We beat Luxembourg, 3-0 at their place.
And on a dodgy hip. The man was a legend but lads around here forget the great things he did for our country.
For Stephen Elliott iirc. Who did fuck all before and after that in his career
He walked out when he was needed most.
It will always and should always be held against him.
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“There’s a young guy at Sheffield United, Alan Quinn, he can get it and pass it. He’s a better midfielder than anyone involved here.”
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Uninteresting fact: I spent an evening drinking pints with Stephen Elliott around 12 years ago in Larry Murphy’s pub (long since closed) on the corner of Baggot Street. Elliott’s old Manchester City youth team colleague Stephen Paisley was the link, as he was back playing LOI and working in Bank of Ireland at the time. Elliott seemed like an affable chap, he told us all the young Irish lads that were trying to break through at City some years previously such as Glenn Whelan despised Kevin Keegan.
Like British politics for the last six years, pretty much everything Keane has said for the last 20 years is based on protecting The Big Lie.
His Big Lie.
Deep down he knows it’s a Big Lie, we know it, everybody knows it.
The truth is he threw a massive temper tantrum, left his team in the lurch and missed the World Cup himself ostensibly over some minor imperfections at the training camp but much more so because he couldn’t control his own personality defects and because he’d been harbouring an irrational personal grudge against McCarthy for a decade. Even then he had a way back but was too pig headedly proud to take it.
And the truth is that deep down he regrets it all bitterly. That’s why he came back under Kerr. But he can’t ever admit that to himself, let alone admit it to anybody else. That would be too painful in the short term. He has to repress it, which channels the pain in a different way - more manageable on a basic level, yet much more lingering, and more unhealthy and more dangerous.
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Turkey who are traditionally very strong at home trailed Luxembourg three times the other night and needed an OG and a pen to scrape a draw.
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And the Faroes islands best turkey last night.
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Talk about an understatement.
Exactly, the gap between the seeds is closing all the time now. Sweden are on their way to league C sure as it stands.
No easy games in international football despite what the AI spambot from cork thinks
A decent striker and a bit of luck go a long long way at international level.
Roy Keane was sent home by McCarthy. This is a fact.
McCarthy proceeded to play extra time against Spain not knowing the Spanish were down to 10 and he is the hero here for a few lads.
I’d say some lads are painfully ashamed of being Irish
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Lads around here don’t like facts.
The West Brit type lads will be on to say but but but he called Big Mick a cunt. Big Mick has been called and said worse himself.
Big Mick and the FAI made a clean fuck of the preparation and Big Mick couldn’t handle being called on it
A good manager wouldn’t have had such a shit setup in Saipan. A good manager wouldn’t have called a press embargo when the players had so much free time.
A good manager wouldn’t have called a squad meeting basically looking for support when what he knew would happen, happened exactly. A good manager would have had a one on one and talked the situation down, with his captain.
Roy Keane was being a captain. McCarthy was being a sneak
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You know somebody is badly rattled when they have to wheel out the old classic “West Brit”.
Mick McCarthy never shirked a tackle or a challenge in his life and never did so while playing or managing Ireland. As a servant to Irish football, somebody who always gave their all, despite their limitations, there are few if any finer.
Keane as we all know did shirk his responsibilities. He left his team in the lurch in Iran and he did so again in Saipan. It was his choice to go postal.
Had he had either the decency or the pragmatism to apologise, Mick would have taken him back in a heartbeat.
Keane had neither of those things. It was his loss. The rest of the players demonstrated that the notion of it being a one man team was baloney. They played for their country. Keane didn’t.
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You have to put your ego to the side though. He may have thought he was doing what was best for his country by demanding higher standards and sticking to his principals. But it’s a World Cup and the honour of captaining or just playing for your country there should take a precedence to everything else. I’d say he regretted it greatly. It was a sad state of affairs that he didn’t play. I’d imagine he was in turmoil for most of that summer, albeit he had the his sizeable club salary to numb the pain to some extent.
As @Cheasty mentioned the refusal to play in that tricky game in Tehran was a black mark against him too. You needed a fearless bastard in midfield in an intimidating venue like that. He was probably too loyal to Fergie back in Manchester at times, understandable in a way because he obviously viewed him as a significantly superior manager to Big Mick but Fergie wasn’t long tossing him to the side a few years later.
he was injured. He hadn’t played for the bones of a month before the first leg, he played and the leg didn’t react well. Ferguson and McCarthy agreed he wouldn’t play the second leg. I fail to see how that’s Keane’s fault
“Roy’s knee stiffened up considerably this morning. It was obvious he would not be able to play two games in five days and we had no choice but to send him back to his club”.
A managers job is to manage his players.
Mick couldn’t handle one of the best players in the World and one of the biggest personalities in the game.
Roy Keane shouldn’t have played in the first leg against Iran but did so against medical and Ferguson’s wishes
Keane played 90 minutes for Manchester United against Leicester in the Premier League at Old Trafford 48 hours after Ireland’s play-off in Tehran.
The knee must have miraculously unstiffened.
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