Ireland euro squad predictions (4 Viewers)

[washingcattle]

If they do win it'll become standard practice among the Italian cops to trump up some charges and arrest a patsy before every tournament to get the team focussed and what not.

Even this time the timing is so fucking strange. I mean Mauri is a professional footballer, he plays in Italy for Lazio it's not like he's going to disappear and open a business renting boats to tourists in Argentina.

 

[Unicron]

McShane ...

is in the squad.

 

[Jerry Twig]

In place of Foley. Feel sorry for Foley of course but really not that big a deal.

PS - someone let Cormcolash that there'll FINALLY be some Long Cox action against the Tuscany 11 tonight (albeit with Long playing on the right wing, which seems a bit of a weird one)

 

[Hector Grey]

McShane ...

is in the squad.

That's it lads. I think there's some cricket on somewhere. I'm off.

 

[washingcattle]

It's coming apart at the seams isn't it ? Green, Hunt and McShane are in Hoolihan, McCarthy and Coleman aren't. Just saying like.

 

[washingcattle]

Italy squad:
Goalkeepers: Buffon (Juventus), De Sanctis (Napoli), Sirigu (Paris St Germain).
Defenders: Abate (AC Milan), Balzaretti (Palermo), Barzagli (Juventus), Bonucci (Juventus), Chiellini (Juventus), Maggio (Napoli), Ogbonna (Torino).
Midfielders: De Rossi (Roma), Diamanti (Bologna), Giaccherini (Juventus), Marchisio (Juventus), Montolivo (Fiorentina), Motta (Paris St Germain), Nocerino (AC Milan), Pirlo (Juventus).
Forwards: Balotelli (Manchester City), Borini (Roma), Cassano (Milan), Di Natale (Udinese), Giovinco (Parma).

Goals up front Strong at the back, Pirlo is pretty much the only creative outlet in midfield though, could be darkhorses in a Greece victory kind of way. Ireland vs Italy may not have a single shot in 90 minutes.

 

[Richie]

That is extremely harsh on Kevin Foley if he's fit.. So we're on to praying now that O'Shea recovers in time. Or else Trap has identified that our best chance of success is scaring and confusing the opposition with waves of mid-Championship standard ginger power.

 

[Cormcolash]

We can just play 1-0-0 with McShane, everyone is fucked

 

[Jerry Twig]

I've very mixed feelings about Foley's rant to the press. He's devatasted and seems to be under the understanding that he was nailed down in the squad and didn't have to train till yesterday, but he also seems to think that the decision to drop him was based on his fitness, rather than the fact that Trap seems to think that we need extra cover on both the centre and right on the basis of the fitness of O'Shea, St Ledger and Dunne. Which then makes me worry about how this was communicated to him - cos he doesn't seem to understood that. He may also have lost the head too soon, as O'Shea is still not 100% by the sounds of it.
Anyway, here we go again with all the needless pre-tournament distractions. Hopefully it's a hill of beans.

 

[Anthem]

I've very mixed feelings about Foley's rant to the press. He's devatasted and seems to be under the understanding that he was nailed down in the squad and didn't have to train till yesterday, but he also seems to think that the decision to drop him was based on his fitness, rather than the fact that Trap seems to think that we need extra cover on both the centre and right on the basis of the fitness of O'Shea, St Ledger and Dunne. Which then makes me worry about how this was communicated to him - cos he doesn't seem to understood that. He may also have lost the head too soon, as O'Shea is still not 100% by the sounds of it.
Anyway, here we go again with all the needless pre-tournament distractions. Hopefully it's a hill of beans.

I get the impression that Trap is very unpredictable and moody. You might be his flavour of the month one moment then the next he takes a set on you. Look what happened to Steven Reid. Perhaps the same happened with Foley..who knows. I can understand Foley being pissed off esp. when serial donkey McShane gets in ahead of him. We all know that McShane is prone to garguantuan errors in important matches. I would rather if he had taking his chances with Foley. What a horrible way for the lads dreams to be torn asunder. Really cruel by Trap, but then again that's why he is such a legendary and successful manager.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Emmet Malone is fast marking himself out as an arsehole in my book. He completely overdramatised the Foley incident the first time, overexciting the wolfpack of hacks in Italy, and his piece today is another OTT attempt to keep the story going. No wonder Trap is at his wits end - do you think anyone in Croatia or Italy gives a fuck if some non-starter gets dropped for another non-starter in the final squad? They;re all just showing up their inexperience and ignorance of international footbal at this level.

"At this point the assembled journalists headed for their bus while trying to figure out quite how to put all of what had happened into words." We'll how's about you don't, and stick to writing about shit that matters?

 

[Hector Grey]

What's this about Italy pulling out?
HMMMMMMMMMMMMM. who would replace them? If that happened. Which it won't.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Jesus, you're worse than Emmet Malone! Prandelli said he'd have no problem with that in principle in response to Monti's loony comment that all Italian football should be suspened for 2-3 years. There's no suggestion that UEFA or anyone else will actually require them to withdraw from what I can see?

 

[Richie]

Saw there that Darren O Dea is being allowed to leave Celtic.. With Andrews looking unlikely to get an extension to his deal at WBA and Paul Green having refused an offer from Derby we're going to have 3 'unattached' players in the squad. Extra motivation for them to perform, I suppose.

 

[Unicron]

Re: The Foley thing. He's Gary Waddock 2k12, all things going well he wasn't going to get in the team, shame for him but tough titty. Similarly, all things going well then the Alan McLoughlin figure here won't be near the side either.

But McShane will score the goal that sends us through to the world cup in Brazil.

 

[washingcattle]

I'm in london so I haven't seen it yet but how did they fare against Hungary ?

 

[Luther Blissett]

The Hungary game was in keeping with most of Ireland's Euro 2012 qualifying campaign. Some great goalkeeping (Given made a couple of brilliant saves in the first half and Westwood once again showed that he a great shot stopper), lots of last-ditch tackles in defence, a midfield pairing that struggled to maintain possession and keep with runners from deep.

The hosts missed a number of few guilt-edged chances that superior finishers would have put away, but as dull a match as it was at times it wasn't all doom and gloom. Ward played well at the back and produced one great goal-saving tackle. Ireland created a number of good chances late on and with some better finishing could have got a win. The much-maligned Stephen Hunt played a few pinpoint crosses into the box late in the second half which Walters should have converted.

The biggest plus was that no one got injured. However, the main concern from last night's game would have to be John O'Shea's match fitness. He looked fairly off the pace which is to be expected having not played in a while, so hopefully he'll be on his game come Sunday.

The same could be said of Doyle who struggled to physically dominate his marker although the first-half conditions were awful. Walters is a bit of a plank but he won more in the air and got in behind Hungary's defence on a couple of occasions. Ideally I'd like to see Long partner Keane against Croatia, but it will most likely be Doyle. He's a good player and definitely someone whose best work doesn't come across in TV coverage, but he just looks off the pace at the minute.

There seems to be loads of doom and gloom surrounding Ireland's chances of getting out of the group. While I'm not expecting Ireland to light up the tournament with breathtaking football I think we've got a shot.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Interesting that you thought Ward played well - I thought he got out of position WAY too many times. He'll be slaughtered against Spain if he does that. I thought Walters was excellent actually, bar one shot which he should have hit the target with and one sitter of a header that he skewed. He's very physical but also quite deft - far less of a 'plank' say than Cascarino or Quinn.

I definitely like the cut of Westwood's gib. He needs to get off the bench or move clubwise.

Tardelli was heard to say that a draw with Croatia is OK, as we aim to beat Spain and Italy. Mmmmm!

 

[Luther Blissett]

Interesting that you thought Ward played well - I thought he got out of position WAY too many times. He'll be slaughtered against Spain if he does that. I thought Walters was excellent actually, bar one shot which he should have hit the target with and one sitter of a header that he skewed. He's very physical but also quite deft - far less of a 'plank' say than Cascarino or Quinn.

I definitely like the cut of Westwood's gib. He needs to get off the bench or move clubwise.

Tardelli was heard to say that a draw with Croatia is OK, as we aim to beat Spain and Italy. Mmmmm!

That's a fair point about Ward's positional sense, but I suppose being a converted striker/winger that was always going to be his weak spot. He just looked more composed on the ball than I'd seen him before in an Ireland shirt and pulled off that great tackle in the box (but these are small pluses I know).

I agree about Walters. He's big and surprisingly mobile. Although he gets slaughtered on lots of other message boards he's been effective in an Ireland shirt and as I said before made more of an impression on the game than Doyle who sadly seems devoid of confidence.

Hopefully that's Tardelli's attempt at mind games. Bilic has come across as fairly patronising towards Ireland over the last month and came out with some more platitudes after the game last night. Maybe that can work to our advantage.

 

[Richie]

Only saw about 30 minutes of the Hungary game. Hard to take too much from a game in those conditions and with the players presumably at half-throttle and trying to avoid injury. Walters gets into good positions and ruffles defenders but he lacks a finishing touch, I can see why Stoke fans find him frustrating. Does the hold-up / contesting aerial balls thing well and probably carries more of a goal threat than Doyle at the moment but I think I prefer Long as a player overall.

Defence had a worrying number of holes, O'Shea looking very rusty, Ward never really inspires confidence although he has a knack for last ditch tackles, and St Ledger lost his footing badly a couple of times. Going to be an awful lot of these 3 matches watched through the fingers, you'd have to think.

Trap making noises about a last minute switch to playing 5 midfielders, which (assuming he's not just trying to mess with Slaven Bilic) is something I wish he'd explored more six months or a year ago. There was that brief experiment in one of the friendlies with Keane playing a deeper role, which I think he'll end up doing anyway seeing as he'll be seeing so little of the ball otherwise. We seem to be trying to play the ball to feet a bit more and hit fewer aimless long balls in recent games, which is slightly encouraging, but the midfield pairing are being bypassed as much as ever, Whelan and Andrews barely seemed to be involved last night.