LOI in Europe 2011 [Archive] - Page 65

born2bwild

15/09/2011, 9:13 PM

Disappointing night to be honest. That first goal was so soft.
Ok atmosphere in the ground (We were behind the goal). I saw a few lads in Fingal jerseys too!
Music played at half time was funny - the first track frightened the bejesus out of me - I thought the sound of the jet taking off at the beginning of Back in the USSR was a real feckin plane about to hit the deck - you never know with them mad Russkies.
Ronan Finn was very disappointing - I reckon they need to play Mc Cabe instead of him from now on and keep Ronan for the league.

hoops1

15/09/2011, 9:31 PM

Really enjoyable night tonight. They were a serious outfit and I think we should be happy with a 3-0.
I have been following LOI the best part of 30 years and think they would have beaten any sides in LOI I have seen in that time.
They never really hit top gear but yet looked streets ahead.

Jicked

15/09/2011, 10:20 PM

Not really - got hammered 3-0 in front of a sparse crowd of which quite a few were leaving on 86 minutes (according to Extratime).

:D

From the bloke who's been going around for months with a Copenhagen or Belgrade avatar, just hoping Rovers got hammered in Europe. In the end you have to settle for us being outplayed by a team who've split four games with Barca, in the group stages of the Europa League, and its still a better result than Bohs managed against Total Network Solutions.

mypost

15/09/2011, 10:29 PM

Yes, bohs fans are lecturing us about crowd sizes these days.

You have to laugh. :D

BonnieShels

15/09/2011, 10:58 PM

http://foot.ie/attachment.php?attachmentid=1786&stc=1&d=1316114145

MON: Nah Rod, that won't fit wee Brian the way he's clenched, and besides, sure didn't cha always say you never go down?
RC: No, not, no, I said "never relegated". Ya roigh' Brian?

BonnieShels

15/09/2011, 11:04 PM

This was the tagline on the main sports' page on BBC.co.uk

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp says his side should have been awarded a penalty against PAOK Salonika as British and Irish teams endure a night to forget in the Europa League.

Great to see 'Irish' there despite the result and the context. Too often has that tagline been English and Scottish teams. Huzzah.

dfx-

15/09/2011, 11:11 PM

From the bloke who's been going around for months with a Copenhagen or Belgrade avatar, just hoping Rovers got hammered in Europe. In the end you have to settle for us being outplayed by a team who've split four games with Barca, in the group stages of the Europa League, and its still a better result than Bohs managed against Total Network Solutions.

:D

Go easy on him, he has a tough decision to stick with a Kazan avatar or change to the next club in-line.

On the game, I thought the result flattered them a bit. Two great strikes, two missed penalties, Rovers created a fair bit with two upfront and were in reasonable control of the game in the first half after the early scrappy goal. Which in fairness, Martins did react well to get there first. Even Alan Shearer would miss a penalty down the Car Park End. SOD can miss as many as he likes in the group stages, he scored the important one.

Not especially bothered about any of these six results, the exposure and build-up, anticipation is enough now. Rubin are easily the best side to come to Tallaght in three seasons.

Dodge

15/09/2011, 11:24 PM

Better than Real madrd? Probably...

bullit

15/09/2011, 11:43 PM

:D

On the game, I thought the result flattered them a bit. Two great strikes, two missed penalties,
.
The result didnt flatter RK at all, and dont try to flatter Shams,who were 2nd to every ball,were 2nd in 75% of the tackles.
RK never had a need to up their game at any time during the match and ran out easy winners at the end.
I am delighted for Shams to get this far but.... the gulf in class was apparrant.As M'ON said post match,it is a "huge learning curve for Shamrock Rovers".I wish yee the best, but that performace this evening was "C+". at most.

Nah Nah Nah Nah

15/09/2011, 11:49 PM

:D

Go easy on him, he has a tough decision to stick with a Kazan avatar or change to the next club in-line.

On the game, I thought the result flattered them a bit. Two great strikes, two missed penalties, Rovers created a fair bit with two upfront and were in reasonable control of the game in the first half after the early scrappy goal. Which in fairness, Martins did react well to get there first. Even Alan Shearer would miss a penalty down the Car Park End. SOD can miss as many as he likes in the group stages, he scored the important one.

Not especially bothered about any of these six results, the exposure and build-up, anticipation is enough now. Rubin are easily the best side to come to Tallaght in three seasons.

There's a huge amount to be gained from the exposure with the chance of getting new fans etc but that will be totally lost if they keep getting beaten as easily as they were tonight

dfx-

15/09/2011, 11:54 PM

The result didnt flatter RK at all, and dont try to flatter Shams,who were 2nd to every ball,were 2nd in 75% of the tackles.
RK never had a need to up their game at any time during the match and ran out easy winners at the end.
I am delighted for Shams to get this far but.... the gulf in class was apparrant.As M'ON said post match,it is a "huge learning curve for Shamrock Rovers".I wish yee the best, but that performace this evening was "C+". at most.

Not a whole lot to disagree in that. Except that it wasn't exactly a siege on Thompson's goal either. I can think of maybe two saves he had to make from open play, both straight at him. Two wonderful strikes massaged the scoreline. Rovers should've had at least one in the second half from open play alone and they didn't deal with Kilduff very well at all.

bullit

16/09/2011, 12:09 AM

I said it on-thread that if yee had have scored the pen,that it would have given yee a huge lift,but once it was missed the chance was gone & the Shams heads dropped.
Best off Oirish v Spuds,Jaysus i wud just love it if you could beat them,just love it ......

Charlie Darwin

16/09/2011, 1:03 AM

Just home now. Disappointed by the goals conceded (two great finishes but all caused by naive defensive lapses) but proud of the effort and the style of the performance.

To all the naysayer, I'm going to bed now and when I wake up tomorrow Shamrock Rovers will still be in the Europa League.

Spudulika

16/09/2011, 4:11 AM

I think Rovers can be happy with their performance, sure they might have played better, but Rubin just upped the ante every time they needed. What the numpties in the Irish meeja don't realise is that this team have been consistently one of the best teams in the Russian League and without wasting vast amounts of cash to do so. My colleagues were all impressed with the atmosphere in Tallaght but it was strange that we saw so many empty seats. The Russian commentators gave a fair amount of respect to Rovers, before the match kicked off (they don't do panels here) the commentator said that the worry was that Rovers would score early and defend.

Well done Rovers, well done LOI, check out Sovietski Sport today for some interesting photos!

SkStu

16/09/2011, 6:46 AM

now im a bit jealous...

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/1c/8c/d3/516065b6a92d0299cdddd3b89f5c307139f9ae142a/INPHO_00542831.jpg

BonnieShels

16/09/2011, 7:48 AM

Her scarf is broken.

Shelsman

16/09/2011, 8:05 AM

Well done Rovers -great performance overall. Pity about the missed chances by Rovers (two headers, the saved penalty, Chris Turner's sitter from 6 yards that he never took). The difference between the sides, much as wirth the Copenhagen games was the finishing -the opposition took theirs but Rovers didn't. The balance of play and the number of chances were even -Rovers are well able to play ball (and fair play to them for going about it that way, it's sooooo much better than watching Fenlon take a side into Europe where he plays 4-5-1 Long Ball against anything other than a team from the wee North).

Not sure about ye lads, but Pat Dolan drove me F****** NUTS last night -it seemed like he was up for the Russians?????

Also, the host and panel weren't great -what a shame RTE didn't get the rights.

BonnieShels

16/09/2011, 8:07 AM

RT� didn't .want them.

pineapple stu

16/09/2011, 8:20 AM

On the game, I thought the result flattered them a bit.
I got the feeling that if Kazan hadn't scored those two crackers, they'd have scored two others. They took the foot off the pedal the last 20 minutes and Rovers did their best to take advantage in fairness. Good to see Killer having a stormer. Dunno what Ronan Finn was doing on the right wing?

Spurs v Salonika line-ups are here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/14937226.stm); possibly sets a record for the highest cumulative shirt number total. There was talk of Spurs being fairly stretched by injuries, so maybe their weak team was due to that rather than 'Arry not taking the competition seriously.

(And as an aside, the Metro Herald today has a quite amazing report of that match. "Spurs hold on for point in Ukraine", is the headline, followed by references to gaining a good point in Greece before hitting the Italians' crossbar :eek:)

BonnieShels

16/09/2011, 8:30 AM

The Italian referred to Cudicini's crossbar not PAOK.

Carlo Cudicini was called upon to make three fine saves at the death and Vladimir Ivic rattled the Italians' bar in stoppage time amid a white-hot atmosphere in Greece

pineapple stu

16/09/2011, 8:33 AM

Yeah, but that should be Italian's. They'd gotten the apostrophe wrong. And it genuinely did confuse me at first, and it made the eff up funnier. :)

BonnieShels

16/09/2011, 8:47 AM

True dat.

Nah Nah Nah Nah

16/09/2011, 8:52 AM

Her scarf is broken.

She has a scarf? Oh yeah she does.

passinginterest

16/09/2011, 8:55 AM

It was a strange game last night, I don't think Rovers had really touched the ball before Kazan opened the scoring and they looked completely shell-shocked at that stage. They then started to get a foothold in the game, playing patient football and frustrating Kazan. For about 20 minutes Rovers looked the more likely to score without creating too many clear chances. Then there was that typical slip in concentration and they gave away the penalty, the save was a massive boost and there seemed to be real belief that they could get the equaliser.

Second half Rovers came flying out and had an early chance, then got caught with a sucker punch, maybe a little sloppy getting the ball clear again but a stunning finish. Again Rovers responded well and created some openings before Finn's great headed but the third following immediately after was a killer blow. Then came the penalty, the substitutions before the kick was taken was very odd and added to the pressure, there must be only about a 10% penalty success rate into that goal, it's bizarre. I thought Rovers move to 4-4-2 was going to result in Kazan getting 6 or 7 because it resulted in huge amounts of space in the middle, but Rovers adjusted the tactics, going direct to Kilduff and the Kazan defence looked a mess dealing with it. Kazan had great flashes and a few individuals that were a big step up, but a lot of their players were average enough too, I'm not sure how they would have reacted if Rovers had scored first as they looked very flustered in defence at times.

Overall I though Rovers probably deserved a goal but Kazan showed the extra class that they're going to face at this level. 3-1 would have been a fairer reflection on the game, hopefully they'll learn from this and go on to pick up a few points in the group.

redobit

16/09/2011, 9:41 AM

A licence to print money at 4/6 last night.

hoops1

16/09/2011, 9:46 AM

redobit

16/09/2011, 10:15 AM

Just a little side issue that might interest Sligo fans. MON watched dvd's of Kazan and had a prepared accordingly. On the night they changed to a totally different formation. 4-2-4
with the wingers pushed onto our full backs nearly as extra forwards. Where do you reckon they seen that little trick? IMO and im always right it was watching us v you on the Friday previous when you ran us ragged more or less.

Interesting observation alright Hoops1. Should MON not have been able to change his formation with ease so, considering the amount of times we have played ye this season?

People talk about the gulf in standards between LOI players and European teams at this level, which is fair enough. Less talked about is the gulf between managers at this level. LOI managers seem less able (or aren't able) to change formations under pressure I find.

poster

16/09/2011, 10:20 AM

GreenStar

16/09/2011, 10:25 AM

Her scarf is broken.

She has a scarf??

redobit

16/09/2011, 10:28 AM

poster, was it not more a 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-3-1-1 or a 4-3-2-1. Daft I know, but an argument could be made for each.

poster

16/09/2011, 10:40 AM

poster, was it not more a 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-3-1-1 or a 4-3-2-1. Daft I know, but an argument could be made for each.

From the start I thought we had 4(back 4), 2 (Danny and Richie), 1 (Russell), 2 (Greene,Joey) 1 (Doyle)

redobit

16/09/2011, 10:58 AM

its how you look at the midfield really. Its 4 at the back with 1 (danny) playing in front of them imo. Between there and the 1 up front is anyones guess/ opinion. So a 4-1-(whatever you think)-1

Isint football class all the same.

marinobohs

16/09/2011, 11:00 AM

Didn't see whole game last night but what I saw I thought shams did well. After conceeding so early it would have easy for the players heads to drop and get tonked, but they stuck at it and in open play did well. Result was never in doubt as Kazan were different class (as they should be given the resources they have) but it was a pity O'Donnell did not score the pen to give shams a goal (even if it was only consolation). Three decent goals by the visitors showed the class they have.
It is a great achievement for shams to have reached this stage and anything from here will be a major bonus. Bigger/Richer clubs than shams have found the "step up" to this level to be a sharp learning curve.

PartySaint

16/09/2011, 11:50 AM

Maube a stupid question but do the results really matter at this stage? The main part was just getting to the group stages, If Pats were there instead of Rovers I wouldn't be too worried about losing as long as it wasn't an embarrassing result which last night wasn't

They will be up against teams from England Russia and Greece, The LOI is miles behind them, The money those teams can spend is just no comparable to LOI standards, If they come out of Europe with all 2 or 3-0 loses thats not bad

Sure we can't all beat Russian opponents;)

pineapple stu

16/09/2011, 11:57 AM

Maube a stupid question but do the results really matter at this stage?
E60k a draw, E140k a win.

I think in the bigger picture though, performing well and learning/improving over the campaign is important. They want to progress enough to get into the groups in next year's UEFA Cup campaign too. :p

PartySaint

16/09/2011, 12:00 PM

E60k a draw, E140k a win.

Added bonus but by no means a failure if they don't manage to get a draw or a win

For the record I think out in Russia and Greece both games Rovers could be on the end of a thumping

pineapple stu

16/09/2011, 12:14 PM

Well, results do matter, but yeah, they could lose all six games without it being a complete failure. Though if they do get those thumpings, it could do more harm than good among the barstool brigade.

TiocfaidhArmani

16/09/2011, 12:28 PM

Added bonus but by no means a failure if they don't manage to get a draw or a win

For the record I think out in Russia and Greece both games Rovers could be on the end of a thumping

Spurs are playing their reserve side, I think their best hope of a point could be against them.

pineapple stu

16/09/2011, 12:30 PM

marinobohs

16/09/2011, 1:05 PM

It may be a coincidence to rival the injuries players pick up around international games, but the preview on extratime (http://extratime.ie/newsdesk/articles/6674/) hints that it was a big injury list rather than a deliberate policy that saw Spurs field a weak side. Gallas, Dawson, Huddlestone, Lennon, van der Vaart and others all injured.

Spurs do have a hefty injury list (and a few injury prone players) but I think 'Arry did say he was playing a lot of fringe players in the Europa Lge. Mind you, he may have to rethink that when it all comes down to the last game and who tops the group between shams and spurs :D

Charlie Darwin

16/09/2011, 1:42 PM

VDV's been left out of the squad completely so I think it was always his intention to play fringe players. I'm sure a couple of the injured players would have been in for experience though.

born2bwild

16/09/2011, 4:12 PM

now im a bit jealous...

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/1c/8c/d3/516065b6a92d0299cdddd3b89f5c307139f9ae142a/INPHO_00542831.jpg
Oh my, look at the little dude in the blue hat. Football match? What football match?

Shelsman

16/09/2011, 8:47 PM

Just a little side issue that might interest Sligo fans. MON watched dvd's of Kazan and had a prepared accordingly. On the night they changed to a totally different formation. 4-2-4
with the wingers pushed onto our full backs nearly as extra forwards. Where do you reckon they seen that little trick? IMO and im always right it was watching us v you on the Friday previous when you ran us ragged more or less.

Copenhagen pressured Rovers in numbers at the back as well. Do continental teams think that Irish teams don't have the skill to play their way out of that type of pressure? Or maybe it's a well known tactic to be used against supposedly inferior opposition?

I remember Steau Bucharest doing this against Shels in Tolka -pressure the back four and they were forced to hoof it long to a lone striker who's up against four defenders, even when the striker does win the ball there's no-one to flick it on to. So maybe it's a common tactic to use against teams who are playing just one up front?

I noticed Twigg came into the game a lot more -finding space to get possession and to hold up the ball -only when Kilduff came on though.

dfx-

17/09/2011, 1:37 AM

I got the feeling that if Kazan hadn't scored those two crackers, they'd have scored two others. They took the foot off the pedal the last 20 minutes and Rovers did their best to take advantage in fairness. Good to see Killer having a stormer. Dunno what Ronan Finn was doing on the right wing?

But then you're getting into hypothetical territory. Bar the opener and penalty, they didn't pepper the Rovers goal with shots. I've seen Sligo cause Thompson more problems in terms of shots. They had four shots on goal in the game.

Finn doesn't fit on the right wing...I get the feeling MON is trying to fit 341 central midfielders into two/three spots. SOD, Rice, McCormack and Finn, Finn drew the short straw and was anonymous, not providing protection or attacking the wing, constantly pushing into the middle and his natural position. Even when Turner came on and ran at the full back, a bit more progress was made.

TiocfaidhArmani

17/09/2011, 11:26 AM

now im a bit jealous...

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/1c/8c/d3/516065b6a92d0299cdddd3b89f5c307139f9ae142a/INPHO_00542831.jpg

Shaven heaven.

If I went down on that I'd be needing a shave by the time I came up.

Shelsman

18/09/2011, 3:08 PM

Probably shattered the Rovers' players concentration! She was their secret weapon -probably ex-KGB and all!!! I'd say Rovers were thinking of a different type of scoring alright!

colonelwest

18/09/2011, 7:13 PM

now im a bit jealous...

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/1c/8c/d3/516065b6a92d0299cdddd3b89f5c307139f9ae142a/INPHO_00542831.jpg

I imagine the two young fella's reaction was something like this:

http://www.tristanx.com/images/tumblr/sweetjesus.gif

Was stuck in work so missed the game there Thursday but by all accounts Rovers gave it a good go. It'll be a steep learning curve for them but hopefully it'll stand them in good stead.

Dunny

18/09/2011, 8:17 PM

now im a bit jealous...

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/1c/8c/d3/516065b6a92d0299cdddd3b89f5c307139f9ae142a/INPHO_00542831.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_j9oDqG2zBGE/SLitQ7Mgz_I/AAAAAAAABnQ/LgqI3Nj6WFI/s400/i%27d+hit+it.jpg

endabob1

20/09/2011, 12:11 PM

Phew i was worried we hadn't seen you on here in a bit :)

Do you honestly believe that he will send out a b team against kazan? He is only saying that, for less meaningful games thats true. BUt up in hearts he played defoe etc.

I've gone all lady like, I'm only on once a month whether I like it or not!!

I think the team against PAOK is indicative of what will be put our, a mixture of fringe players and younger guys with the odd one returning from injury.
Even as a Spurs 'fan' I wasn't that bothered about the paok game, I had an intermittent feed of the Rovers game which I was in truth more interested in.
Redknapp will play the kids as long as he can get away with it in both the EL & the league Cup, I expect a similar side against Stoke as played in Greece.
If they progress then it'll be interesting to see if/how he strengthens but paok & Rovers should be comfortable enough home wins even for a weakened side and even if Rubin win all 6 games 2nd place should be pretty achievable without having to draft in Bale, Modric etc..