New article on the site on the front page.
Interesting insight as always Rock, however you didnât seem to take into account the possibility of playing both carr and finnan on the right. finnan has played right wing for liverpool on many ocassions and hasnât equipped himself too badly and this pairing will also nullify the big threat from lahm and a.n. other on the left. just a suggestion, although mcgeady has been in good form apparently. itâd be a negative move by stan to go for finnan and carr, as you said our midfield isnât the most creative so weâd need a mcgeady to create something for us, however i can see stan going for carr and finnan. itâs our first game in the comp, against a very good side so consolidation and a point away from home should be the goal, no ?
Yeah I see the point. To be honest Iâm just praying he is brave enough to go for it. Iâm not sure Carr deserves to be in the team ahead of McGeady on any grounds. Finnan would be my first choice right back but with no Harte I assume he has to play left back. Donât see Kilbane or OâShea starting there.
I donât think heâll play McGeady which is a shame because heâs the form Irish player this season. I feel heâll believe weâd be too âopenâ away from home with 2 wingers and heâs not going to drop Duff. Thatâs assuming we play 2 up front of course. McGeady might have a chance if we go 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 but at the moment I expect either Finnan to play ahead of Carr or if Finnan plays left back then someone like Kilbane will probably come in with Duff moving to the right.
I donât think weâre good enough to nullify and stifle the Germans tbh. Theyâre very good going forward and if we invite pressure they will eventually (or sooner) score. Accordingly, imo, attack is the best form of defence. As has been cited already our midfield ainât too hectic creativity wise and so for me McGeady has to play. Apparently heâs been excellent for Celtic and I though he acquitted himself well against the Dutch. Donât think Carr should automatically be back in the team but chances are he will be. Perhaps we need all the experience we can get back there so not a terrible idea to play him - I just donât really like him or the way he left. Iâd give the 2nd midfield spot to Kavanagh ahead of OâShea. Think heâll give us that extra bit of bite. OâShea doesnât exactly relish a tackle. Donât think thereâs any room for sentimentality in football either so Clint stand down. Doyler is clearly the form player, although I have yet to be impressed with him at this level. Given our lack of creativity I think itâs mad that Andy Reidâs not in the squad. Very poor decision by Stan.
Given
Carr Dunne OâBrien Finnan
McGeady Kavanagh S.Reid Duff
Keane
Doyle
Overall preview of our group now up on the main site.
Christ Bandage you figured it out!
Life in general or how to put up an article?
Iâve a few things I want to get off my chest. And anyone who disagrees with me can fook right off. Fair enough Staunton was on rocky ground coming into tonight after the shambles against the Dutch, I may be absolutely hammered (have gone back thru this post and checked all the spelling) but whatâs this criticism tonight all about?
A fooking great performance from start to finish. Would have liked to see McGeady start but as I said to rock his best chance of a start was in a 451. It would have been suicide to play really open with two out and out wingers against them away from home. Once it was decided we were playing 2 up, we had to have a bit of dig in midfield and Duff was hardly gonna get dropped so that meant the young genius on the bench, fair enough.
Then we saw Dunphy try to justify the pathetic article he wrote after the Dutch game when he called for Stanâs head. Even before the game he slaughtered the team and the manager, especially Stevie Carr, our best fooking player tonight.
And at the end he had the absolute cheek to criticise the managerâs knowledge of the game. Fook off you stupid coooont. Go back and write for the Sunday Independent and play for Millwall you absolute fooking failure. Donât look at the evidence, donât admit you were wrong, but twist the evidence and convince all the fooking no marks who texted me after the game that youâre right. You are in your hole, you prick.
Beaten by a wicked deflection away to Germany, yes away to Germany, the team who could have won the World Cup. Sure they had a few chances, of course they had a few fookin chances but how dare you be so biased, bitter and such a downright cooooont to slaughter Staunton. Whatâs all this about taking off Duff, our best player? Itâs fooking fashionable to say heâs our best player, when has he ever influenced a competitive Ireland game? Iâm fooking waiting for an answerâŚhe scored a deflection against Russia at home 2 years ago, other than that heâs done nothing, nothing at all in an Ireland shirt. Duff the saviour my bollix.
And as for kicking the bottle, well fook it Iâm glad to see our manager show some fooking passion, it makes a change from the coooont we had before. And that prick Dunphy saying he let the team down, well take a look and youâll see him telling Pat Devlin and the McDonald guy the subs he wanted to bring on before he was fooked off to the tunnel.
That was a smashing performance. Organised, committed, competitive and disciplined. Everything you want away from home. All we lacked was a little bit of luck. Dunphy, Giles and co can fook off and so can the cooonts who jumped on their bandwagon. Pricks. Self serving pricks.
You spelt coooooooonts and bollix wrong.
On a more serious note, I donât really agree with you Bandage. That was not a great performance. It was spirited and committed but we created jackshit against a makeshift defence. Is that the best we can hope for? We were lucky not to lose by more.
I too was disappointed that McGeady didnât play and find it difficult to understand why Kilbane gets the nod. All the heart in the world doesnât make up for an extreme lack of talent. We need players to come through and the only way thatâs going to happen is by blooding them. Nowâs the time to do it too as realistically we wonât qualify for the Euros. We should be looking towards WCâ10. That was a Brian Kerr style performance and indeed team, which makes it all the more surprising that youâre so delighted with it.
Alcohol is a great leveller Bandage, and I reckon the Germans mustâve had as much as you before the game coz how they didnât get 4 or 5 goals Iâll never now. Granted Given is one the best keepers in the world but still, some of the Irish play was shocking.
They couldnât be faulted for effort though, which at the very least is admirable. Bar Robbie Keane that is, I find that lad unbearable. Waving his fookin arms around like a fooker that hasnât a fookin clue what heâs at. His initials may be R Keane and he may be captain but thats where the similarities end.
This Irish team just doesnât have the wealth of talent weâve been used to since the Charlton era. They canât be blamed for that and neither can Stan, but the young lads we have need to be persisted with. Doyle has a future, as does McGeady. Euro 08 may be too soon but WC10 as CC says should be the long term plan.
Agree re Duff alright, heâs a bit of a Steve McManaman(Spelling wrong??) threatens way more than he ever delivers. Seems to need the whole fookin game built around him to make him be of use but that aint gonna happen against Germany and the like.
Agree re Dunphy too. An attention seeking, media hungry wank stain. A real low life, making outrageous comments to maintain his notoriety and sell papers. Bull shit merchant, must say I respect Giles though. I sometimes disagree with his analysis but by and large he has a reasoned and logical outlook on the game. Not attention seeking and seems the consumate professional.
The days of hailing a one nil defeat as a great performance should be a thing of the past, so even allowing for the the beer goggles this was a poor if commited and gutsy display by Ireland.
I wouldnât classify that as a Brian Kerr performance as we went out and attacked them from the start. They wore us down and got on top after about 25 minutes because they have better players than us. Simple as. Dunphy,as he was slaughtering Staunton, said âitâs not Brazil we were playing.â For once he was right - Germany are a good bit better than them. Weâre playing them on their own patch, on the back of a superb World Cup and people seem to expect that weâll go over there and boss them around???
Of course we were going to be on the back foot for large chunks of the game. I agreed with the decision to play Kilbane. The only bone of contention in Stauntonâs selection imo was the decision of whether to start McGeady or not. I was firmly of the opinion that to play an open, attacking, 442 with 2 wingers in Germany was asking for a pummelling. The likes of Ballack, Schweinsteiger and the front would have murdered us given that space - again imo.
Instead they had that five minute spell where Given made the world class save from Kloseâs header and the second one (which I would have expected him to save). In the second half they didnât create much. Klose flashed a header off the bar that came from nothing and had an early shot from a tight angle smothered by Given (again a save youâd expect a keeper as competent as Given to make). All this talk that it could have been 4 or 5 is totally wide of the mark imo. The keeper is there to make saves and thatâs what he did. And he did it well. And the goal was pure poxy, jammy scheidt and it was never a free kick either but thatâs another story.
I donât think we should be using the Euro 2008 qualifiers as a blooding ground for WC 2010 either. We should aim to qualify for every tournament and pick the best team for each game accordingly. I agreed with the team selection last night and again, Iâd question Dunphyâs motives when he laid into the selection before the game. Self serving and almost hoping weâd get beaten so he could play the âI told you so card.â
Re Kilbane I will not criticise that guy. Fook, heâs a trier. Not blessed with natural ability I give you but heâs maximising his career and winning a lot of caps. Rather than the McGeady situation Irelandâs main problem imo is not having a midfield player like a Xavi, Pirlo, or a Kevin Thomson in the centre who can control the game with short crisp passes, retain possession, set the tempo and take the sting out of the game. Neither Kilbane or OâShea or Reid for that matter have than ability and thatâs not a reflection on the manager - itâs just the hand weâve been dealt. Liam Miller is probably the nearest we have to a playmaker and when you consider that then it is a worry. Thatâs why we turned over the ball too easily at times.
Far more positives than negatives though imo. Again, remember the quality of the opposition we were facing. We were committed, organised (as opposed to âshambolicâ as Dunphy stated) and tried our absolute utmost. We didnât get the result but thereâs definitely a lot to build on.
Apparently Schweinsteiger translates as âPig Climberâ. Poor bastard.
This talk of looking towards 2010 and using 2008 as a foundation really grates me. Whilst I wasnât overly impressed with our display on Saturday I firmly believe we are capable of coming out if this group, there is f**k all between ourselves, the Czechs, the Slovaks and the Welsh. I think most people are overestimating the Czechs, looked at their starting line-up for one of the WC games and they had 4 players over 33, I think they are in a situation like ourselves 10 years ago. Study constraints meant I didnât get a chance to have a look at them for more than a few minutes against the Welsh but they only came through that thanks to two dodgy goals, their clash with the Slovaks will be interesting on Wednesday as it should give us an indication of the Slovaks strength. Czech game on October 11th is a massive game for us, second last game in Lansdowne, last big game in Lansdowne, if we win that weâre in the driving seat. A big ask considering our last meaningful win was 5 years ago but I think we are capable.
I agree with that. As I said in that group preview our next six games taking us up to March are Cyprus (a), Czechs (h), San Marino (twice), Wales (h) and Slovakia (h). Capable of beating all of these teams.
Obviously a bit delayed in my response here but Iâve been internetless for a week - your county is pretty backward WoW!
Anyway donât really agree with most of what Bandage has written. We had passion and commitment. That is the minimum I would expect of any team playing their biggest match of the group in front of a huge crowd against the group favourites under a new boss early in the season. It had all the ingredients for a passionate and hungry performance and by and large we delivered on that.
I think there were far too many negatives though. Again we relied on Given an awful lot. We started playing deep which is where their goal came from - not sure what OâBrien was doing with the actual foul but we had no need to be on the edge of our box at that stage. Kloseâs chance which Given saved with his feet was from us defending the penatly spot as well. It was obvious they would struggle to get Podolski or Klose in behind so it was criminal to invite them onto us.
Whatever about defensively - and it was inevitable they would create chances I suppose - we were inept going forward. Not sure what the instructions to Reid were but he played far too narrow in attack and defence. Iâm having serious reservations about this guy. There was one point in the second half when he picked the ball up on the right hand side and Duff was in acres on the left. Reid saw him and thought about playing the pass - a simple cross field ball with nobody in the way, but chickened out of it. Instead he decided to try and dribble the ball over to Duff and promptly lost if half way there and gave away a free. Shocking lack of composure and ambition.
Front two had a bit of a thankless task because we couldnât hold onto the ball in the middle. OâSheaâs passing was dreadful, as highlighted in the sequence at the end of the game where he got a short throw-in and panicked and hoooked it forward to nobody. Kilbane is a decent lad but he canât play in the middle because he loses the ball too often. Especially not alongside OâShea because neither of them can keep possession.
What was obvious from the start was that we were going to create chances from crosses because they were weak in the air. That was why it was imperative that Reid stayed wide to get quality balls in, or at least to stretch their back 4 out a bit. Either he disobeyed all instructions, or Staunton didnât see it. Either way I found it extremely worrying and disappointing.
Finally special mention to Ewan McKenna (I think thatâs his name) in the Sunday Tribune who jumped on the Ray Houghton bandwagon and blamed Robbie Keane for the goal. Say what you like about the lad (and he wasnât great last weekend) but he could do nothing about that. Houghton said he turned his back which wasnât true at all. Pricks. Oh and just to hammer home the point the Tribuner lad gave Man of the Match to Duff. Gobshite.
Passion and commitment was missing from the Brian Kerr era. What we had for the last couple of years was apathy so in that sense I was satisfied with the attitude of the players.
The problem for us is obvious; we donât have a central midfielder to control the game. Itâs too easy to blame Robbie Keane who, for some astonishing reason, it has become fashionable to slate.
The best article on our situation Iâve read was by Malachy Clerkin in the Tribune today. Iâve gone to the trouble to copy and paste:
Given the lack of quality at Steve Stauntonâs disposal, the prospects for the future are bleak
'DIDNâT take long now, did it? At one stage in the build-up to last Saturday, Steve Staunton was asked if he thought that public expectation had been lowered by the 4-0 defeat at home to Holland a fortnight previously. "Well, I have no control over what you lot write, " came the answer.
And with it, a thousand little parts of a roomful of football writers died.
Itâs not that we media types didnât expect to be blamed for the low ebb at which the national side finds itself at some stage, itâs just that we thought maybe weâd be given a little more time. Whereâs the love, Stan? Does the term âhoneymoon periodâ mean nothing anymore? Is there no leeway, no wiggle room? Itâs only been four games, after all, and this is a team in transition.
Oh, go on then. Itâs okay.
This is the dance we dance. In the life of any Ireland manager, it will occasionally balm a sore to take a swipe at the press and if it makes him feel better in himself to do so, then hey, whatever. But just so weâre clear, no 4-0 defeat was ever made worse by what the newspapers, television or radio had to say about it and the idea that public expectation hinges more on a banner headline than the teamâs inability to execute the offside trap is as silly as it is disingenuous.
In fact, thereâs probably even an irony to be found in the fact that the most savage attack after the Holland game . . . The Starâs âStaunton Must Goâ headline . . . served to, if anything, strengthen the managerâs position. He was never going to depart after just three games and certainly not at a newspaperâs urging.
All the same, the expectation question Staunton swerved is worth exploring.
If the rumblings of discontent which followed what was an undeniably improved performance in Stuttgart are an indication, there is . . . and not for the first time . . . a real danger of folk getting carried away with notions of Irelandâs place in the general scheme of things.
By pretty much any standard, last Saturday was a creditable result for Staunton.
Consider a putative tale of the tape. Germany came third in a high-class World Cup; Ireland didnât make the play-offs in qualification. Germanyâs 20 defeat to Italy in that glorious semi-final extra-time was their first at home since England beat them 5-1 in 2001; Ireland have only beaten Cyprus, Georgia and the Faroe Islands on their respective own patches in that time.
Eight of the 13 players Germany fielded last Saturday will be playing in Champions League in the coming week; Ireland will see three out of their 14 in action.
In that context, to expect anything better than a narrow defeat was surely to cross the line between optimistic and unrealistic. To then excoriate them for coming home beaten seems needless and unfair.
A wholesale resetting of the dials is required when we talk about this Irish team. Itâs a team, after all, in which its best player is its goalkeeper . . .
an indictment in itself. A team in which its two most celebrated attacking threats are frequently marginalised because a well-drilled opposition can simply keep the ball away from them for long periods, causing them to more often than not move into less threatening areas of the pitch just to gain possession. A team with no definite idea who either of its central midfielders will be from game to game. A team, indeed, which started last Saturdayâs game with two mismatched players in that sector, neither of whom was in his natural position. And a team, above all, with a manager not just new to the post but to the career.
The debate over whether or not Staunton is the right man for the job is wholly irrelevant just now. While itâs true that heâs neither the most eloquent defender of his actions nor the most whizz-bang retainer of facts, itâs also true that thereâs no prospect of him either jumping or being pushed before the end of this campaign, however clouded the picture becomes. Calling for his head at this point is like agitating for a taoiseachâs removal shortly after his first cabinet is announced.
And anyway, his stock must rise at least a little after last Saturday. The listlessness that so weighed down the performances against Chile and Holland was replaced by purpose and energy across the pitch in Stuttgart. Germany built their World Cup campaign on early goals but Stauntonâs side took the play to them from the off last week and led the corner count 4-1 after 20 minutes.
You had to go back almost two full years to alight upon the last time an Irish side played with the sort of resolution and doggedness they showed in that first half, back to the scoreless draw in Paris in October 2004.
These may sound like laughably small mercies for which to be offering up thanks but to anyone who remembers the apathy of the performances against Cyprus and France at the end of the last campaign, they represent a start at least.
And just as being in the job means Staunton must take the heat for the Holland game, it also means deserving the credit for an improved display like last Saturdayâs.
So, for one match at least, we can take heart in the size of the fight in the dog again.
Stauntonâs next task will be less straightforward, involving as it does the introduction of gameplans and tactics and all those things they teach you on coaching courses. For all the renewed vigour last week, there was precious little sign of anything that would scare the horses of a retreating opposition defence.
For all Kevin Doyleâs willingness to run and chase, he and Robbie Keane looked at times like the result of a malfunctioning dating agency computer programme, a problem laid bare by the fact that Irelandâs best chance was Richard Dunneâs last-minute header from a corner. But the blank scoresheet was just the most obvious symptom of the illness at the heart of the midfield. Kevin Kilbane and John OâShea offer minimal attacking threat in there beyond the odd gallop forward by the former and in truth, their major contribution can only be containment. Until and unless a central midfielder with a vision and a pass is found and inserted, Ireland wonât get Keane or Doyle or Damien Duff into the game enough.
Staunton must have every finger and toe crossed that Stephen Ireland raises his hand sometime soon.
But, again, this is what weâre left with. Hoping against hope that a 20-year-old kid whoâs never played a competitive international turns out to be a contender because we know that those more experienced than him in the squad never will be. It should be enough to keep a lid on expectations, regardless of what anyone writes.â
Good interview with Lee Carsley in the Times too, wants to come back and had some good quotes in it. Not registered with them to post it though.
Was there myself too for the week.
Internet is banned to stop foreign influences from Cork and the like pervading idyllic Kerrylife
Clerkin is wrong to assume that the articles and head lines written by his kind have no effect on public opinion. Many people form their opinoin by what the read in the news papers and hear on tv, maybe the freekickers excepted as clearly they are well capable of forming their own opinions. But the masses are often led so Staunton wasnât too far off the mark to point the finger.
Robbie is getting hardship right now because rightly or wrongly, he is perceived as lazy and a bit of a showman. But no substance. I agree with that for now, himself and Duff have flattered to deceive for Ireland lately so naturally the grief will follow. Duffer looks busier so he excapes alot of the time. Houghton was wrong to nail him for the goal though, he didnât turn his back and had the ball hit in probaly an inch either way or missed him completely itâd have been wide or saved.