There is a heap of these lads on twitter this morning sharing a graph that says that Azerbaijan has 26 full time coaches per academy set up while Ireland has zero to shape the narrative that actually drawing against them and dominating the game is actually great work by Spock.
8 Likes
Kilbane got poked in the eye in the celebrations i think. Had to be subbed off 
Are aze stone useless or what to say we would think it’s a diving right to finish above them?
Early actually sums it up well.
Knowledgeable football men choked on their mid afternoon snacks when they saw the team selection.
It was always going to be disjointed with the midfield two and the three forwards with nobody capable of linking it together.
There was indeed loads of times with 4 players in a straight line up front all looking to get in behind but to the detriment of any build up play.
1 Like
I think the tactical analysis there is spot on.
The players didn’t suit the system. The wing backs wee ineffective. The midfield had no control and the front three were disjointed. And that was just in an attacking sense. Defensively, we were weak through the middle and we were unable to manage a coherent press.
We were probably fortunate at the time we conceded. I don’t think Kenny would have changed things until it was long past needed otherwise. A late goal and we’d have lost.
His treatment of McGrath is odd
3 Likes
I wouldn’t be a fan but Damien Delaney did some decent analysis on VM sport as to why the 3-4-3 simply didn’t work. It essence, it left Cullen and Molumby in a no win situation and allowed Azeraijan to ping balls out from the back first half and bypass the two lads who were in no mans land.
Kerr was laying the blame on Anthony Barry, reckoned that the 3-4-3 set up is his idea as it is what he is used to at Chelsea. Did we play this shape before he came in?
We don’t have a divine right but we should be aiming to finish well above them, and Luxembourg.
1 Like
It was shared with me too. My reply was that Azerbaijan are currently ranked 112th in the world, below powerhouses such as Guinea-Bissau, India, Kenya and Palestine. No amount of shite talk about “trying to do things the right way”, changing the system or being screwed over by Delaney can excuse our current run of form.
4 Likes
They are also rich with oil money
Coleman stepped out on the right side as an overload in midfield but he fucked up all width down that side as he was like an old inside right at times. Doherty had 2 overlaps in essence as Parrot was statically taking up space almost directly in front of Coleman. Essentially one player could take 3 Irish lads out of the game by cutting off one lane. This happens when Hendrick plays too, he essentially drifts right looking to create a triangle but instead creates a single line out the right
Thats really basic stuff for the players to create angles and passing options…
It worked out the left in the second half as Horgan kept his width, Cullen held the middle and MCClean had one overlap.
McClean having 102 touches is some disaster from our point of view. We really should have gone with Manning or even had Hourihane there. At least he can cross and has decent passing ability.
Not sure why we didn’t just put Omobamidele in and leave it as Coleman on the right and Doherty on the left. @peddlerscross made the point the other day that there’s no continuity in the team which is a good one I think. Any time a team sheet is released it seems to be like a lucky dip of players and guessing what the formation is going to be
5 Likes
Kenny talks a lot about being ‘flexible’ and ‘adaptable’, but what he’s doing is just throwing darts at a board and praying he’ll hit the bullseye.
Why not stick with 3-5-2 and keep three in midfield which would have kept us with a far more solid shape and allowed Connolly/Parrott to play centrally off Idah and Brown or McGrath with an advanced role in the 3 man midfield in which would have suited all involved much better.
We were told when he took the gig that Kenny was a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 man which meshed with how all irish underage teams play. Kenny wants his team to play possession football but doesn’t seem to know how to do it or how to organise them without the ball. Our better performances have come away from home against sides that are better than us where we have had no choice but to sit in and be compact.
1 Like
Agreed. Whatever about changing the formation (unnecessarily) he didn’t need to change the defenders and wing backs. An ill advised move that didn’t seem wise and didn’t work.
I think the England and Chelsea examples that Early wrote about above are the key to this. He wanted to be flexible and adaptive and tailor the formation to suit the individual matches.
The reality is it didn’t work at all. But beyond that, we haven’t mastered our 3-5-2 (or indeed any formation yet) so why change it, particularly when it worked reasonably well? We have limited time together, we’re told about the limitations of the squad. So then don’t expose those limitations by asking the players to switch after one game and asking a midfield two to compete against a three (which is rare these days).
I referenced this too. I’m guessing he thought he was being cute by playing Coleman as right centre back. Thinking he could pick his moments to get forward and create overloads on that side with Doherty and Parrott. Coleman had that early effort when he stepped in and won the ball, used the boys as decoys and shot wide with his left, but it was otherwise incoherent and lacking fluency, as @EstebanSexface alluded to. It actually takes an awful lot of training ground work to get that system right. The movements of the players need to be interlinked, but we looked like it was just rolled out on the pitch.
Then there was the impact elsewhere on the team by that Coleman decision. Leaving Omobamidele (spelling?) out to play Coleman in the centre meant starting McClean. Allied with the decision to drop McGrath, who can play a pass and has a bit of composure, and going from 3 to 2 in midfield, and it all went wrong. Especially when 1 of the 2 was Molumby running around like a headless chicken.
Ah lads, it’s grim. But we need to give it more time.
2 Likes
You rarely see a horses for courses approach work at international level. Any decent team in a tournament essentially have 9 or 10 positions sown up and then maybe a winger or other attacker is interchangeable with one of the subs. I know its harder now with 3 games in a week but we should be treating the qualifiers like a major country would treat a tournament knockout stage
Ironically Southgate and England are among the most flexible around
1 Like