Irish soccerball nil - That boy Bazunu will save us (Part 1) 🐐

[anon61956325]

Iceland have a population of 350, 000

cc @Horsebox

[anon61956325]

I didn’t see his post as I was googling frantically.

[GeoffreyBoycott]

The Pretend IRA happy enough with the 26th ranked side in the world getting routed 1-5 at home by the 19th ranked side, who failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Euros.

[Horsebox]

Of that list France will be one of the favourites for the world cup and have a fantastic squad, Serbia and Poland were in groups with no major power in their groups and have much better players than Ireland. Iceland and Sweden I’ll give you but again neither of them were 4th seeds.

[anon61956325]

I’ve said that also - we need to realize our place in world football – and until we have a functioning domestic league to counter the swamp that is English academies we will continue to be 4th seeds.

[anon61956325]

Iceland have a population of 350,000

[Big_Dan_Campbell]

Who are we likely to lose? Assume Whelan, O’Shea, Wes and McGeady will call it a day. Wouldn’t be so sure about Walters and Murphy, both came to international football relatively late and may want to keep going.

Centre forward and left back are the real areas we lack any kind of depth. Maybe Maguire and Hogan might show something between now and next September. Realistically you are looking at a group of championship players needing to take a step forward for us

Keepers:
Randolph
Westwood
Elliott

Right backs:
Coleman
Christie
Doherty

Centre Halves:
Duffy
Clark
Long
Keogh
Egan?

Left back:
Ward
Boyle?
Cunningham?

Centre midfield:
McCarthy
Arter
Meyler
Hendrick
Hourihan
O’Kane?
Browne?

Wide Players:
Brady
McClean
O’Dowda
Hayes?
Horgan?

Forwards:
Murphy
Long
Walters
Maguire?
Hogan?

[Horsebox]

They are an example to us all of what can be done when you invest in youth.

[Nembo_Kid]

So why are you laying the blame at the door of management?

[Fagan_ODowd]

Seamus Coleman has been a huge loss in fairness on a number of levels.

[Nembo_Kid]

I don’t think Brady is good enough as a wide player. No real pace.

[backinatracksuit]

The fact that he’s our best player by some distance is an obvious one, what else are you referring to?

[Bandage]

@flattythehurdler, do you agree that we really got done in the shaded areas? We don’t have the quality of players but our formation backfired.

I advocated playing more on the front foot and pushing up as a unit but (I know I’m laboring the point) I wanted a more nuanced set up rather than going with 4 midfielders playing a narrow diamond. It left us one short in midfield and outnumbered on the flanks.

Meyler and Brady at the sides of the diamond were being dragged out and then back in. Sisto tucking in and then drifting out on the left caused all sorts of trouble and the communication / organisation between Christie and the midfield was lacking at times. Sisto and Eriksen really exploited that central left area, aided by the way we set up.

Sisto was great at getting into the half spaces (cc @Horsebox).

[Fagan_ODowd]

@backinatracksuit

The fact that he’s our best player by some distance is an obvious one, what else are you referring to?

Leadership, intelligence and organisational ability on the field.

[Rocko]

@Big_Dan_Campbell

Think O’Neill should go but doubt he will. He has gotten some big results during his time but we have rode our luck hugely and relied on our attitude a bit too much. Think tonights result laid bare our limitations and a bit like Trap at Euro 2012 the group and management have ran its course and you would have to doubt the managers ability to change and adapt. Think our next campaign may go the same way as the 2014 campaign under Trap if he remains.

Given that a good number of the squad are well in their 30s I think we should look to move on and get a manager who will bring a bit more organisation to things and give us a bit more purpose aside from honest effort and pluck

Hard to know about O’Neill. He’s not going to build for the future but I’m not sure there are enough young players coming through to build for the future anyway. Last night was an aberration in some respects - it was a once off game and maybe we went for it a bit early with the midfield changes but I’d rather that than leaving it too late.

I think if you want a manager to get the best out of our limited group of players then we’d be doing very well to get a better one than O’Neill. We are fourth seeds for a reason and we simply don’t have the talent to sustain top performances over a long campaign.

I don’t see a better coach delivering better results but there’s an argument to be made for building for the future and developing a style of play for 2, 3, 4 years’ time. Not sure people really have the patience for that though. People will still scream for whatever Stephen Hunt type is lighting up the Championship for a couple of weeks and bemoan our naive manager for not bringing in the flavour of the day.

Despite our midfield being collectively woeful last night (and Arter and Meyler shouldn’t get too much credit for simply not being on the pitch in the second half), it’s the area of the pitch where we’re thankfully potentially strong - McCarthy, Arter, Brady, Hendrick are all decent players and can all play a bit of football - despite regularly underperforming at club and national level. McClean alongside them is a good winger at that standard. It’s not an array of riches but it’s not a bad group to be able to build a team around.

After the Euros it felt like we’d have McCarthy-Hendrick-Brady as 3 midfielders with McClean on one side and Walters on the other. McCarthy has been injured since. Hendrick and Brady have had really poor campaigns. Walters is finished unfortunately. McClean was the worst of that grouping coming out of Euro 2016 and now he’s the strongest of them. But there is potential for the others to get their form back, try and be a more consistent midfield setup (we’ve definitely been too quick to change that and to move players around in there very oddly) and that’s a midfield good enough to be on the fringes of major tournaments.

[anon61956325]

I said he takes his share of the blame for being tactically inept and not helping the cause …

You’re arguing that a manager is blameless because he has average players? -

[Fagan_ODowd]

Will Wes wetire now?

[Nembo_Kid]

Nope, I’m saying individual errors cost us and tactical decisions were then a case of closing the gate after the horse had bolted when we had to go chasing a 2 goal deficit against a superior team.

[anon61956325]

What about the freedom we gave them tactically to capitalize on those mistakes?

[mikehunt]

Denmark players’ first touch got them out of trouble. Ours got us into trouble. If lads can’t control and pass a football in their 20’s O’Neill would need more than a couple of days here and there to fix it.