Bosun Lawal will be next on that list
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He’s already been mentioned! Think he got a brace for Fleetwood a month or two back since Charlie Adam moved him into midfield. He’s single-handedly spearheading their fight against relegation.
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What about his dress style?
Or would that not be important?
Can anyone confirm how many shots on target O’Shea’s Ireland had over the 2 games?
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Dress style would be mildly important. He gently pushed the boundaries & no complaints there.
Another plus for Sheasy: despite retaining his regional accent, he doesn’t sound like a little aul fella trying to fix your lawnmower or Apres Match Frank Stapleton.
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If you throw enough shit it’s going to stick at some stage
Ken Early is an utter ham. He has a fairly simpering sniping column today following his column on monday.
Monday: John O Shea is the next Xabi alonso
Weds: some stupid commentators said he was the next alonso. *
- he wasnt being self-deprecating as he also had a pop at anyone who thinks poyet is a good idea.
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If O’Shea gets the job we are in massive trouble looking at last night.
“The tidal wave of optimism”
You were defending Kenny serving up much worse rubbish for two years
The Man Utd fanboy has arrived. You obviously didn’t watch the game last night. O’Shea totally out of his depth. Leaving Coleman on for 90 minutes summed it up. Afraid to make the big calls.
The tidal wave of optimism sweeping John O’Shea into the top job in Irish football subsided a little after a 1-0 defeat to Switzerland. Yet the overall confusion at the FAI is such that O’Shea, even bruised by this defeat, feels like a reassuring reference point: if not definitely a safe pair of hands then at least familiar hands.
All the talk before the game was about the position of the CEO Jonathan Hill, whose days in the job had been reported to be numbered. It was widely speculated that the number of days remaining might be as low as one.
Hill was spotted before the game enjoying the company of Roberto Di Matteo, but the FAI were quick to confirm that this was a serendipitous meeting and not an indication that Hill was about to hand the Ireland job to a man whose last coaching position was a four-month stint at Aston Villa in 2016.
Gus Poyet’s Greece lost to Georgia on penalties so he’s available, in case anyone still thinks it’s a good idea to appoint the guy who just masterminded a playoff defeat to Georgia.
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The match was quite a typical edition of Ireland-Switzerland: few chances, much frustration, and the Swiss coming out on top. On Saturday the big screen had cut to Brian Kerr a couple of times, like he was Jack Nicholson courtside at the Lakers. This time the cameras were drawn to the Mads-Mikkelsen-like Swiss coach, Murat Yakin, so familiar to those who remember Kerr’s time in charge.
After Ireland’s decent showing against Belgium, some overexcited analysts had compared the Irish system to Bayer Leverkusen’s. Now an actual member of that all-conquering Leverkusen had turned up to show us how it’s done. Granit Xhaka ran the first half from midfield – his pinpoint deliveries to the flanks putting Ireland in the kind of awkward positions on the back foot that they had not faced against Belgium. Xhaka came close to adding a memorable goal, when he picked up a stray pass from Gavin Bazunu and nearly embarrassed the Irish goalkeeper with a 40-yard shot that came back off the post.
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Bazunu was one of three changes to O’Shea’s starting XI and let’s just say that nobody here will be surprised if Caoimhín Kelleher starts the next Ireland game. The goalkeeper was often brought into Ireland’s build-up play and it was noticeable that Switzerland gave him plenty of time on the ball, as though they didn’t believe he could play a pass that would hurt them.
The crucial moment of the game came midway through the first half when O’Shea’s unnecessary foul gave Switzerland a free-kick on the edge of the box. You don’t want to present Xherdan Shaqiri with this kind of opportunity but even he must have been surprised at how simple it was for him to shoot into the bottom left corner, through a couple of team-mates who had peeled off the edge of a crumbling Irish wall.
Bazunu’s starting position was quite central, as though he was concerned Shaqiri would go over the wall to the goalkeeper’s left side – but the ball was so close to the edge of the box that it would have been difficult for Shaqiri to get the ball over the wall and under the crossbar. The option Bazunu gave him of whacking it into the open side was much easier.
Mikey Johnston also started in place of the injured Chiedozie Ogbene. It wasn’t his night. His first couple of opportunities on the ball he ran into the first man. After that he seemed anxious to make up for it, as though eager to show the crowd his exceptional dribbling ability, and tried to run with the ball all the time when a little variation might have brought the element of surprise. He and Robbie Brady made a mess of a free-kick routine at the end of the first half – the disadvantage of more sophisticated set-pieces is there are more ways to mess them up. That was typical of the kind of errors that undermined Ireland in their good moments.
O’Shea made three subs in the 57th minute in an effort to take back control of the game: Adam Idah, Matt Doherty and Will Smallbone for Johnston, Andrew Omobamidele and Jason Knight. Idah went to centre forward with Evan Ferguson dropping back to the right of the front three and the sparky Sammie Szmodics moving back to the left where he had played on Saturday. The idea was to get Ferguson more involved in the game: maybe his clean technique and cool decision-making could help make something happen. It was worth a try as he hardly had a kick at 9.
O’Shea ended up making all six substitutions, but, perhaps surprisingly, he stuck with five at the back until the end. It wasn’t that Ireland didn’t try to push forward – they did, but without any real creativity. Switzerland looked the more dangerous side on the counter in the closing stages, with Dara O’Shea’s pace bailing Séamus Coleman out of one sticky situation after the captain had missed a clearance on halfway.
Going forward, Ireland kept self-sabotaging with unforced errors. Finn Azaz – who produced a couple of lovely touches after coming on for Josh Cullen in the 87th minute – had roused the atmosphere with a little jink in the penalty area. When Coleman cut out a Swiss attack and broke forward through midfield, leaving opponents trailing, the crowd roared in anticipation – was this the moment? Coleman lofted a diagonal ball over the head of Ferguson and out of play. It was that kind of night
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If o shea gets the job we are flying looking at saturday night.
Gav Cooney on the wireless saying that he doesn’t think it’s Gus Poyet waiting in the wings and that anyone who watched Greece last night will hope it’s not him. Accused Poyet of playing Stone Age football.
I noticed FotF Gav saying on the tweet machine last night he was a little embarrassed watching Greece because he claimed they were a good side last year.
I thought to myself: that’s because your starting point last year was to deflect & cover for Stephen Kenny, you speccy little nerd.
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Those lads read more football than they see of it. If he logged out of his Guardian account-Greece are the same as they always were(dour cunts). I’ve never seen Greece play though.
There’s lads here who’ve seen Bosun Lawal play once against Italy in an U21 match and are confident he’ll anchor the senior midfield for the next 10-15 years.
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I’d say he was being self-deprecating there imnvho.
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