Ireland vs some Sultan or other, Stalin (1 Viewer)

[washingcattle]

We need to keep the width, the issue is that we need the midfield and wingers to link up properly, instead of running into fucking blind alleys. The whole team needs to be more mobile in terms of positioning themselves to better attack and defend the area of the pitch that the ball is in, instead of just thinking that it's the job of whoever just happens to be out there at that particular moment in time to do something useful.

Good finish by that Albanian fellow. That's a goal that Unknown Fan might have scored 6 years ago, but nowadays he'd flap fucking uselessly at it and hit it into the ground and over the bar or miss the fucking thing altogether.

Yeah exactly so let McGeady and Brady float in off the wings and have Coleman and .... eh..... someone.... not sure who. Bomb on past them to provide width. I'm fairly convinced that McGeady and Hunt looked as bad as they did for Ireland over the years because they ended up isolated by the "Though shalt not cross the halfway line" dogma that Trap imposed on his full backs.


Well that and Hunt was shite. McGeady's done okay for us this season. Him and Naismith have probably been our best players.

Yeah I know. Whodathunkit?

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Brady me hole. Not on current form anyway, and there's not much else to go on given that he's usually injured. Do you not remember the amount of times his first touch went 10 yards away from him over the last two games?

I think comparing us to Scotland based on last night is a bit unfair. Different challenges, different conditions. I think we could put in a performance in Germany too, but more specifically I think we can do a number on Scotland in Glasgow. Here's why:

BLIND FAITH

 

[washingcattle]

Brady me hole. Not on current form anyway, and there's not much else to go on given that he's usually injured. Do you not remember the amount of times his first touch went 10 yards away from him over the last two games?

I think comparing us to Scotland based on last night is a bit unfair. Different challenges, different conditions. I think we could put in a performance in Germany too, but more specifically I think we can do a number on Scotland in Glasgow. Here's why:

BLIND FAITH

Watched Brady changed the game for Hull hen he came on last week. They were shite but he was good. He looked okay to me. Didn't see the Oman game. Better than John Walters, who just isn't a winger.

 

[Jerry Twig]

I think Keane has to play

Still think that? I think he proved my point fairly convincingly. He's supersub now, or a starter against Gibraltar only.

McGeady you absolute beauty! He's always had it in him, and saying that, he still had a frustrating game overall. Nice to be Cattle, of all people, showing some love.
But it was a conservative Trap team out there. There's no call in a million years for Walters on the right. It'll do no harm to get Reid and even McClean back in the squad and Hoolahan to rack up a few assists against Gibraltar.
I'm still hopeful that MON will grow into the campaign and let Ireland go for it, and to be fair it was his first competitive game abroad against tricky opposition. Mind you, I see Poland and Scotland winning over there on the basis of that performance. Georgia need to be step it up. So do we, big time.
But 3 points, fucking delighted. Roll on October.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Robbie Keane was nonexistent, unfortunately. I'm not sure where I stand on him at this point. .

Sorry, missed this.
How you could only see that now, however, is still a mystery

 

[Splunk]

Still think that? I think he proved my point fairly convincingly. He's supersub now, or a starter against Gibraltar only.

McGeady you absolute beauty! He's always had it in him, and saying that, he still had a frustrating game overall. Nice to be Cattle, of all people, showing some love.
But it was a conservative Trap team out there. There's no call in a million years for Walters on the right. It'll do no harm to get Reid and even McClean back in the squad and Hoolahan to rack up a few assists against Gibraltar.
I'm still hopeful that MON will grow into the campaign and let Ireland go for it, and to be fair it was his first competitive game abroad against tricky opposition. Mind you, I see Poland and Scotland winning over there on the basis of that performance. Georgia need to be step it up. So do we, big time.
But 3 points, fucking delighted. Roll on October.

We do indeed need to grow into this campaign otherwise buh-bye Euro's 2016. We were shit against a shit team and awful to watch, Let's hope things improve. McGeady was great and his move to Everton under a top coach seems to have brought about a big improvement in his play. If he tweaks his game a little and cuts out those silly errors, improves his crossing and decision making then he can be our best creative player. Martin O'Neill will have learned a lot and he is a smart man so I am hopeful that this game will have been a big education for him. I agree with you that Hoolihan would be perfect against Gibraltar and his performance in that game might have a huge bearing on whether he starts against Germany. I think Martin will play him and tinker a little bit with the system that he has set up against Gibraltar. If we play like that against Scotland and Poland then we can forget about qualifying, and to be perfectly honest; I wouldn't want us to qualify if that was the standard of football we were going to be playing. It was too similar to Trappatoni's anti football philosophy.

 

[Unicron]

Sorry, missed this.
How you could only see that now, however, is still a mystery

I was away for the weekend and missed the game, what formation were we playing? Livescore was saying that it was a 4231, so Keane up front on his own? Which he's never been able to do, setting him up to fail really.

 

[washingcattle]

Still think that? I think he proved my point fairly convincingly. He's supersub now, or a starter against Gibraltar only.

McGeady you absolute beauty! He's always had it in him, and saying that, he still had a frustrating game overall. Nice to be Cattle, of all people, showing some love.
But it was a conservative Trap team out there. There's no call in a million years for Walters on the right. It'll do no harm to get Reid and even McClean back in the squad and Hoolahan to rack up a few assists against Gibraltar.
I'm still hopeful that MON will grow into the campaign and let Ireland go for it, and to be fair it was his first competitive game abroad against tricky opposition. Mind you, I see Poland and Scotland winning over there on the basis of that performance. Georgia need to be step it up. So do we, big time.
But 3 points, fucking delighted. Roll on October.

Yeah if Everton keep signing Irish lads I may have to dine on humble pie for years to come. I thought McGeady did okay Keane really does him no favours. They never seem to be on the same wavelength.

I see Poland and Scotland dropping points there because they were hard to break down and got a lot of players behind the ball. Obviously we were shite but they were very negative. They basically had two decent players going forward and 8 lads behind the ball.

We do indeed need to grow into this campaign otherwise buh-bye Euro's 2016. We were shit against a shit team and awful to watch, Let's hope things improve. McGeady was great and his move to Everton under a top coach seems to have brought about a big improvement in his play. If he tweaks his game a little and cuts out those silly errors, improves his crossing and decision making then he can be our best creative player. Martin O'Neill will have learned a lot and he is a smart man so I am hopeful that this game will have been a big education for him. I agree with you that Hoolihan would be perfect against Gibraltar and his performance in that game might have a huge bearing on whether he starts against Germany. I think Martin will play him and tinker a little bit with the system that he has set up against Gibraltar. If we play like that against Scotland and Poland then we can forget about qualifying, and to be perfectly honest; I wouldn't want us to qualify if that was the standard of football we were going to be playing. It was too similar to Trappatoni's anti football philosophy.

It was a bit better than Trap, we passed it through midfield and looked totally comfortable for long periods. You'd never say that about a trap performance.

I was away for the weekend and missed the game, what formation were we playing? Livescore was saying that it was a 4231, so Keane up front on his own? Which he's never been able to do, setting him up to fail really.

It was like 4-3-3 in a sense but no one from midfield really got forward to support McGeady/Keane/Walters.

if Hoolahan and Long had been in there for Whelan/Quinn and Keane it might have worked but the front three looked very isolated. The first goal was the only time I remember McCarthy getting near their box.

 

[Splunk]

It was just about better than Trappatoni...just.

Scotland and Poland would have beat us last night with that performance.

 

[Jerry Twig]

The Portugal result has to be the most satisfying of the night.

Our problem is that half our players seem to be fucking stupid. Say we have the ball in midfield, right. Maybe Whelan or McCarthy will be on it, moving forward past the half-way line.
That player should have options to pass it. A forward coming short, another midfielder beside them, a winger making a move, another forward running off a defender's shoulder. There should be at least a couple of players within 7 or 8 yards or so, and then they can combine together, move the ball about a bit, and maybe create a gap somewhere.
Instead, that player gets the ball in midfield, moves forward a bit, looks up, and we have 2 players standing 20 yards away in the box, a winger near the fucking corner flag, another midfielder basically standing beside the forwards, and the only person anywhere nearby to pass the ball to is a defender behind them.
It's fucking crap like. The player support is non-existent. Tonight, pretty much except for McGeady, and maybe Brady when he came on, all the players were just moving towards the box and waiting for a ball to be lumped in which they might hopefully get a lucky break off.
Fucking bollocks 'football' like. I think it's a hangover from Trap's time, because that was basically his method of 'attacking' - just lump the fucking thing towards the box and see what happens. Show your total lack of surprise when Anonymous Fuckwit gets beaten to it by a defender.
The thing is, not having 2 or 3 players supporting the player on the ball just shows a total lack of fucking brains. How are you going to do anything effective with the ball, if the only fucking pass that's on is back to the goalkeeper?? The forwards are very culpable here - Keane is fucking useless as a pass option. Walters also doesn't give much support, but at least he generally battles for it if it goes towards him.
We're lucky McGeady seems to be on top form.

Hoolahan

 

[Cormcolash]

Fucking get Fat Andy back in the squad, he's been class for Forest for seasons now and putting him on the left and McGeady on the right would probably work wonders for us. Plus we'd have someone that can actually score from free-kicks too. Walters can go up front and fight people instead of Unknown Fan running nowhere.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Walters can go up front and fight people instead of Unknown Fan running nowhere.

FUCK THAT. Would you honestly play Walters up front before Long or Doyle?

Fat Andy keeps pulling out due to injury. Hopefully he'll be back next month.

 

[Cormcolash]

Walters has actually been good for us on the occasions he has gone up front. He's a good hold-up player, he just doesn't score that many goals. Oh wait, that's exactly the same as Doyle, whereas you can't even say Long is a good hold-up player...

 

[Jerry Twig]

Walters has actually been good for us on the occasions he has gone up front. He's a good hold-up player, he just doesn't score that many goals. Oh wait, that's exactly the same as Doyle, whereas you can't even say Long is a good hold-up player...

Hold up player?? What, you want us to play hoofball is it? Stuck in Trap mode still? Long makes better runs than Walters every day of the week, which is what you want for the likes of Hoolahan. He'd leave Walters for dead in a sprint. Doyle is better against weak opposition as he's a better positional player on set pieces, he's quicker and has a better goal ratio than Walters. He's also just a better player allround in my opinion.

We have a major problem up front, that's not denied. And I think Walters can do a job when needed, but he's our 4th striker. If MON heeded your advice he'd be hung out to dry, rightly. But it won't happen anyway, so carry on.

EDit: actually, I take that back, he's our 5th striker, IMO. He only stays in as MON sees him as a winger, which should be put to bed once McClean and Reid recover and Brady is match-fit, which he currently isn't.

 

[Cormcolash]

Long, Doyle, Walters; Unknown Soldier can fuck off!

 

[washingcattle]

Hold up player?? What, you want us to play hoofball is it? Stuck in Trap mode still? Long makes better runs than Walters every day of the week, which is what you want for the likes of Hoolahan. He'd leave Walters for dead in a sprint. Doyle is better against weak opposition as he's a better positional player on set pieces, he's quicker and has a better goal ratio than Walters. He's also just a better player allround in my opinion.

We have a major problem up front, that's not denied. And I think Walters can do a job when needed, but he's our 4th striker. If MON heeded your advice he'd be hung out to dry, rightly. But it won't happen anyway, so carry on.

EDit: actually, I take that back, he's our 5th striker, IMO. He only stays in as MON sees him as a winger, which should be put to bed once McClean and Reid recover and Brady is match-fit, which he currently isn't.

Yeah, hold up player, The big fucking lump that sits out in front and offers an out ball for the defence and midfield. I think you're confused about what he means by hold up player, it's hardly hoofball. Drogba was the best hold up player in the world at one point Chelski hardly played hoofball. There's a massive difference between a target man and a player who's going to hold the ball up. All counter attacks are based on having such a player.

As far as that goes actually Long is only marginally out in front of Doyle and Walters because he's a bit more mobile. Long has the most goals to games by the way but their records are pretty shocking.

Long 11/47
Doyle 14/60
Walters 5/27

That's 30 goals between them in 134 matches.

Robbie Keane has 62 in 135. I know that's not exactly fair because he's always played with a partner like Quinn or Doyle but I can't see where he fits in the team now, but without him where are the goals going to come from ? I'd almost swap him and Walters and let McGeady and Keane roam around where they like, but he'd never do any defending so he'd need Roberto Carlos playing outside of him.


Glad I'm not the manager.


No, wait no I'm not. I'd be fucking loaded.

 

[Cormcolash]

Yeah, cattle gets what I mean by hold-up player, someone that can actually battle for and hold-on to the ball whilst the team gets up the pitch, and also drop back from the frontline to receive the ball, not just some plank you lump the ball up towards and hope for the best.

The other thing, let's talk about Robbie Keane's goalscoring record. 62 goals in 135 games. Great, right?
On the one hand, yes, sure. So he must be pretty consistent even the last 3 or 4 years now that he is older, yeah?
Not so much.

Robbie Keane : Irish Soccer Player : International Football Caps : Goals
Scored for Republic of Ireland

Looking back the last 3 or 4 years, it's around 19 goals in 34 games, thereabouts. Sounds great, right? Well, let's look at who the goals have been against:

Latvia, Kazhakstan, Sweden, Faroe Islands (3), Georgia (2), Kazhakstan, Estonia (2), Macedonia (2), Scotland, Northern Ireland (2), Macedonia, Russia, Andorra

Lets look at who he hasn't scored goals against in the same period (competitive games):

Georgia, Austria, Sweden, Faroes, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Estonia, Andorra, Russia, Slovakia, Slovakia, Armenia

So what is this saying? It's saying the last 4 years or so, Robbie Keane only scores against fucking shit teams, that's what it's saying. The only two teams of any real quality he's scored against in that period are Russia and Sweden, both matches we lost anyway, 3-2 and 2-1.
Basically, since he hit 30, he contributes fuck all in the 'big' games. If he is up against a defence than has any semblance of a fucking clue how to play football, he won't score. We'd be better off with a player that drops back to help the midfield out, or maybe just another midfielder. Then we might not get hammered quite as easily by the likes of Germany and Spain.
The goalscoring record is a red herring. In the past he was good, sure. As he got older, he lost that bit of pace and stamina. Put him up against the good teams nowadays, and he does fuck all.
The likes of Long and Doyle don't have great scoring records or anything, but they contribute more on the pitch now than Robbie Keane does, because they can fight for the ball and win headers and shit and give us something to work off.

You wanna play Robbie, stick him in against Gibraltar and maybe he'll score another couple of hat-tricks and overtake Gerd Muller. But let's not fool ourselves that he's going to score that crucial last-minute winner/equalizer/consolation goal against Germany in Berlin, or Poland in Warsaw. They have defenders that have actually learned how to defend at some point.
If we're playing teams from Eastern Europe that are shit, put him on, he seems to bang them in then.

All that said, if he scores one more goal he overtakes Fat Ronaldo, hahahaha

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Sorry, missed this.
How you could only see that now, however, is still a mystery

Because he was still our only goal threat right up to the end of the last campaign. Do you not remember that? You talk as if it's a simple decision. Let's see the other options turn us into some kind of fearsome attacking force before forgetting Keane.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Yeah, cattle gets what I mean by hold-up player, someone that can actually battle for and hold-on to the ball whilst the team gets up the pitch, and also drop back from the frontline to receive the ball, not just some plank you lump the ball up towards and hope for the best.

The other thing, let's talk about Robbie Keane's goalscoring record. 62 goals in 135 games. Great, right?
On the one hand, yes, sure. So he must be pretty consistent even the last 3 or 4 years now that he is older, yeah?
Not so much.

Robbie Keane : Irish Soccer Player : International Football Caps : Goals
Scored for Republic of Ireland

Looking back the last 3 or 4 years, it's around 19 goals in 34 games, thereabouts. Sounds great, right? Well, let's look at who the goals have been against:

Latvia, Kazhakstan, Sweden, Faroe Islands (3), Georgia (2), Kazhakstan, Estonia (2), Macedonia (2), Scotland, Northern Ireland (2), Macedonia, Russia, Andorra

Lets look at who he hasn't scored goals against in the same period (competitive games):

Georgia, Austria, Sweden, Faroes, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Estonia, Andorra, Russia, Slovakia, Slovakia, Armenia

So what is this saying? It's saying the last 4 years or so, Robbie Keane only scores against fucking shit teams, that's what it's saying. The only two teams of any real quality he's scored against in that period are Russia and Sweden, both matches we lost anyway, 3-2 and 2-1.
Basically, since he hit 30, he contributes fuck all in the 'big' games. If he is up against a defence than has any semblance of a fucking clue how to play football, he won't score. We'd be better off with a player that drops back to help the midfield out, or maybe just another midfielder. Then we might not get hammered quite as easily by the likes of Germany and Spain.
The goalscoring record is a red herring. In the past he was good, sure. As he got older, he lost that bit of pace and stamina. Put him up against the good teams nowadays, and he does fuck all.
The likes of Long and Doyle don't have great scoring records or anything, but they contribute more on the pitch now than Robbie Keane does, because they can fight for the ball and win headers and shit and give us something to work off.

You wanna play Robbie, stick him in against Gibraltar and maybe he'll score another couple of hat-tricks and overtake Gerd Muller. But let's not fool ourselves that he's going to score that crucial last-minute winner/equalizer/consolation goal against Germany in Berlin, or Poland in Warsaw. They have defenders that have actually learned how to defend at some point.
If we're playing teams from Eastern Europe that are shit, put him on, he seems to bang them in then.

All that said, if he scores one more goal he overtakes Fat Ronaldo, hahahaha

Absolute bollocks. Maybe you could do a dossier on Shane Long, Kevin Doyle or AN Other's record against big teams over the last 4 years.

 

[Jerry Twig]

Because he was still our only goal threat right up to the end of the last campaign. Do you not remember that? You talk as if it's a simple decision. Let's see the other options turn us into some kind of fearsome attacking force before forgetting Keane.

Five goals in six games, a great return, but three of those were against Faroes and one against Kazakhstan. Where he thrives now, against sub-MLS defences, is where he belongs in the Irish team, cos he'll still bang them in.

Yeah, cattle gets what I mean by hold-up player, someone that can actually battle for and hold-on to the ball whilst the team gets up the pitch, and also drop back from the frontline to receive the ball, not just some plank you lump the ball up towards and hope for the best.

Yes, hands up, I thought you meant target man. Apologies.