tendon) injury towards the end of the season and because of my knee, I have picked up a few hamstring injuries.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“So I will go away in the summer, work hard, get 100 per cent fit and come back flying.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Trapattoni intends to use the upcoming matches as key preparation on the road towards the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]During their time together at the end of this season, the manager will have one eye on the Group C clashes with Sweden, Austria, Germany and Kazakhstan which will determine their destiny later in the year.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“This trip creates the chance to work with the players for a longer period than usual in order to bond and plan for the remainder of our FIFA World Cup qualifier games,” Trapattoni said.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]“These matches will provide me with the opportunity to experiment with different players and tactics.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Skipper Robbie Keane, who has missed Los Angeles Galaxy’s last three games with an ankle injury, has been included, along with Aiden McGeady.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]However, there were no places for Ciaran Clark and Kevin Doyle, who both have fitness problems, or defender Richard Dunne, who could yet train with the squad after spending the entire season on the sidelines, providing the FAI can gain permission from his club, Aston Villa.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Trapattoni will whittle down the original party next month after taking injuries into account.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Ireland lie in fourth place in their group after allowing a 2-1 lead over Austria to slip at the death in the last qualifier in March, four days after securing a creditable 0-0 draw in Sweden.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]All three sides currently have eight points, half the total amassed so far by leaders Germany, who have played a game more than Ireland and the Austrians and two more than the Swedes.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=14px]Austria and Sweden meet in Vienna the same night as Ireland attempt to complete a double over the Faroes following their 4-1 victory in Torshavn in October.[/SIZE][/FONT]
That’s quite disappointing.
More disappointing - LA Galaxy (cunts) won’t release Robbie Keane to play for both the England and Georgia games (“Whats the problem with that? They pay his wages and its not an official FIFA international window. What do you expect?” Fuck off with that argument is what I expect, we’re playing fucking England).
Kev, TASE, gerrardno1 etc - the game is on Setanta May 30 at 4.45am EST (2 hours earlier for you Kev?).
TDB, Bomber and the TFK expeditionary force - can you construct a TFK on Tour banner so we can see you please? (Just don’t get Rocko to design it).
Signing in,10 members of the legendary Neil Lennon CSC(Levenshulme) on the piss in London.
Ah lovely.
[quote=“Fitzy, post: 775316, member: 236”]Kev, TASE, gerrardno1 etc - the game is on Setanta May 30 at 4.45am EST (2 hours earlier for you Kev?).
TDB, Bomber and the TFK expeditionary force - can you construct a TFK on Tour banner so we can see you please? (Just don’t get Rocko to design it).[/quote]
KIBMan?
Robbie Keane back in for England game. 
Is Robbie Keane the greatest Irishman ever? His patriotism knows no bounds, there is nothing he won’t do to represent his country. My God I am proud of that boy.
Agreed. A phenomenal level of commitment.
Robbie loves his country 
[quote=“manusboyle, post: 775321, member: 108”]Signing in,10 members of the legendary Neil Lennon CSC(Levenshulme) on the piss in London.
Ah lovely.[/quote]
County Levenshulme 
KIB Man will probably be at it.
Robbie Keane
Signing in.
Tickets arrived today.
Can’t wait for this!
[SIZE=6]James Lawton: Let us hope the beast is back in the box when Ireland meet England[/SIZE]
Eighteen years is a long time, but some things you never forget. You don’t, certainly, the expression on the face of the tousled-haired kid with an Irish team scarf around his neck and his father’s arm on his shoulder.
The boy was supposed to be watching his first international game, seeing World Cup stars like [U]Paul McGrath[/U][/URL] and John [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/John_Sheridan’][U]Sheridan[/U][/URL] against [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/England_national_football_team’][U]England[/U][/URL] at [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Aviva_Stadium’][U]Lansdowne Road[/U], but instead he was blinking and fighting back his tears as the harrowing spectre of the English football hooligan appeared yet again.
It was not the worst example of such barbarity you would ever see, but there was something peculiarly cold and dispiriting about the way the members of the right-wing English Combat 18 group tore up the stadium and hurled down the uprooted seats and made their poisonous chants and laughed at the ease with which they had destroyed the football match when it was just 28 minutes old.
There was a sense of futility, even despair among the organisers of English football on that bedevilled night of February 15, 1995, that certainly needs to be remembered when the fixture is at last resumed at [U]Wembley[/U] next Wednesday night.
Certainly, if it is recalled vividly enough, there will be reason for at least some small celebration.
If football is still vulnerable enough through its own flaws, extravagance and ill-discipline, at least the enemy from without is no longer so free to impose random devastation.
For Irish football, there was a different kind of shock that night in Dublin. The English were weary, almost resigned, but the Irish reaction was of disbelief.
QUIVERING
International football wasn’t supposed to be about traumatised, pale-faced boys with quivering lips. It was about amiable World Cup explorations in places like New York and Rome, an unending sense of adventure.
Sean Connolly of the FAI admitted that there had been intelligence reports from England that among 4,500 visiting supporters there would be some hard-core, programmed trouble-makers, but the gardai had reckoned they could be mopped up easily, quietly enough.
Then Sheridan stroked through a silky pass for David Kelly to open the scoring and almost immediately the seats began to fly along with the cries of ‘Seig Heil’ and ‘No Surrender to the IRA’.
Later the new and generally breezy coach of England, [U]Terry Venables[/U], was encountered in a mood of the deepest gloom.
He was the big hope of the English game, the man to redeem the shocking failure to qualify for the American World Cup of 1994 through the European Championships scheduled for England 18 months later. But suddenly football was the furthest thing from his mind.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so empty in all my time in the game,” he said. "Something like this makes you feel hollow, completely numb. We are supposed to be building towards a great tournament next year, something to make the whole country proud, but something like this happens and you have to wonder what is the point.
“It’s sickening that these people can come along and wreck everything in just a few minutes.”
England captain David [U]Platt[/U] and leading administrator, FA secretary Graham Kelly, were no less disconsolate.
Platt said: “I’m a footballer who likes to play the game on a rectangular pitch. That’s what I’m qualified to talk about, but who wants to ask a question about football on a night like this.”
Kelly, who three years later would be forced into doubting that the problem of English hooliganism would ever be solved after rioters laid siege to the old port district of [U]Marseilles[/U][/URL] during the World Cup, said that all he could was do was assure [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Union_of_European_Football_Associations’][U]UEFA[/U] that the fight against hooliganism would be redoubled. But there was a terrible resignation in his voice.
Reasonably enough, [U]Ireland’s[/U][/URL] English manager [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Jack_Charlton’][U]Jack Charlton[/U] heaved the blame on to his compatriots.
“This is not a problem of Irish football,” he declared. “It doesn’t happen here. We are due to play the North (of [U]Ireland[/U]) and we know they will not bring such trouble. There is no place for this in Irish football. Some people should be very ashamed of themselves tonight.”
Big Jack sounded a bit like the old Spurs manager Bill Nicholson, who went on to the public address system at the Feyenoord stadium in [U]Rotterdam[/U] when Tottenham fans rioted during a European tie there in 1973. Nicholson roared: “You people make me ashamed to be an Englishman.”
At Wembley next week the fervent hope will be that, indeed, the beast is back in the box and with the lid firmly nailed down.
It is a reasonable assumption, given the vast improvements in hooligan control and the identification of likely ringleaders.
An additional bonus would be evidence that in Giovanni [U]Trapattoni[/U]'s personal battle for survival as Irish manager, he might see at least some stirrings of the kind of competitive quality upon which his predecessor Charlton could call so much more confidently.
On the night that was wiped away, Big Jack was able to select accomplished, weathered performers like McGrath, Dennis Irwin, [U]Andy Townsend[/U][/URL], Sheridan and the gangling promise of [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Niall_Quinn’][U]Niall Quinn[/U].
OPTIMISTIC
Trapattoni’s options are plainly not so encouraging, but then he can be optimistic that the showcase of a Wembley international against England will bring out a little heightened ambition – and not least from a [U]James McCarthy[/U][/URL] anxious to augment his reputation among some of the [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Barclays_Premier_League’][U]Premier League[/U]'s leading clubs.
For [U]England’s[/U][/URL] [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Roy_Hodgson’][U]Roy Hodgson[/U], there is no less pressure to create a little new momentum in a team which has at times has been desperately unconvincing on the qualifying road to next year’s World Cup in Brazil.
[U]Hodgson[/U][/URL] was inflamed by the decision of [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Manchester_City’][U]Manchester City[/U][/URL], [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Chelsea_F.C.’][U]Chelsea[/U] and Spurs to play trans-Atlantic friendlies at the end of the season. He says that England’s needs before an “important” friendly with Ireland should have been considered.
No doubt he has a point, but if he needs a little perspective he might just give Venables a call.
He could tell him all about the ravages of Combat 18.
I stopped reading when he called John Sheridan a world cup star. What’s the gist of it?
It was all Hitler’s fault. Beyond that I’m not sure. It’s neither a thorogh re-telling of the story of the last game, nor a decent preview of the forthcoming fixture. It’s just a load of words and a few old quotes.