Re: Ireland - Slovakia on Wednesday night

How many people on here defending McGeady are not Celtic fans, I’d be very interested to find out. Because anyone I have spoken to outside of this forum are in full agreement with me. This is maybe due to the fact we’re right

What were you expecting from him? A hat-trick on his 2nd competitive start?

farmer says McGeady was poor. I class poor as being 4 or 5 out of 10. If that’s what you two are suggesting then you’re blatantly talking pi$$.

I was more than pleased with him and he’ll only improve as he integrates himself into the team.

I repeat - clowns.

5 would be about right for him. Blind

I repeat - Blind

Clown.

I’m no Celtic fan Flano, where are you going with this anti-McGeady carry on?

He looked uncomfortable and little nervous at times fair enough, especially early on, but he settled into the game well and rarely gave away possession.

We’re 1-0 up from early on so when we get the ball we need to keep it. Possession being nine tenths of the law in international football and all that.

McGeady does this neatly for the vast majority of the game and does some other more adventurous touches and turns that are quite decent yet still the lads have a go at him.

I don’t know where flano’s coming from but farmer probably wanted him to launch a few Hollywood balls and risk giving it away.

What did he do with the possession? He’s there to create chances, what did he create?

gerrardno1 is well known for his negative attitude towards Celtic players, yet he said at half time that McGeady was nervous at the start but playing very well.

Eh, he was involved in the move that saw Carsley taken down. We scored from the free kick. That was the only goal of the game. We won 1-0.

Ah lads this anti McGeady stuff is getting silly.

I think it was fairly obvious, and identified by a couple of lads on here, that the full backs were instructed to stay defensive and not support their wingers. Duff had the beating of his man, McGeady had a harder time from Gresko. When they swapped in the second half McGeady beat his man more than Duff beat his.

At all times neither Finnan nor O’Shea really helped them out. Both wingers were double and treble marked. Duff did exceptionally well on a number of occasions to beat these men (helped by a couple of deflections) but was let down by his final ball. Either way it was asking an awful lot of them to change the game on their own because of the outnumbering. Therefore Aiden adapted his game and fed Ireland in space inside who created from there without the same attention that the wingers were getting.

I’m not blaming the full backs for not getting forward because they were clearly operating to instructions and Finnan in particular was not comfortable on the side he was playing on.

That’s why I felt it was a mature performance. A couple of years ago Aiden would have brought out the tricks and tried to take on his men alll the time. That wasn’t really the right thing to do unless it was coming off for you, like it did for Duff.

When Hunt came on he did exactly that and it didn’t come off for him at all. He put in one great cross, after being played clean through, but when he had to take on his man he tried just that and lost the ball every time. At the end he realised his error and the last time he got the ball he did the right thing and played a simple ball in to Alan Quinn in acres of space. Quinn then lost the ball under no pressure and they nearly scored.

The point of all this is that the right thing to do last night was not to hit the byline and put in a cross to our sole centre forward. It needed more intelligence than that and it is in that facet of his play where McGeady delievered.

Good comment earlier on the Mexican Wave from Bandage I think. I couldn’t believe when I heard it and saw it on tv again. What utter clowns attend these games.

Can someone who was at the Wales game clarify something for me? Second half on the hour or thereabouts Ryan Giggs went to take a corner (where Hill 16 meets the Cusack stand). He appeared to be booed by a section of the Irish support - was this the case?

Just spoke to another non Celtic fan who was at the game and he ensured me that McGeady played well. I saw it on the box so he is in a better position to judge it than me

I like McGeady as a player. It is refressing to see a player with genuine skill attempting to express himself rather than a big physical fucker intent on ‘getting stuck in’. From what I saw I don’t think he had one of his better games but I realise that watchig it on the box doesn’t always give a true interpretation of what happened

And Celtic fans would ye ever relax with the whole siege mentaliy once one of your players is criticised. Straight away its an anti SPL/Celtic insult when it has nothing to do with that

I can’t agree with giving McGeady the same rating as Duff though. Duff was often triple marked and still managed to get the ball away. I cant agree that he fails to deliver the final ball - the problem last night that if he got away from the three markers he had only time to hit it into the vicinity of the penalty box. Unfortunately we were only playing with one striker

It is very refressing to see the likes of Duff, McGeady and Ireland free to express themselves rather than simply making up the numbers between the centre half and the big lad up front

Bellamy was booed all through. One lad up behind me somewhere shouted ‘scouse scum’ at one stage. What a clown.

The booing of Giggs was less noticeable but it did happen on occasion from a few other idiots.

I like McGeady as a player. It is refressing to see a player with genuine skill attempting to express himself rather than a big physical fucker intent on ‘getting stuck in’. From what I saw I don’t think he had one of his better games but I realise that watchig it on the box doesn’t always give a true interpretation of what happened

I saw it on the tv too so not really in a position to comment on that. What I will say though is that I thought he played fine. I think he can and will play and awful lot better but if you read my post above I think what I liked most was how he adapted to the game. He came looking for the ball in the middle a bit more and cut inside challenges to switch the play. He also brought Ireland into the game when it was obvious that’s where the space was.[

quote]And Celtic fans would ye ever relax with the whole siege mentaliy once one of your players is criticised. Straight away its an anti SPL/Celtic insult when it has nothing to do with that[/quote]

When you accept EPL/Liverpool/Leitrim/rural/Fowler/brother’s tapes/Simpsons criticisms then I’ll be glad to give a reasoned and considered response to your comments on Celtic.

I can’t agree with giving McGeady the same rating as Duff though. Duff was often triple marked and still managed to get the ball away. I cant agree that he fails to deliver the final ball - the problem last night that if he got away from the three markers he had only time to hit it into the vicinity of the penalty box. Unfortunately we were only playing with one striker

I cannot believe that Duff hasn’t worked on this aspect of his game more. Mourinho saw straight through him. Even Roeder has copped onto it. For all his possession and beating players he rarely scores and rarely provides an assist. He had one last night, though it was from a dead ball. Other than that he didn’t even create a chance for us in the last 2 games that I can recall and it was the same for the past couple of years.

On the last point about there being only one striker - that’s why he needed to look for the layoff more often. In the first half there were two occasions when he had the ball in the inside left channel at the edge of the box. Once Ireland was square and unmarked and once it was McGeady. Both times Duff went for the byline and managed to get a cross in that drifted out for a throw in on the far side.

t is very refressing to see the likes of Duff, McGeady and Ireland free to express themselves rather than simply making up the numbers between the centre half and the big lad up front

Agreed

I was just a bit surprised after the result we got that your second point was that McGeady was ‘poor’.

Keane wanted to join Celtic, McGeady plays for Celtic and these are the two most popular players to criticise on this board. They’d be loved if they supported and played for Lancashire teams.

  1. EPL criticism - what criticism is that? That it is not as good as Sky et al make it out to be? Yeah I accept that
  2. Liverpool - again what criticism is there? That they are not a big club? Don’t accept that
  3. Leitrim - that they don’t have the best full back line the country? That was said partly in jest but I do strongly believe that there are at least four players from the current Leitrim team that would walk into any team in the country. Michael McGuinness, John McKeon, Barry McWeney and Declan Maxwell. Not bad for a county with the smallest population in Ireland
  4. Rural - don’t know what you are talking about here
  5. Fowler - famously backed down on my argument here of him v Larsson in McDaids one night
  6. Brother’s Tapes - I do tend to get very passionate in music debates and quick to dismiss other people’s opinions. I am a huge music fan and it really bugs me when people advocate bands who I believe to be absolutely shit. I’ll hold my hands up here
  7. Simpsons - I’ll accept that its quality has dwindled in recent times but it maddens me when people advocate Family Guy and Soth Park over it when, in my view, they are a pale imitation of it. Also see point 6 above

Thanks for the clarifications. Now go and read my post (# 77) where I explained McGeady’s role and how effective he was. If you’re to be the future of the astro team you’ll need to understand these things.

everyone is being very harsh on keane, as i said before, i dont think he should be captain, but to say he should be dropped is ridicolous.

I also thought mc geady had a very good game. He holds onto the ball much better than duff. S ireland had a great game also.

pied i resent that comment about being anti-celtic,its just not true.

everyone is being very harsh on keane, as i said before, i dont think he should be captain, but to say he should be dropped is ridicolous.

I also thought mc geady had a very good game. He holds onto the ball much better than duff. S ireland had a great game also.

Bang on the money with all that.