Re: Irish Squad for Wales and Slovakia games

Agree with that completely

This is the Wales squad for the game against us and San Marino. Koumas is suspended for our game. There seems to be a lot of shit there

Danny Coyne (Burnley), Paul Jones (QPR), Darren Ward (Sunderland), Gareth Bale (Southampton), Danny Collins (Sunderland), James Collins (West Ham United), Richard Duffy (Portsmouth - on loan at Swansea City), Steve Evans (Wrexham), Craig Morgan (Peterborough United), Lewin Nyatanga (Derby County - on loan at Barnsley), Sam Ricketts (Hull City), Andrew Crofts (Gillingham), Arron Davies (Yeovil Town), Simon Davies (Fulham), David Edwards (Shrewsbury Town), Carl Fletcher (Crystal Palace), Jason Koumas (West Bromwich Albion), Joe Ledley (Cardiff City), Carl Robinson (Toronto), Craig Bellamy (Liverpool), David Cotterill (Wigan Athletic), Jermaine Easter (Wycombe Wanderers), Ryan Giggs (Manchester United), Chris Llewellyn (Wrexham), Paul Parry (Cardiff City).

Carl Robinson plays for Toronto? Is that the ex-Wolves guy? Is Gabbidon injured? Not much of a defence were my first thoughts, then I noticed the midfield which is awful.

New article on this week’s games on the front page.

rocko, sort out the order of stuff!

Good work - I’ve changed the order. Did you forget to use paragraphs?

What you talkin’ bout, fool.

It’s great that we’re keeping up our new year resolution of adding an article a day.

That Wales squad is rubbish. Robinson is playing MLS with Mo Johnstone’s Toronto. He used play with Wolves, Sunderland and others!

No overly confident of beating them though.

Well done on the improved formatting.

Good article. To address some of the points you raise:

  • I wouldn’t mind seeing us beaten. Does that make me a prick? Hope not but I’ve lost what respect I had for Staunton and cannot see him winning me over. Ever.

  • Do people look on his playing career with rose-tinted glasses. He was a good youngster, then matured into a reasonable but ponderous left midfielder (a poor man’s Alan Thompson) before ageing first into the most unathletic central midfielder the world has ever seen (didn’t he play for us there against the Netherlands in the Anfield playoff) and finally into a centre half that could neither run nor head the ball but could take free kicks from the back and was a decent reader of the game. Remember how calamitous he nearly was at home to the Dutch at Lansdowne. Panicking at the back like a kid.

  • Enjoyed the hospital analogy

  • His selections have been truly mind boggling. Worse have been his explanations. Premiership football my hole. He doesn’t even think through his excuses properly. And the media picked Carsley for him. Sometimes when I’m playing Football Manager 2007 I go straight ahead to the next match and forget to recall one of my midfielders to the team after his suspension. Then I remember during the game and bring him back for the next one. I get angry with myself for not concentrating properly. I get the feeling that’s what happened with Carsley. Stan forgot about him.

  • I’m predicting a 1-0 victory.

Carl Robinson plays for Toronto? Is that the ex-Wolves guy? Is Gabbidon injured? Not much of a defence were my first thoughts, then I noticed the midfield which is awful

Gabbidon is definitley out, Welsh are really struggling for a decent centreback pairing.

For the first time in many many years I can honestly say I’m not at all looking forward to going to the coming games, the Croke Park factor is not even exciting me. It’s f**king depressing at the moment and who can blame the Whales for being confident of taking 3 points. Also the thought of John O’Shea prancing around the hallowed turf of Croke Park is sickening me.

Yeah, I don’t think he was all that great for us as a player. It;'s just that the fook got over 100 caps and was on the pitch for a lot of our famous victories.

The Football Manager point is actually very funny. Did you ever have a player from Africa like Bobo whose international games don’t tie in with the European calendar. He went off to play African Nations in my game and was back about 6 weeks before I realised! Totally Stan like!

I generally want us to win and I definitely do this time too. 2 wins and then Stan to resign would be ideal.

Wales are probably worse than us and they lost 5-1 at home to Slovakia so anything could happen.

I don’t see what the big deal is about getting rid of Staunton. And before everyone bites my head off, I just mean that I understand that those who hired Stan are still there, and will be hiring the next manager, so why do we think we’ll do better next time, especially with a worse record and facing into a worse draw in the next qualifying campaign? Really the focus should be on getting rid of those who hired a patently unqualified manager.

Very true.

It went largely unnoticed but before Christmas Delaney gave himself a contract extension! I can’t recall for how long but it was definitely very much long term.

Those ‘in the game’ say Delaney is quite competent and was a driving force behind Genesis etc but appointing Stan will surely haunt him.

Muppets, thats what the majority of them are. Read a the press conference given by Richard Dunne the other day, complaining about Kerr. He used to make them have meetings and watch DVDs, and wiat for it, visit hospitals. Basically behave like professional sportsmen. And the lads couldn’t handle all of this taxing work he reckons, they just wanted to relax. To me it looks like the cooonts took to relaxing on the field. What a shower of fuckers. Granted I’m jealous of their wealth etc but what a comment to make, they could take a leaf out of the rugby boys book and at least prepare properly. I criticised them for the French loss but they lost having done the work before hand.

Despite not having a massive interest in rugby, I really want the team to win, and admire how they go about their business. The current soccer crowd turn my stomach though. People who mess off the field and produce the goods are tolerable, but those half wits forgot the performance bit.

Rant over.

here is the team:
given, finnan, dunne, mcshane, o’shea, duff, carsley, douglas, ireland, kilbane, keane.
No mcgeady, o’dea or doyle. what a joke.

Spot on the money there - those comments from Dunne were dreadful. The complaints about Kerr being “always busy” are ludicrous and the stuff about having to visit hospitals is never going to reflect well on him.

My God that was mind-numbingly awful. As bad a game of soccer as I’ve ever seen really with the two teams competing with eachother for levels of ineptitude.

Marks out of 10:

Given - 7 saved the one chance from Bellamy with his legs and was competent otherwise though his kicking was wayward

Finnan - 6 needs to play on the right hand side unless injuries force him to cover the left. He didn’t get forward as threateningly on that side and a couple of times needed to take a touch to steady himself before crossing. Defended fine

Dunne - 5 played well for the most part and won everything in the air but nearly cost us badly with the dawdling on the ball in the first half to allow Bellamy in.

McShane - 6 didn’t have much to do and didn’t excel or embarrass himself.

O’Shea - 5.5 not a threat going forward and some really aimless punts down the line at various stages. Never really threatened defensively though

Ireland - 6 poor on the right flank (not his fault) but improved when he came inside. One good ball for Keane and then took his goal well but his performance was patchy until then.

Douglas - 3 what was the point? Didn’t tackle, didn’t pass, didn’t do anything except run the ball across the pitch and then out for a goal kick on the far side at one stage. Not good enough and not better than Hunt or McGeady who he was effectively replacing.

Carsley - 5 like Douglas but better. Really should have dominated the Welsh midfield but at least he showed for the ball a couple of times.

Kilbane - 4 like Douglas but won some stuff in the air, not that we did much with it. At least he had energy and he did break forward a couple of times but he offers absoultely nothing as a creative force.

Duff - 5 started very brightly only let down by his final ball which really needs work. Then he faded and did little else for the game. Should have scored

Keane - 6 started badly and things weren’t working out for him but he rallied and picked out two lovely passes for Duff’s chance and Ireland’s goal. It was a rare moment of class on the pitch.

SUBS

Doyle - 5.5 nearly scored a fluke but didn’t have many other chances because we were shutting up shop
Hunt - 6.5 brought energy and enthusiasm and managed to win free kicks
Aiden - not on long enough to rate

Staunton - 4.5 awful selections with people playing out of positions and the inexplicable decision to start Douglas in midfield. We looked devoid of any motivation.

RT analysis was quality:

  • all agreed that Staunton is not the man for the job
  • they lambasted him for playing Ireland out of position and then they interviewed Ireland who said he was uncomfortable on the wing
  • Dunphy said he hadn’t wanted Ireland to win (he wasn’t trying to be controversial in fairness, he said it after the game and he was being truthful)
  • Brady and Giles didn’t disagree with that

Few things Id have to say about the performance.
Keane was useless today apart from giving the ball to Ireland to score(thank god the roles werent reversed)

Hunt should have started the game. He runs at players and not only that he beats them, unlike Kevin “Horse” Kilbane or “Who the fook are you” Douglas. We need a mix of players in the team, not a team of grinders.

I agree with Dunphy, I said before the match I was was in two minds if I wanted an Ireland win. After the game my mind was made up. A loss would have been for the greater good of Irish football.

My ‘match day experience’ was pathetic.

When I heard the team I was literally flabergasted. What an absolute joke.

The performance was in line with the team selection - truly awful. As I said to the lads after about 65 minutes, it reminded me of Patches O’Houlan’s quote in Dodgeball, ‘It’s like watching a retard trying to fuck a door knob.’ Both teams were the retards.

I don’t know what was worse:

a) two tricolours at the Canal End with’Chelsea’ emblazoned on them (I really thought I’d seen it all before that - Chelsea?!!! A fascist, right wing, racist support with links to Combat 18 and the National Front and some Irish fooking dickheads decide they’re going to support them and publicise it at an Irish game. My fooking God).

or

http://www.thefreekick.com/board/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif the Mexican wave for 15 minutes in the second half when Wales were having a concerted period of pressure and we had to dig in and needed the crowd to get behind us.

I think people have commented enough on the team selection. Still can’t believe it. McGeady’s given a free role away to Milan in the Champions League but apparently he’s not good enough to get in a midfield ahead of Ireland, Douglas, Carsley and Kilbane!!!

Sweet Baby Jesus and All The Little Orphans. I am astounded.

I was going to comment on the Mexican Wave but forgot by the time I made the post. What a pathetic atmosphere to generate at the first match at Croke Park. The quality on show didn’t help of course but 15 minutes of the Mexican Wave during a competitive international is really, really embarrassing.

I too was disgusted by the Mexican Wave. One of the most dour matches I’ve ever been at, as Stan said himself if you can get yourself up for a game in Croke Park then we’re all in trouble. Indeed Stan.

At least Robbie Keane is suspended for Wednesday so we won’t have to watch the little prick complaining on Wednesday night.

Anyone know of the rte analysis is online somewhere?

Again, I’m quite surprised by the criticism of Keane. A load of people I’ve spoken to were raging with his performance but I just don’t see it. Pagey was adamant he should have been hooked at half time, farmer text me to see whether I could continue to defend him after his performance today.

I was kind of thinking he was central to the only 2 quality pieces of play in the whole game; a through ball for Duff’s one on one that the keeper saved before playing the superb first time around the corner ball to Ireland for the goal. We have a lot of problems but Robbie Keane would be well down the list in mine anyway.