this general decline might be a necessity in hitting a suitable soccer low i which ireland can once again ascend from to italia 90 type elations.
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Isaksson
Lustig Granqvist Olsson Safari
Elm Kallstrom
Larsson Ibrahimovic Kakaniclic
Hysen
Was chatting to a Swedish friend on twitter earlier. on the prospect of Green man-marking Ibra, "Zlatan started laughing when he was told this by the journos."
Sweden's team:
Elmander's replacement Hysen plays for Gotherberg and has 8 goals in 27 games for Sweden.Code:Isaksson Lustig Granqvist Olsson Safari Elm Kallstrom Larsson Ibrahimovic Kakaniclic Hysen
Kacaniklic starting on the left is the other interesting selection.. Thought he looked impressive enough in what I've seen of him playing for Fulham, though I just read he was sent on loan to Burnley recently. Also Kallstrom is back in instead of Wernbloom. Besides that it's the same team they've had in the past few qualifiers I think.
If McCarthy is in for Whelan then that's an improvement.
True, we're shit. But we shouldn't be. Go to their Wiki. Have a look at their squad. They have no one other than Zlatan. That fat lad who scored a few for Bolton? Gimme a break. Lustig of Celtic, very average, the Olssons of Blackburn and WBA, Larsson from Sunderland....we should be on a par with these cunts.
The issue with Long is that he is a great nuisance player, but he is not really a ball-winner in the air, he is most definitely no Niall Quinn. So every time we lump a ball forward, it is still just going to come straight back. We need someone with height if we are going to try and play that game. Stick Richard Dunne up front when he gets back. If he gets back.
We definitely need to go 5 across midfield, I don't think anyone will argue with that, or would have argued with it for the last couple of years. 4-4-2 is dead. But I don't exactly think we were slow moving forward, the problem is we set out to be strong defensively, and if you then try and move forward too quickly, you leave room at the back. I think if we had a player that could win those long balls and hold it up, we might be okay. Funny enough, Doyle is probably the best we have as far as actually doing that goes. Which isn't saying much.
If we are going to maintain the same kind of pretty effective defence as we had on Friday, and also be able to move forward quickly, then we'd need total ball control like Spain. I don't know if there are any teams in the world right now that can attack quickly without leaving spaces at the back. Maybe Bayern or Germany? It seems a more German kind of approach, anyway.
That's Traps problem though, it's always control over ambition. We don't press players to win the ball back. We retreat into a defensive shell, allow them to have the ball for long periods wait patiently to win it back and then crawl forward with one eye on our defensive shape for the inevitable retreat as soon as we lose it.
I actually felt like one of the positive aspects of the Sweden game was that the Irish players did press quickly to win the ball back, and high up the pitch too, even Keane in his deeper position was snapping at the heels of Elm and Kallstrom as soon as they got near the ball. Maybe Trap realises now that minus Dunne and Given we just can't do the sitting back pressure absorbing thing for the whole match (or that it was never going to be successful against the top level of opponent anyway). There is obviously still a major conservatism there, the priority was on protecting one point and the opening salvo with the fullbacks pushing up then the final 15 minutes with Hoolahan on was the biggest perceived risk he was willing to take.
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