Put your apologies here !!!!

[wallis]

:ball: I was going to wait until thursday morning when we top the group but why should I ???

All those who spent the last few weeks moaning :

"RMK isnt good enough anymore"
"kilbane in midifeld is like giving the french an extra man"
"our tactics arent right"
"Kerr is too negative"
"duff isnt himself"
"robbie isnt playing well"

and so on and so on - hang your heads in shame !!!

Excellent performances all round - KK was outstanding. French newspapers are all about how well we played and the "formidable atmosphere" that the supporters gave. ALLEZ LES BOYS IN GREEN !!

[thejollyrodger]

At one point before the match I was expecting a France win. Thank god I wsa wrong on that one.
France are playing as well and they should win so we will be join top unless we make a mess of it.

[Adrianovic]

Fair play, ZK proved me wrong, he's just one of those players that when he is on the edge of getting dropped and people don't expect anything of him, he pulls something out of the bag.

Ade

[sligoman]

I have nothing to apologise for :p , I knew we could do it-Just tought we could win it too,oh well

[1MickCollins]

Wallis it's a pity that you stoop to distorting quotes - my quote was "I am beginning to think playing Kilbane in the middle is like giving an extra man to France if he gives away possession like he did against the Swiss." - obviously the sentence hinges on the 'if'. I think a very valid concern, if we were playing France again tomorrow I would have the same concern. So no apology. :p

Kilbane had a very good game last night. The fact is Kilbane has played very well in the past and will do so again in the future, the problem is he is abit of a Jekyll & Hyde character in that he can play God-awful crap or bizzarrely inspiring in an awkard and clumpish sort of way. He is the most unusual player I have ever seen play for Ireland - the man is a mystery. :D

[wallis]

sorry for distorting your quote - but agreed, KK is an absolute mystery. Hes probably put himself in with being a certain centre midfield start for the campaign with that performance.

Do you reckon that the 'problems' we have had down our left side in the last couple of games is a result of KK moving to the middle. Perhaps we have been underestimating his defensive contribution over the years ?? :confused:

[Peadar]

Perhaps we have been underestimating his defensive contribution over the years ?? :confused:

His "defensive contribution" in Basel cost us the goal.
He was my man of the match in Paris though.
After Wednesday you'd expect that we'll have only one goal against us from four games. That's very important for confidence.
Brian Kerr is begining to put his mark on the team.
We'd a lovely shape about us in Paris and retained that shape throughout.
Last 15 minutes in Basel I was a nervous wreck.
I Paris we were well in control.

[lopez]

His "defensive contribution" in Basel cost us the goal.
He was my man of the match in Paris though.Wasn't it Carr passing the ball to him on the edge of the area that cost us a goal? He had a player straight up ahead of him he just had to wack the ball to instead of him instead of Kilbane.

[Peadar]

Wasn't it Carr passing the ball to him on the edge of the area that cost us a goal?

Kilbane tried to play football on the edge of the box instead of booting it out.
My mates were talking to him in the airport after that game and said, "You know you were at fault for the goal? Sort it out Kev!"
They're all big fans of him now and after his performance in Paris they worship him. I'm not going to dwell on the Swiss game.
He's made up for that. Everyone has.
Except for John O'Shea though.

[Stuttgart88]

Personally I think Carr was more at fault for the goal in Basle. It was a hospital pass even Zidane would have struggled to protect.

That apart, I was critical of KK's general performance in Basle but he wasn't alone in being poor.

I am delighted to acknowledge how good he was on Wednesday and the position is his for the foreseeable future.

[lopez]

Personally I think Carr was more at fault for the goal in Basle. It was a hospital pass even Zidane would have struggled to protect.

That apart, I was critical of KK's general performance in Basle but he wasn't alone in being poor.

I am delighted to acknowledge how good he was on Wednesday and the position is his for the foreseeable future.Agree with you on Carr and ZK. His performance was bad but he was not completely at fault for the goal. To be honest I was up in the Gods on Saturday and slightly inebriated but no one stood out because I thought the whole team played brilliantly. Again, O'Shea's carrying the can for missing a sitter - which I hope will not come back to haunt us - but L'Equipe (whose Journalist was presumably more sober than me) had him at a rating of 6: Only the two keepers got a higher rating.

[Bowsy]

Only dissapointing performance for me was O'Shea. Looks lazy, was poor supporting Duff in attack and if it's a fifty-fifty who know O'shea is not going to emerge with the ball. Everything else was excellent. Disappointed Clinton came off so early as looked to be causing Givet and Squillaci problems. KK and RMK were emense in Midfield and we rarely looked strecthed apart from a few times down our left. Duff did some very good work defensively though. I reckon the French will murder the Swiss at home now that they know how important that game is for them. The group is there for us to win. 2 wins against Israel would seal the deal in IMO.

[ken foree]

back to appologizing, SORRY I DOUBTED YOU BOYS IN GREEN. i'm just amazed that france continue to perform as many parts rather than a sum. we've been the opposite for some time but now we have some ****in parts too, yeahooooo! irish fans looked fantastic onscreen :o , you nearly made me weep for home

[Stuttgart88]

To be honest I was up in the Gods on Saturday and slightly inebriated

Me too. Even that non-alcoholic beer made me feel p1ssed. Some weird kind of placebo affect maybe. I can remember few specific incidents, only general features of the game. I thought O'Shea was fine, I had no problems with his performance.

Being so high up really gave a good sense of how good a shape we kept throughout.

I read L'Equipe too, albeit at a snail's pace and understanding about 35%. They were pretty miserly in awarding their player points. I think the Irish Indo should take note.

[1MickCollins]

Do you reckon that the 'problems' we have had down our left side in the last couple of games is a result of KK moving to the middle. Perhaps we have been underestimating his defensive contribution over the years ?? :confused:

No, that side of his game is always there, he pretty much carried Ian Harte during the WC and put in a lot of hard working performances in the past. Playing in the middle suits him as he can get stuck in and he isn't expected to create a lot, just tackle, keep possession and keep things moving. KK could play left back without too much bother and I would prefer to see him there than left-mid - Duff or Reid are the better choices there. If KK can maintain the standard of his performance against the French then we are in good shape, but that is probably a big 'if'.

O'Shea didn't play too bad against the French but was the weakset of the back 4, what is it about that left back spot? Is it my imaginiation or is he beginning to look like Ian Harte? JohnO just needs to get the basics right like not give away possession cheaply like he did early in the game. He is a fine athlete and I just feel he needs a little bit of remedial coaching - surely ManU can fix that?

[wallis]

I dont think having Damian in front of him helped. There were a number of times when DD cropped up on the other side of the pitch looking for the ball and the french would then break down our left side. I think that was something they were looking for. Three or four times Gallas was attacking our penalty area and no one picked him up.

I can understand why JOS wouldnt want to push forward to support Duff because he knew his first priority iwas not to leave space behind him for Henry and co to run in to.

Its one of the reasons why I would like to see us switch to a 5 man midfield. Play Duff in the free roll behind RK , keep it solid across the middle and take the defensive worries off him. Im not saying play him up front with RK but hold in behind him and then Reid/KK/JOS etc could get up and support.

I'd like to see Kerr test it out on the Faroes and perhaps the next friendly. It would also give us a simple formation to switch to if we lose a striker. We were all over the place for the 5 minutes when Clinton left and we dont have a plethora of strikers to choose from anyway.

Havent seen the match since watching it live so will sit down with the video and my duty free Ardbeg scotch tonight !!

[1MickCollins]

Bit of revisionism? Kilbane no more carried Harte during the World Cup than I did. They were both very poor, but I always thought Harte was exposed because he had a donkey like Kilbane in front of him.



Dude KK was poor going forward as he always is but his covering for Harte was essential.

[onenilgameover]

Right it was an alright result but we didn't beat them and we still have alot of hard work ahead of us...they played alot better than against the swiss but failed to beat a team at their lowest eb...not bein too down beat but a little realistic...