The long and short of it is we have no one to kick the fucking thing into the net. Connolly is a handful in the way heās buzzing around and pacey, a new shane long basically.
Idah looks to be a good man to hold up the ball in the McGoldrick role.
Either fine as a foil for an actual striker perhaps but the two together is fairly toothless.
A tough game for oppostion centre halves but an easy game for their goalkeeper.
This could be liveable if you had a centre mid who could get forward and unlock defences or even a Stevie G type to arrive onto the knock downs or something but we donāt. Again thereās two or three midfielders there who could all do a decent job if we had someone with a bit of quality with them.
We are looking okay at the back to be fair.
McGrath looked encouraging tonight.
The way we are setup you need a lot from wing backs. Coleman and Doherty did well in the first half but once they sat back we had no cutting edge going forward.
Basically we are at least one of a top quality centre forward or attacking midfielder short of a decent team.
We really need Parrott to come good.
Tonight was positive and encouraging . However for at least an hour Portugal were very very lethargic .
Ireland though had a decent shape , defended well and looked dangerous when attacking.
The next two games will be interesting and at least 4 points are required to keep things positive
Fairly balanced so, bar Portugal blazing shots from everywhere? Was it a plucky bore them to submission performance or did the try and pass it
Great to see Duffy back in form as well. I donāt know what those bastards did to him in Glasgow, but Iām glad heās recovering
āDid we not win, Dick?ā
The free kick that finished in Ronaldoās first goal. Surely not a free kick?
Didnāt watch it and to my eternal damnation I honestly didnāt know it was on. Shame on me.
Impressed we scared the shit out of them though, we must have hope. As an aside I would know a fair few Portuguese from my farmer friend. His opinion of them is they have no class and are filthy disgusting bastards. In case anyone accuses me of racism, he is Italian.
The two of them are 21 and 20 tbf
Heās 19
Spec savers trip urgently required.
I actually think the Azerbaijan match is huge now despite the fact we havenāt a hope of qualifying.
A terrific performance but crucial now that we continue and beat a team who we will have to take the game to.
We need to try and get 4 points now in the next two, just to show we are moving forward. We can eat a shit qualifying if progress is being made. But we should still be finishing third in this group, even from here
I hope last night wasnāt one of those occasions where we raise our game for a superior team and then revert to type against opposition we should be beating comfortably the next day.
In fairness it was the most organised and motivated we have looked under Spock so far and he deserves credit for it. We scored and created another two or three decent chances.
But do we need to temper it due to Portugal possibly having a hangover from the Euros? Their gameplan seemed to play into our hands and they werenāt able to get in behind us or pull our defence out of position while they were fairly cavalier at the back with their full backs playing more as wide midfielders and not overly concerned about Ireland attacks which gave us a lot of room to play in and channels to hit when we did get the ball.
The back 5 and defending the edge of our box certainly played to our defensive strengths and it is good to see Kenny taking a more pragmatic approach in a game like this. There is a balance to be struck between trying to play passing football and being a solid hard nosed outfit who are committed and tough to break down, he moved way too far away from the latter in his first dozen or so games.
As @farmerinthecity Azerbaijan is a big game now, I wouldnāt care too much about the performance, a scrappy 2-1 win will do but if we were to draw or lose at home to them a lot of the goodwill from last night will evaporate.
In the cold light of day i know they were tired but surely Ronaldo should have been marked better for goals.
He had to go
How good can bazunu get? Heās still on the books at city isnāt he? I doubt that means much but at 19 to be playing regularly at league 1 which is good going.
Kelleher looks promising too but at 22 youād like him to be playing regularly as opposed to warming the bench. Iām sure he can learn plenty at Liverpool but Iād imagine first team football out weights the benefits of that.
Kelleher needs to get out. Playing games is a lot more important than Klopp thinking youāre a great fella. Bazunu looks like heāll go very far