It used to matter, it used to be exciting, it used to be tense
It’s no longer any of those things, well it’s very rarely the case that it is anyway, the Wales and Denmark games at the end of 2017 were tense but there was still the feeling that the prize at the end of it all was to just be in Russia for the beer and nothing else
That isn’t Mick’s fault, it’s not even O’Neill’s or Trapattoni’s fault, it just feels like international football in general no longer matters very much, and that feeling is obviously amplified because we’re shit
I think it’s also because international football in general is of a much lower standard than the Premier League and the Champions League
It all feels very primitive
That used not be the case
When the Premier League finishes up the previous weekend you groan to yourself, “ah fuck, internationals next week”
International football is a far stronger than the premier league. It’s why the home nations plus Eire struggle. All their players play a shit standard off football week in week out.
Two bites at the cherry for us. Win one of the last two games and we’re there. Not the worst position to be in, Switzerland and Denmark are not world beaters.
Two draws and we’d be needing Georgia to get a result in Switzerland.
The premier league is a pass and rush league. Spain, Germany, France and Italy are far stronger because the majority of their players play in technical leagues. The premier league is an awful standard.
The Denmark win over the Swiss was probably the worst result possible for us. It makes today’s draw a bit worse and means that we’ll probably now need a win from the last two games?
I don’t think Georgia ever really threatened, their build-up play was decent but lacked a threat in the final third. Our build-up play was poorer. Our midfield didn’t really look for the ball which is a problem, and Duffy coming out with it actually looked like the person most likely to make something happen (and he’s not even good on the ball).
Things never really happened for Collins, but how many balls to feet (or even chest) did he get? And he was so isolated. McGoldrick’s movement is probably better and we need him back.
McCarthy’s subs were strange, I thought. Generally, I think he’s been pretty good with his subs in this campaign but Browne for Robinson was baffling when Whelan and Hourihane in particular were shocking. And even the timing of them, I didn’t think we were going to lose that match and I don’t think bringing Browne or Connolly or the likes of Judge or even Byrne would have lost us the game. I think the comments about how stretched we are are right too, very hard to implement a high press if there’s that much space between the lines. It’s no use the front 3 squeezing if our backs are 70 yards back.
A disappointing performance, a disappointing result. That’s not to say we won’t get something against the Swiss, we’re still very hard to beat and could always nick one from a set-piece.