Shoulder?
Tom Cannon is back in the squad.
David Harrington of Fleetwood gets his first call-up.
Bazunu, Collins, Molumby, Ogbene & Ferguson are all injured.
Azaz is in again, as is Szmodics, the Parrott is back. Stevens is back in over Manning (possibly injured too?)
No Festy, Moran, Sinclair Armstrong, Alan Browne.
Coach Sheasy looking at potentially bringing back McClean
Is Didzy McGoldrick next?
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Lawal promoted to MNT
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Cracking player. Will be interesting to see where he goes in summer.
I saw there was an article on RTÉ bemoaning the lack of full-backs available and while we had a decent crop for a while, I think it’s a fair point that the four full-backs in the squad last night were Coleman (35), Doherty (32), Brady (32) and Stevens (34 on Sunday). All decent players in their own right but we’re about to start building towards a World Cup 2026 campaign.
Now, if we don’t have them, we don’t have them but then should the new manager be looking at formations that work with the players we do have.
We have some decent centre-backs, even some ball-playing ones. I think we have a couple of players that could play right wing-back (Ebosele & Ogbene, as well as Doherty). Do we have any equivalent on the left? Manning is the only one I can think of outside of the older brigade, maybe O’Dowda but I’m not sure he’s good enough.
Should go with 4 centre backs at the back for me. Omobamidele, Collins, O’Brien and O’Shea. Our full back options are awful.
How many games have you seen o Brien play?
He thinks this is akin to a game of FIFA
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Generally, I can’t stand centre-backs at full-back so I would be against that. It’s just a completely different skillset.
Certain centre-backs can do it but generally would be more inclined to play a midfielder there if there was no other option.
Full-backs absolutely have to be able to contribute in an attacking sense, especially when we play weaker teams who put everyone behind the ball. Maybe if we’re defending deep and shutting up top against the very top teams, it could be an option, but not in general.
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Set a filter to under 27 and go from there.
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I thought O’Dowda looked good in the left wing back position last night. Wasn’t tested out too much defensively but he’s very comfortable on the ball, can play a pass, and should be starting ahead of Brady now imo.
Dunno, he’s had loads of chances down through the years & has invariably been shit. I’m thinking Greece away in the last campaign in particular. I thought one of Spock’s many mistakes in the job was when he first came in & discarded good, honest pros like Coleman & tried to make lynchpins out of terrible characters like Matt Doherty or flaky/useless lads like Callum Robinson & O’Dowda. That said, there’s a real lack of left sided options.
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Could play Ogbene right wing back and Manning left wing back. Amazing Manning cant make the squad.
Saw him playing a few times playing for Lyon. Saw Duffy 2 weeks ago part of a Norwich defence which conceded 4 v Leeds.
In fairness, Robinson got a fair chunk of his caps under McCarthy, he was one of the few attacking players playing Premier League football at the time. And was our top scorer in the WC qualifiers.
I think Robinson was there on merit tbh, maybe says something about our options but at least he has done something (he’s in our top 20 goalscorers of all time).
I’ve never seen much from O’Dowda really.