Lot of shite talk on this thread. Whatâs new. Trap wonât go anywhere. At 73 and after that farce who else will take him. And the FAI canât afford to sack him, not with Delaney getting the first 400k out of the pot anyway. As for giving up the next qualifying campaign to blood players, well that wonât happen either. The FAI are flat broke and need to fill every single seat for the foreseeable future.
Anyway Delaney will have twigged that the fans are a bunch of witless goms just as happy, possibly even more happy, with gutless surrender than success. Cos like it proves that they are even better fans to be able to tolerate,bear and even glory in abject failure.
The end of the Spain game was for me an expression of support and gratitude to a set of players for what they had done in the last two and even four years to get us to Poland as they reached the end of the road in the campaign. I thought the attempt to do it again at the end of the Italy game was a rather sad effort to demonstrate that we are The Best Fans in The World.
I broadly agree with that but I felt the Spain game wasnât just an expression of support to the players - it was a show of defiance and pride. Obviously people who donât go to many games may be unfamiliar with fans being vocal irrespective of the result - whether it may be perceived pointless/juvenile or whatever in some quarters, it was a case of losing the âbattleâ on the pitch but not in the stands. I wasnât at the Italy game but I tend to agree with your point on it. The Spain game was of the moment and I donât think any of us was singing thinking âfuck, this could go viral on You Tubeâ but I thought the Italy match may have been a case of trying too hard all right.
I definitely thought it was, and it was the sense I got around from Ireland fans between the games. âIf the team were half as good as the fans weâd win the tournamentâ, etc. I stayed singing right til the end at the Spain game, but left on the final whistle after the Italy game.
But getting back to Faganâs point/barb, itâs a win/win for the FAI in that instance. If we qualify again, weâll probably 50%/60% fill the stadium like last time and get the financial rewards for reaching Brazil. But if we enjoy losing and embracing failure so much then we should sell out the stadium which would go a long way to make up for not qualifying.
Defiance and pride. Defiance against what ? If the team had shown a bit of defiance maybe there would have been some call for it. And pride in a 4-0 scundering that could as easily have been 8-0. Come off it.
Sounded to me more like a bunch of lame drunks singing at closing time kidding themselves that they were having a great time. And then trying to make something big out of it by using words like defiance and pride.
Exactly. It doesnât even matter if we have a manager or not because lads will just love to go along and sing to show defiance and pride and point out that the people who are sitting at home laughing at the good of it just donât understand the atmosphere.
Go. The players have stopped listening to him, theyâre confused by his selections and how he wants to play. The old guard has to be retired, we need to forget about 2014 and concentrate on 2016. Build a new team and a new way of playing.
The biggest problem is convincing Trap§ to go and who replaces him. The obvious answer to both questions I would have thought is Marco Tardelli.
Like Dan, I see these two things as being slightly incompatible.
Also, I think itâs a bit silly to say thereâs no one to replace him. There must be a heap of managers out of work. Speaking English isnât even a pre-requisite anymore either. With that in mind I would nominate Kenny Dalglish.