Trap Out and/or Delaney Out [Archive] - Page 12

Supreme feet

29/04/2013, 11:49 AM

There's no Alaba or Ibrahimovic for us to call upon, but you and others tell me our players are as good, if not better than the opposition in our group, and if we can't match them, it's Trap's fault.

Many will only realise how well he's done for us when he is gone, when the real ability of the players is shown up, and we are finally at the neighbours level.

We matched Sweden, playing a more progressive style of football. We handled Ibrahimovic quite competently. There was promise in that system, and that performance. Yet against lower-seeded opposition, we reverted to hoofball and conceded the initiative.

Another question - are we Latvia? Should we be just happy to live off one fortuitous qualification and resign ourselves to mediocrity forever more? We have only finished outside the top three in a qualifying group once in the last twenty-six years - and even then (2006), we were only three points from topping the group. There has only been one qualifying group in that time (2008) when we went into our last game with nothing to play for. For a team like us, the margins between qualifying and not qualifying are often extremely slim, and the primary job of the Irish manager is to ensure that we don't throw it away against the lower seeds. We deserve at least that.

The player pool has changed in that we don't have players playing for top clubs, but the dynamic of the EPL, and where/how that league sources its players, has changed. For example, was Jeff Kenna a much better right-back than Steve Finnan or Seamus Coleman, simply by virtue of having an EPL winner's medal? Not in my opinion - the EPL was a lot weaker back then. We go on about Irish players playing for top clubs back in the day, but that was back when the English champions could be knocked out of Europe by Trelleborgs, Legia Warsaw and IFK Gothenburg. Players like McCarthy, Clark, Coleman, Wilson, O'Shea, Hoolahan, Gibson, McGeady, Walters and Long are good Irish players by most standards that I've seen in the last 22 years.

Bungle

29/04/2013, 11:50 AM

Norwich haven't played in Europe for 20 years. They faced 4-4-2 Stoke last weekend. The decisive goal came from the 40 yard lump, the flick on, and the tap in. That's how Whelan and Walters earn their living every year, and the kind of football we Irish grow up playing and watching. Kevin Doyle faces the prospect of even lower league football than Conor Sammon next season, yet Sammon is w/o and Doyle is championed. We currently have one player that plays CL football, which isn't even in England. There's no Alaba or Ibrahimovic for us to call upon, but you and others tell me our players are as good, if not better than the opposition in our group, and if we can't match them, it's Trap's fault.

Many will only realise how well he's done for us when he is gone, when the real ability of the players is shown up, and we are finally at the neighbours level.

We do not have a player as good as either Alaba or Ibra. However, I would say man for man we have players that are better than both Sweden and Austria. George Best was one of the greatest players of all time, but I wouldn't say the Northern Irish teams of his era were necessarilly feared. One man of outstanding ability doesn't make a team. In fact, pre Jack we had several truly world class players and we were a mediocre team.

Yes, we have only one player in the Champions League. However, it probably doesn't tell the full story. Suarez is one of the best players of his generation and he might not be guaranteed playing even Europa League next season, if he stays with Liverpool. Lads like Coleman and McCarthy are certainly good enough for the Champions League and I would also say Long is. You get teams like Austria Vienna sometimes getting into the group stages of the Champions League, but I would be skeptical if they are better teams than Norwich. Certainly, I would think guys like Hoolahan get more from playing for a team like Norwich on a week to week basis than if they were playing for Austria Vienna, albeit playing 6 games in the Champions League group stages.

I don't particularly rate Doyler that highly at the moment. A few years ago, I would have viewed him the way I view Shane Long now - a very good premiership player. However, I think he's leagues better than Conor Sammon. Personally, I would not have either anywhere near the first 11 at the current time. That is part of my criticism of Trap. Guys like Sammon and Green are championed by Trap at the expense of fellas like Long and McCarthy.

I thought Trap brought a huge amount to the job in his first few years. He made us a very competent team and very difficult to beat, after the debacle of Stan's reign. However, while I respect him for his initial work, I would have major concerns about his ability to take this team forward.

Bungle

29/04/2013, 1:50 PM

We matched Sweden, playing a more progressive style of football. We handled Ibrahimovic quite competently. There was promise in that system, and that performance. Yet against lower-seeded opposition, we reverted to hoofball and conceded the initiative.

Another question - are we Latvia? Should we be just happy to live off one fortuitous qualification and resign ourselves to mediocrity forever more? We have only finished outside the top three in a qualifying group once in the last twenty-six years - and even then (2006), we were only three points from topping the group. There has only been one qualifying group in that time (2008) when we went into our last game with nothing to play for. For a team like us, the margins between qualifying and not qualifying are often extremely slim, and the primary job of the Irish manager is to ensure that we don't throw it away against the lower seeds. We deserve at least that.

The player pool has changed in that we don't have players playing for top clubs, but the dynamic of the EPL, and where/how that league sources its players, has changed. For example, was Jeff Kenna a much better right-back than Steve Finnan or Seamus Coleman, simply by virtue of having an EPL winner's medal? Not in my opinion - the EPL was a lot weaker back then. We go on about Irish players playing for top clubs back in the day, but that was back when the English champions could be knocked out of Europe by Trelleborgs, Legia Warsaw and IFK Gothenburg. Players like McCarthy, Clark, Coleman, Wilson, O'Shea, Hoolahan, Gibson, McGeady, Walters and Long are good Irish players by most standards that I've seen in the last 22 years.

Great post. Have to agree with pretty much all of that.

jbyrne

29/04/2013, 2:54 PM

Players like McCarthy, Clark, Coleman, Wilson, O'Shea, Hoolahan, Gibson, McGeady, Walters and Long are good Irish players by most standards that I've seen in the last 22 years.

they are good Irish players alright but are in a team made up of good and not so good. throw in the great players like the keanes, duff, given etc at their height (as wc 2002 era) and you cross the fine line of being justified in expecting qualification. we dont have even one great player at the moment. did we even have one of our players in the PFA teams of the year last night? dont think so. how often did that happen in the 90s and early 2000s??

Bungle

29/04/2013, 3:39 PM

they are good Irish players alright but are in a team made up of good and not so good. throw in the great players like the keanes, duff, given etc at their height (as wc 2002 era) and you cross the fine line of being justified in expecting qualification. we dont have even one great player at the moment. did we even have one of our players in the PFA teams of the year last night? dont think so. how often did that happen in the 90s and early 2000s??

Fair point about the talent that was there around the early 2000s. We were blessed with a great batch of players. Have to be honest though, I think Coleman would have been a good shout to get in the PFA team and I cannot for the life of me understand how McCarthy didn't get nominated in the young player category. Welbeck didn't particularly stand out and Wilshere barely kicked a ball. Nastasic should have been there as well.

Charlie Darwin

29/04/2013, 4:08 PM

You see the same hyped players get nominated every year because a lot of footballers don't actually watch other teams play, they just have a general idea of who their managers highlight as danger men and they just nominate the guys who look the best rather than actually judging players on form.

Bungle

29/04/2013, 5:08 PM

True, I don't understand how a guy like Michu didn't get nominated for player of the year. I must be missing something with Carrick. I think he's nothing more than a good player. On the BBC, a few days ago, they had people mailing in their greatest ever Fergie 11. I couldn't believe that Carrick got in quite a few teams when you think of some of the midfielders they have had under Ferguson.

Charlie Darwin

29/04/2013, 5:26 PM

The English tend to go wildly over the top in their praise for a technically-competent English player, mo more than ourselves with Hoolahan, Andy Reid, etc.

Many on both sides of the Irish Sea are still in shock that those neanderthals from Munich were allowed to get away with their bully-boy tactics on the prodigiously cultured talent Jack Wilshere.

mypost

29/04/2013, 6:21 PM

Simple question: in all seriousness do you think Sammon is anywhere near as good as Doyle?

Sammon's performance against Austria was much better imo than against Poland. Doyle is more experienced, yet his form has slipped alarmingly since Christmas, and is facing a double relegation with his club. So why should he be ahead of anyone in the pecking order to face anyone?

Another question - are we Latvia? Should we be just happy to live off one fortuitous qualification and resign ourselves to mediocrity forever more? We have only finished outside the top three in a qualifying group once in the last twenty-six years - and even then (2006), we were only three points from topping the group. There has only been one qualifying group in that time (2008) when we went into our last game with nothing to play for. For a team like us, the margins between qualifying and not qualifying are often extremely slim, and the primary job of the Irish manager is to ensure that we don't throw it away against the lower seeds. We deserve at least that.

We collected the full quota of 18 points against the lower seeds last time, 3 of them in a place we never won before, and another 3 where nobody else won at all. It was derided as "easy".

The last time we fired a coach who got us to a finals, we missed out on tournaments for 10 years. That may seem like yesterday, when the time comes that we're struggling to finish fourth in groups, like others closer to home are these days. The "comfort" of the coach hitting the highways and byways of England every week won't be much consolation.

Stuttgart88

29/04/2013, 7:23 PM

Despite not playing well for his club Doyle scored the winner against Kazakhstan. Despite being relegated last year Doyle was immense against Italy. If you go to the Tony Grealish thread and Junior's link to the Eoin Hand interview you'll hear Hand saying some players raise their game for international football. Grealish did it, Kenny Cunningham did it, Sean St. Ledger does it regularly. Club form often counts for little in international football and Doyle hasn't suddenly deteriorated as a player because Wolves are a shambles. Regardless of where Wolves are in the table Doyle should be ahead of Sammon because on all objective counts he is a better player, a better athlete, a proven international and even when playing badly he's never a passenger. Cox is a better player than Sammon and has shown he can play at that level when picked upfront.

We're clearly not going to agree with each other. I hate, really hate, knocking Irish players and especially likeable hard working players, but Sammon was alarmingly off the pace and pitch of the ball against Austria, and I think that Doyle, Cox, and probably Leon Best and even Andy Keogh should have ranked ahead of him. They have all done a job for Trap in the recent enough past and Sammon's selection was Trap saying he does go and look at unglamourous games to look at our players now. If Sammon is good enough to be our 3rd best striker at Derby, then why not when in the Premier League?

Sullivinho

29/04/2013, 8:10 PM

On the BBC, a few days ago, they had people mailing in their greatest ever Fergie 11. I couldn't believe that Carrick got in quite a few teams when you think of some of the midfielders they have had under Ferguson.

No sooner is the league title in the bag than Michael begins churning out aliases and mailbombing the BBC. No rest for the...relatively mediocre.

Fixer82

29/04/2013, 8:24 PM

Despite being relegated last year Doyle was immense against Italy.

In Euro 2012???

Stuttgart88

29/04/2013, 8:38 PM

Yes, I thought it was clear in that game just how good a payer he was despite being in the inferior side.

Fixer82

29/04/2013, 8:59 PM

Ok, all I remember was his run at the goal at start of game but not much else. In fairness, I don't think any of our strikers got much of a sniff of the ball in Euro 2012

DannyInvincible

11/05/2013, 2:11 PM

Trap to Napoli?: http://balls.ie/football/trapattoni-wants-the-napoli-job/

Giovanni Trapattoni has given the clearest indication yet (bar his team selections) that he thinks his time as Ireland manager may be coming to an end, but retire, noooo, Trapattoni wants the Napoli job. Of course he does.

“I always want to win,” he told Il Mattino the local Naples newspaper. “Even returning to a Serie A side like Napoli – why not?

“Am I putting myself forward for the job? Everyone knows my motto: never say never in football. I also tell club Presidents: don’t look at my birth certificate, because that doesn’t reflect my real age.”

youngirish

11/05/2013, 5:42 PM

Trap to Napoli?: http://balls.ie/football/trapattoni-wants-the-napoli-job/
This would be the ideal situation. Not only would the FAI not have to pay him any compensation Napoli would have to buy out the remainder of his contract. Too good to be true methinks.

tetsujin1979

11/05/2013, 5:52 PM

Napoli have a long standing rivaly with juventus, not sure how they would take to having Trapattoni as manager

OwlsFan

11/05/2013, 8:05 PM

This would be the ideal situation. Not only would the FAI not have to pay him any compensation Napoli would have to buy out the remainder of his contract. Too good to be true methinks.

The vote is interesting:

Take him please and best of luck. 28.79% (95 votes)

Take him, leave Manuela, and have John Delaney for free. 65.15% (215 votes)

Rack off Napoli, Trap is staying put. 5.15% (17 votes)

Are you for serious Napoli? really? nooo 0.91% (3 votes)

Total Votes: 330

wonder88

11/05/2013, 11:48 PM

David O Leary always said that he would like to manage Ireland someday towards the end of his career. Maybe his days of being a club manager at the top level are over now, so would many on this forum like to have the Dubliner who managed Leeds and Aston Villa replace our current Italian in the job.

Stuttgart88

12/05/2013, 7:11 AM

I'd have Trap in perpetuity over O'Leary for a week.

Charlie Darwin

12/05/2013, 11:07 PM

Napoli have a long standing rivaly with juventus, not sure how they would take to having Trapattoni as manager
I don't think club rivalries work quite the same way there. Italian clubs tend to cooperate a lot more and there aren't so many sacred cows.

youngirish

12/05/2013, 11:12 PM

Crosby87

12/05/2013, 11:23 PM

Those shirts Paisley used to wear in the 70s...

Charlie Darwin

12/05/2013, 11:34 PM

With all this speculation about Trap leaving could it be just coincidence that Alex Ferguson has decided to step down from club management after 26 years? I think not.

On a more serious note I heard recently that Bob Paisley (possibly the most successful manager in English football of all time) applied for the Ireland job in 1986 but was overlooked instead by the FAI in preference for Jack Charlton who had never won anything of note. You couldn't make this stuff up.

I suppose in hindsight Jack did okay though.
You are absolutely correct. Paisley topped the initial poll by 9 votes to 3 each for Charlton, John Giles and Liam Tuohy. By the time a repeat ballot had taken place, Giles and Tuohy's votes had shifted to Charlton, and he was elected 10-8. It's worth saying that at this point Paisley had been retired for four years.

http://www.fai.ie/fai/91-history.html?start=15

Spudulika

13/05/2013, 7:08 AM

Hold on, Jack was a successful club manager, a World Cup winner, respected pundit and was coming in without baggage. He had won everything as a player at Leeds, then worked wonders with Middlesborough, got Sheffield Wednesday out of the 3rd Division and to the verge of the 1st and was a respected coach and leader. Giles was never going to be let back near the job, Liam Tuohy would have been another Brian Kerr and it was really a 2 horse race. Jack did well with what has handed over to him and fair play, we overachieved and there was a moment in 1988 when, but for cheating officials (against the USSR and Holland) and out and out thuggery from that tu rd Dasayev (who is as reprehensible a person in person as he was in Hannover) Ireland could have slipped through to the last four of the Euros.

paul_oshea

13/05/2013, 9:01 AM

The Meejahideen

geysir

13/05/2013, 9:06 AM

Bob Paisley v Jack Charlton, it was a no brainer who was the class act. Only the FAI could manage to fxck that one up.

On Trap to Napoli? It sounds like the Napoli board want the current coaches to sign a new contract and have enlisted the support of Trap to put the pressure on them to do it, asap.

ArdeeBhoy

13/05/2013, 9:13 AM

Who cares?

Like Trapp, it's ancient history...

Bungle

13/05/2013, 11:43 AM

Drumcondra 69er

13/05/2013, 12:30 PM

Bob Paisley was desperate for the job and apparently reckoned that Ireland could be a really top team. Liverpool were the Barcelona of that era and the bulk of their team were Irish and Scots. Many say that Bob was the greatest manager of all time and I think it's fair to say that he would have probably done a brilliant job with us, with the great players we had back then.

However, I think it's fair to say that Jack did an absolutely phenomenal job with us. He brought us to three tournaments and created one of the most difficult sides to play in world football. I remain convinced that we could have won Euro 92 if we were there, as the team was at the height of its powers. He literally scoured English football for players that were eligible to play for us. While Bob Paisley was a brilliant manager and apparently an absolute gentleman off the pitch, it is hard to picture an elderly Bob Paisley putting in the amount of mileage that Jack did.

It's very unlikley that Paisley would have had great success with us had he got the job, he unfortunately began to suffer from the early stages of Altzheimers not long after before getting an official diagnosis in the early 90's. Certainly a Paisley with all his faculties would have been a great appointment and the vote when the job was being awarded was a total farce in time honoured FAI fashion but I think we did okay with Jack.....

DeLorean

13/05/2013, 3:34 PM

I remain convinced that we could have won Euro 92 if we were there, as the team was at the height of its powers.

I'm still pretty upset with Ray Houghton for his late miss at Wembley. Every time I hear him say... "ah he has to hit the target George", I think of that miss. Stuttgart and Giant's Stadium don't even make up for it. That is probably because I was too young to appreciate Stuttgart and, yes, I know I'm being ridiculously harsh but that miss still makes me squirm. That said, the Poland games that followed were the major f*** ups.

Stuttgart88

13/05/2013, 3:39 PM

It was a shocking miss by Houghton at Wembley. Nothing ridiculously harsh about what you said.

Poland away was a total waste, Poland at home was just one of those days and made worse by their keeper wasting about ten minutes feigning injury. Worst of all was Poland, already 1-0 up, not being given a stonewall penalty against England for a Chris Woods foul. It was the last game, concurrent with our 3-1 (?) away win in Turkey. 2-0 would have killed it but instead Lineker got a late equaliser which put them through at our expense.

At the equivalent stage one tournament later England got their just desserts against Holland, though they conveniently overlooked how blessed they were in Poland when blaming eveything under the sun except their being rubbish for not qualifying.

Bungle

13/05/2013, 3:46 PM

I'm still pretty upset with Ray Houghton for his late miss at Wembley. Every time I hear him say... "ah he has to hit the target George", I think of that miss. Stuttgart and Giant's Stadium don't even make up for it. That is probably because I was too young to appreciate Stuttgart and, yes, I know I'm being ridiculously harsh but that miss still makes me squirm. That said, the Poland games that followed were the major f*** ups.

God we absolutely battered England that day. I have vague memories of watching the BBC punditry after the game and Jimmy Hill and Terry Venables agreeing that we deserved to win by 2 or 3 goals. I remember long spells when they didn't even get past the halfway line.

Bungle

13/05/2013, 3:48 PM

IsMiseSean

13/05/2013, 3:56 PM

DeLorean

13/05/2013, 4:03 PM

Does anyone else agree with me that Ray Houghton must be one of the most negative commentators around? I love him for how he performed for Ireland and I'm sure he's a nice man, but I hate when he's on RTE.

I think he's beginning to chill out a little bit. For the first few years I think he felt the need to comment on every little mis-control or stray pass. I know professionals are paid a lot of money to get these things right but they're not robots either.

Junior

13/05/2013, 4:11 PM

Is it a coincidence that Les Mis�rables is the google add that Im getting in the last few posts:D

jbyrne

13/05/2013, 4:25 PM

Poland away was a total waste, Poland at home was just one of those days and made worse by their keeper wasting about ten minutes feigning injury. Worst of all was Poland, already 1-0 up, not being given a stonewall penalty against England for a Chris Woods foul. It was the last game, concurrent with our 3-1 (?) away win in Turkey. 2-0 would have killed it but instead Lineker got a late equaliser which put them through at our expense.

yes, 3-1 was the score with John Byrne (my fav player at the time) netting twice. The home match V Poland was also destroyed by a shocking dry bumpy surface. usually such surfaces suited us with Jacks tactics but in the Poland match is just added to the whole stop / start nature of the game. Jack asked that we never play another home match in March after that game. Only 4 teams in our group back then.

Fixer82

13/05/2013, 7:11 PM

Jack asked that we never play another home match in March after that game. Only 4 teams in our group back then.

God damn the break-up of the Soviet Union

SkStu

13/05/2013, 7:12 PM

God damn the break-up of the Soviet Union

and screw Gibraltar too!

tetsujin1979

13/05/2013, 7:22 PM

God damn the break-up of the Soviet UnionCapitalism out!

gastric

14/05/2013, 12:23 AM

Trap to look at new tactics, something he should have done right after the Euro debacle.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/trap-i-will-experiment-with-new-tactics-in-friendlies-29262872.html

gastric

14/05/2013, 12:28 AM

yes, 3-1 was the score with John Byrne (my fav player at the time) netting twice. The home match V Poland was also destroyed by a shocking dry bumpy surface. usually such surfaces suited us with Jacks tactics but in the Poland match is just added to the whole stop / start nature of the game. Jack asked that we never play another home match in March after that game. Only 4 teams in our group back then.

I remember too that Jack wanted the grass left long when Ireland played Spain soon after a rugby international. After the game, the Spanish press described our tactics as being rugby like, something we were proud of as we intimidated and harried them all game! Memories!

SkStu

14/05/2013, 2:56 AM

Trap to look at new tactics, something he should have done right after the Euro debacle.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/trap-i-will-experiment-with-new-tactics-in-friendlies-29262872.html

Yeah, but he usually trots that line out a few weeks in advance before reverting to type when the squad gets together.

gastric

14/05/2013, 7:00 AM

Yeah, but he usually trots that line out a few weeks in advance before reverting to type when the squad gets together.

Stu, More comments about possible change!

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/pilkington-to-herald-a-new-4-5-1-style-for-trapattoni-1.1391901

Stuttgart88

14/05/2013, 7:12 AM

Yes, the other papers are also more explicit, saying Pilkington will be integral to a 451 with Hoolahan. Encouraging and refreshing in one sense, but also worrying that he sees one player, yet untested, as key to any formation change. Trap has form in playing players in odd ways (McClean in Serbia...) too, so I'm limiting my expectations somewhat.

I think Trap is aware of the criticism of his action / inaction in the last game and is being quite clever with talk of tactical change, which he may not even follow through with if Pilkington isn't fit, or "has the trouble with the wife".

DeLorean

14/05/2013, 9:20 AM

I suppose he's being asked if he's going to try out new systems. Obviously he has to be seen to be open to the idea, even though he probably isn't. He might throw a few token experimental moves in the friendlies alright but I'd imagine we'll be back to basics for the qualifiers.

geysir

14/05/2013, 10:12 AM

Fahey as a holding midfielder of sorts, was one of Trap's weirdest ones.
Strange that Trap launches this latest "evolution" in Carrick on Shannon.

He gave sound advice to Pilkington "he will have many opportunities to go on honeymoon,” implying that there is a higher calling, playing for Ireland in a Euro qualifier.

KK77

14/05/2013, 1:21 PM

I'm still pretty upset with Ray Houghton for his late miss at Wembley. Every time I hear him say... "ah he has to hit the target George", I think of that miss. Stuttgart and Giant's Stadium don't even make up for it. That is probably because I was too young to appreciate Stuttgart and, yes, I know I'm being ridiculously harsh but that miss still makes me squirm. That said, the Poland games that followed were the major f*** ups.

I was in Wembley that night and nearly sure it was close to the end as well. Can’t forget it myself. Talk about the goal at his mercy and normally a great finisher in those positions for club and country. What i also remember from that night was Paul McGrath’s performance. I felt that was his best performance in green that night.