Republic of Ireland V Gibraltar - Saturday, 11th October 2014 - Euro 2016 Qualifier

[ArdeeBhoy]

Euro qualifiers overall. Apparently. 21 goals.

[tricky_colour]

The lads really stopped playing after the seventh goal. Pity - we should have beaten the record tonight.

A few little gripes - Wilson was alarmingly bad whenever Gibraltar attacked, and O'Shea lost a few 50-50s too. And it's clear that Hoolahan is absolutely essential; we offer very little in the final third without him. Compared to Keane's movement and sharpness in the first twenty minutes, Doyle and Murphy looked very limited both on and off the ball. Yes, they didn't have great service with Hoolahan off, but against the worst team in Europe, and a tired defence at that, they should have caused more problems.

I agree with one of the Sky Sport commentators, think might have been Nial Quinn who said Hoolahan was the best at unlocking
tight defences, works particularly well when combined with Keane. Hoolahan creates a chance and Robbie puts it away.

[pineapple stu]

for Ireland, or across Europe?
Technically, across the world.


Is the record 8?
Yup. 8-0 v Malta in Dalyer in theearly 80s.

Was that the campaign where we won 1-0 in the return in the last minute on a pitch of glass?

[BonnieShels]

Across Europe. He has 21. Suker and Koller are next on 20.

[tricky_colour]

Why was our goal early in the second half ruled out btw? Couldn't really hear in the pub; I think they were suggesting it might have been a dodgy offside call? Or was it a goal direct from an indirect free kick?

I think it was as Deloran said, a player (O'Shea) was offside when he missed a header so that would be a correct offside call
as it would be deemed to be interfering with play. I find it pretty annoying when players get goals disallowed by being off side.

[tricky_colour]

for Ireland, or across Europe?

He only plays for Ireland as far as I am aware :p

[DeLorean]

So basically Keane has as many in Euro qualifying and Ireland's next highest scorer has in all games. Some man.

[tricky_colour]

Keane now the highest scorer in Euro qualifying history.

that is really quite impressive, especially we you consider he plays for Ireland!

I wonder how he works out on goals per game?

[BonnieShels]

But he doesn't score big or important goals.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

He won't get a sniff against Germany is the crux of what I said. When you look at it in the context of every goal is a big and important goal, then yes it's a phenomenal record. He scores goals against Faroes and Gibraltar like Sonic The Hedgehog collects rings.

If we were playing Gibraltar again during the middle of the week he would be first name on the teamsheet but games against Portugal and the game against Georgia are probably more important to learn from than the one we witnessed today.

Yes Long's record isn't good enough. Neither is anyone else's - granted Long hasn't even strung consecutive competitive appearances together - but it's beside the point. Keane doesn't have the legs to get on the end of chances and he isn't going to create them himself. Playing him and we are conceding territory to Germany and we can't afford that with players like Gotze, Muller and Schurrle drifting all over the place. We need someone with physicality who can run his legs off, hold up play, link-up and break away.

Keane can come on with 15-20 minutes to go.

[DeLorean]

We get you TOWK.

[the doc]

The lads really stopped playing after the seventh goal. Pity - we should have beaten the record tonight.

A few little gripes - Wilson was alarmingly bad whenever Gibraltar attacked, and O'Shea lost a few 50-50s too. And it's clear that Hoolahan is absolutely essential; we offer very little in the final third without him. Compared to Keane's movement and sharpness in the first twenty minutes, Doyle and Murphy looked very limited both on and off the ball. Yes, they didn't have great service with Hoolahan off, but against the worst team in Europe, and a tired defence at that, they should have caused more problems.

Good to get a win, but share your concerns regards the defence, I really don't think Wilson's up to it at CB.
Add that to the awful Clark, Keogh and Pearce and I think we have problems.

Not convinced by the management team either, Germany, Scotland and Poland will give us an insight of whether they have it to take us forward or turn out to be yet another false dawn.

[Stuttgart88]

I was at the Malta game in Dalyer that night. Arguably the worst first half performance ever by an Irish team. Seriously! It was weird how that game panned out.

[Kingdom]

Am I the only one disappoined with how this has ended?

No, I'm pretty peeved at that last half hour. None of the three substitutes made any positive impression whatsoever, and Murphy was beyond atrocious. Sure the game is over, but for the love of God the performance was relatively impressive up to that point, and just turned bad.

The substitutions, and the tactics for the last 30 mins confused me. I understand the need to give Murphy a run-out. 100% the right thing to do. It didn't work out for the fella, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. But to take off Hoolahan when he was carving them open at will, and to not move McGeady into the centre, and go two up top, was just bizarre. Hendrick wasn't in the game at all, and Gibson wasn't at the level he can get to, so to rely on them to open things up wasn't going to work. Therefore why not bring on Stokes, instead of Doyle?
By not bringing on Long and Whelan, I'm going to assume both are going to start on Tuesday. I assume that taking Hoolahan off so early means he is going to play a part on Tuesday too. I felt they could have given young Lenihan a run, particularly if bringing him into the squad was to assess him.

Germany are going to really embarrass the Gibraltarians badly, records are going to fall in those two games.

[Crosby87]

whether they have it to take us forward or turn out to be yet another false dawn.

(Sighs) So, what else Sean?

[OwlsFan]

Come on bring Stokes & Murphy off the bench. They'll never have a better chance to open their Intl. accounts.


In fairness, other players performances have deteriorated at the same time and Gibraltar have been presented with 4 or 5 chances of their own now so you can't lay it all on their feet.

Long probably should have came on.

As usual, you change you mind.

Got your wish with Murphy. What did you think? I know what I think.

Thank heavens for Robbie Keane. Still knows the way to goal and made the job a formality early on. Great to see the crowd show its appreciation for him despite the handful of begrudgers, one of whom above even suggested when the score was only 2-0 that he should let someone else take a penalty. Unprofessionalism of the highest order. Without him knocking them out of the game early on, it would have been a lot tougher than it ended.

When the two best players on the pitch, Hoolahan and Kean,e were taken off, the game died along with Ireland's creativity.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Why will Hoolahan's performance in this match ultimately be completely disregarded yet Keane will start? I don't understand that logic at all.

Same old problems on Tuesday I'm afraid.

Whelan (a player that gets outpaced by 37 year olds) getting the runaround by Schurrle, Muller and Gotze drifting all over the place.
Keane completely lost up front against good opposition.
Walters on the wing losing every header he competes for and wasting every counter-attacking oportunity (not that we will have the pace up front to take advantage of them anyway.
Players not having a clue what to do once space opens up in the final third because scoring and creating chances is literally not in the game plan.

I think the game is there to be won, drawn or at least to lose tightly but the writing is on the wall in terms of the personnel he is going to choose.

If McClean or Long can't do the job Walters can do while offering more pace and better technique, and if Hoolahan hasn't proven that he can offer the tenacity Quinn offers while offering proven creativity I despair.

Whelan will play full stop. Hopefully more bodies in midfield will legislate for him (I doubt it).

As for Keane - if people think he's earned a start in the Germany game on the back of this, where the Portugal and Georgia games were more important comparisons, and if they think he will genuinely get scoring chances let alone take them, fine. If they think he has the mobility, energy, link-up play and experience of playing against players of similar technique in the MLS to get in amongst them, fine.

We'll see on Tuesday.

[DeLorean]

We'll see on Tuesday.

First sensible thing you've said in weeks. Can you not just accept that MON got it right yesterday and wait until you've your full facts before laying into him about Tuesday. He might not even be fully decided himself yet so ripping into him is pointless.

[ArdeeBhoy]

We have no chance on Tuesday regardless, after last night's result Germany to 'Muller' us even more than they would have done...

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

First sensible thing you've said in weeks. Can you not just accept that MON got it right yesterday and wait until you've your full facts before laying into him about Tuesday. He might not even be fully decided himself yet so ripping into him is pointless.

Realistic.... pragmatic.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

We have no chance on Tuesday regardless, after last night's result Germany to 'Muller' us even more than they would have done...

Jesus how f***ing bad do you think we are if Germany hammer us after those results and performances against Scotland and Poland? You're like a broken record. Why buy tickets to a match if you know we are going to get Mullered? Give them to someone else.

Teams like Germany must have a field day playing us. Nice stadium, nice fans, nice players. No edge or any kind of belief whatsoever.

[ArdeeBhoy]

We're mediocre, Germany are better. Get Over It!

And if anyone's like a broken record...
;)

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

At least I expound on it a bit. You just say "we are sh*t" or "we are going to get hammered" or "it doesn't matter" repeatedly.

What kind of motivation tool is that? When you have a kid and he tells you that he gets picked last in PE, are you just going to tell him "you're ****, it doesn't matter"?

[ArdeeBhoy]

It doesn't matter, because;
a)It's true
b)Do you really think MO'N, RMK et al give two fecks what we think? They never have and probably never will...
So what?

[MeathDrog]

35'123 in attendance say FAI. Way more than I thought.

Looked nearer 40k at it I must say.

[Stuttgart88]

Crowd was amazing. Fair play to them. I thought the ovation for their keeper was a moment of class.

[SwanVsDalton]

Crowd was amazing. Fair play to them. I thought the ovation for their keeper was a moment of class.

Quite weird when his replacement got (jokingly) booed on. Maybe the crowd knew he was going to complete a personal clean sheet.

[Stuttgart88]

My mate had bets on Ireland to score 8, 9 and 10 goals. At 55 mins he texted me to say he was worried it'd be 11.

[MeathDrog]

Crowd was amazing. Fair play to them. I thought the ovation for their keeper was a moment of class.

All things considered it was a great atmosphere. Fair play to the Gibraltar fans who travelled in good numbers considering there's only 30k who live there and made lots of noise.

[DannyInvincible]

I thought it slightly worrying how utterly ineffective and uncreative we were once Hoolahan (and Robbie) went off. The game changed completely. Gibraltar began to look OK actually after that point. We were relinquishing possession. They found themselves in possession more deep in our half, had a few chances and won a few corners; embarrassingly they could very easily have nicked a goal or two. Up until that point, it was a solid, professional performance and great to see us rack up such an amount. Especially pleased for Robbie further adding to his staggeringly impressive tally and McClean getting a brace. We learned something from the game in the sense that it demonstrated in such glaring fashion how influential or crucial a player in the mould of Hoolahan is to our creativity.

My mother and sister were visiting Manchester for the weekend; they're not avid football watchers, but they decided to watch as well. They were in genuine stitches laughing at the goalie's own goal. The standing ovation upon his exit had them nearly falling off their seats. Did it begin sarcastically or was it completely genuine? I was humoured myself by it so couldn't quite tell for sure.

The Poland-Germany result has really set the cat amongst the pigeons, so it will be intriguing as to how Martin approaches Tuesday now. I was only able to see the first half-hour of that game, but, considering the result and the German result against Scotland, we should have nothing to fear on Tuesday. It will frustrate me if we go for the negative option and try to shut up shop. I'd like to think Hoolahan will have some role to play.


Yes I think as has been mentioned by others it is not unknown for top players to smoke.

I'm aware certain players smoke the odd cigarette when off-duty (Jack Wilshere, for example), and other players like Robert Prosinečki used to smoke regularly throughout their careers, but they were the good old days. Fitness and conditioning has moved on. To be smoking in public in your official gear the day before a competitive international qualifier is beyond unorofessional; it's farcical. Then again, I guess the guy is an amateur...


A hat-trick is a formality for him. 3 points are in the bag. I'm just saying it would have been a magnanimous gesture to allow Wes to take the penalty seeing as he had a significant part in all 3 goals. It's not like Wes hasn't taken a penalty before.

Like Tricky said, it's probably foolish to expect such a gesture, regardless of the circumstances, when someone is on course for a hat-trick. Maybe if it was for 4-0.

Even when Robbie scores a hat-trick, you have to find fault with him somewhere... You're truly unbelievable.


Why was our goal early in the second half ruled out btw? Couldn't really hear in the pub; I think they were suggesting it might have been a dodgy offside call? Or was it a goal direct from an indirect free kick?

Pretty sure it was called for offside, even though O'Shea didn't appear to manage to get his head to it, although you could probably still consider him to have been interfering with play.

[SwanVsDalton]

My mother and sister were visiting Manchester for the weekend; they're not avid football watchers, but they decided to watch as well. They were in genuine stitches laughing at the goalie's own goal. The standing ovation upon his exit had them nearly falling off their seats. Did it begin sarcastically or was it completely genuine? I was humoured myself by it so couldn't quite tell for sure.

Part sarcastic, part genuine goodwill to a guy who was having a particularly bad time.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

In hindsight Robbie was right to take the penalty. It would have been a different story, perhaps, if he was on a fourth goal.

Saying a hat-trick is a formality for him is a compliment on my part. He has an astonishing record against bottom seeded teams. You only need to look at to how Daryl Murphy made minced meat of the chances presented to him to appreciate it more, granted Murphy may have been affected by an achilles problem.

In hindsight it probably would have been wiser to bring on Long and either Doyle or Walters to take advantage of the the tiring opposition. But our gameplan, tactics, personnel changes and concentration over the last third of games is continuing to be a slight worry under O'Neill. McGeady's last minute goal aside, the Georgians looked as likely to score as we did and we looked woefully unprepared to deal with it.

Keane is still the best option for days like yesterday but it's pretty optimistic to think he'll have an impact against Germany on the basis of any of his other appearances over the last two years. Pre-2011 Keane yes but not present day Keane.

But we're going to have to show blind faith on Tuesday as O'Neill seems to be pooh-poohing the idea of playing Hoolahan and Long and seems to have hinted at playing Jonathan Walters.

[Stuttgart88]

I was wondering the same, I.e., did he hint at starting Walters? He said Walters did very well in Tbilisi, that's all I heard but I took it to mean he'll be likely to start.

At any club has O'Neill ever not used a big guy / small guy partnership? He always liked a Sutton or Hartson or Heskey character, but was also blessed to have Larsson. Did he ever use Moravcik in tight away games? My recollection is that he trusted the likes of Moravcik and Miller, the lightweight but skillful types.

Btw, Hendrick didn't impress me at all yesterday. I'd have thought he'd have relished the chance yesterday but I barely noticed him.

[paul_oshea]

Ya I agree with the point from di about oneill seeming a bit inept about making the right changes and changes to effect the game on the 65th to 70th min. It's kinda worrying and it's almost trapesque.

I also thought the same of hendrick. But i've felt for a while he has been bigged up more than he deserved. He has been pretty average in most of his games. I think some thought because of his age he would naturally improve but I haven't seen anything in the last year or so to suggest that. We seem to give too much credence to a young player coming in and their game improving through playing more games at senior level.

[Stuttgart88]

Just for sake of balance: was taking Wes off not wise in terms of keeping him fresh for Tuesday - even if he won't have a starting role? Also, I won't blame O'Neill for Doyle and Murphy looking ineffective. They should both be good enough to make their presence felt but neither took his chance. Ok, neither had Wes feeding them but still they made no impact. Keane showed his class in that position last night even though the standard of opponent was dreadful.

[BonnieShels]

No, I'm pretty peeved at that last half hour. None of the three substitutes made any positive impression whatsoever, and Murphy was beyond atrocious. Sure the game is over, but for the love of God the performance was relatively impressive up to that point, and just turned bad.

The substitutions, and the tactics for the last 30 mins confused me. I understand the need to give Murphy a run-out. 100% the right thing to do. It didn't work out for the fella, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. But to take off Hoolahan when he was carving them open at will, and to not move McGeady into the centre, and go two up top, was just bizarre. Hendrick wasn't in the game at all, and Gibson wasn't at the level he can get to, so to rely on them to open things up wasn't going to work. Therefore why not bring on Stokes, instead of Doyle?
By not bringing on Long and Whelan, I'm going to assume both are going to start on Tuesday. I assume that taking Hoolahan off so early means he is going to play a part on Tuesday too. I felt they could have given young Lenihan a run, particularly if bringing him into the squad was to assess him.

Germany are going to really embarrass the Gibraltarians badly, records are going to fall in those two games.


I think that's the thing that really worried me. To be ineffectual is one thing but to be ineffectual against for all intents and purposes the worst team in the world is quite something.

[Stuttgart88]

Wrt Hendrick, I've seen him play much better and against better opposition. I don't think he's hyped up that much. He's a decent player but you wouldn't think so on yesterday's showing. Maybe still a bit rusty after his layoff?

[ArdeeBhoy]

Sometimes people play better v.better players, because they have to.
Inconsequential re.Tuesday, but hopefully can be some sort of 'impact' player later in the campaign?

[ArdeeBhoy]

Anyway, the RTE take...
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/european-championship/2014/1011/651662-oneill-still-sees-room-for-improvement/

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/international/2014/1012/651738-keane-confident-ahead-of-germany-clash/

[DeLorean]

Hendrick was actually worse than ineffective in the first half, he was very sloppy in possession and even seemed a bit nervous. Thought he had a better second half but nothing to write home about. Saying he's bigged up too much in a seriously dubious statement but he's better than he played yesterday. He could have been slightly rusty (maybe) and possibly a bit nervous, still pretty new to the Irish scene and it was probably a slightly unexpected start in his first really serious game, even if the opposition were less serious than his friendly outings. His club form did kick on to another level in the last year or so and he was excellent for us against Italy. He's got a lot of potential, if that's bigging him up to much then guilty as charged.

[DannyInvincible]

Ya I agree with the point from di about oneill seeming a bit inept about making the right changes and changes to effect the game on the 65th to 70th min. It's kinda worrying and it's almost trapesque.

It was horribly Trapesque. Even my ma and sister said the same!


Just for sake of balance: was taking Wes off not wise in terms of keeping him fresh for Tuesday - even if he won't have a starting role? Also, I won't blame O'Neill for Doyle and Murphy looking ineffective. They should both be good enough to make their presence felt but neither took his chance. Ok, neither had Wes feeding them but still they made no impact. Keane showed his class in that position last night even though the standard of opponent was dreadful.

It was fair enough taking him off and probably wise. It was just the astonishingly stark contrast between the game pre-65th minute and the game post-65th minute that really concerned me. We just looked so limited and pedestrian. It was like watching two extremes. Surely there can be a happy medium whereby we can look an imaginative attacking outfit without having to rely on Wes? In fairness to Doyle, I suppose, had he scored that header with his first touch from the corner, we'd have been praising his immediate impact. Murphy did absolutely nothing.

[SwanVsDalton]

If a manager can't try something different when 7-0 up at home, then when can he try it? We went 4-4-2, it didn't work due to a combination of the game being less than competitive and the subs being fairly ineffective.

Presumably O'Neill wanted to look at other players and other options and it's more likely than not that 4-4-2 in some shape or form is going to be at least a plan B (if not a plan A) in the near future. Words like inept and Trapesque are ridiculously overblown in this scenario.

[DeLorean]

Yeah and in fairness to MON also, I don't think anybody could have envisaged how uncreative we would become once Hoolahan came off. The players left on the pitch should have been more than good enough to continue creating chances against opposition that weak.

[pineapple stu]

Agree with the recent posts. No problems at all with the subs. Would have liked to have seen 10-0 (though I did feel for Gibraltar at 7-0 before an hour), but we learnt a lot from the subs made, which is surely more important.

Question now is do Keane and (particularly) Hoolahan play tomorrow? Because otherwise, you'd start to wonder what's been learnt from the subs.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Hoolahan, should play at some point. Even if it doesn't work especially...

[DannyInvincible]

If a manager can't try something different when 7-0 up at home, then when can he try it? We went 4-4-2, it didn't work due to a combination of the game being less than competitive and the subs being fairly ineffective.

Presumably O'Neill wanted to look at other players and other options and it's more likely than not that 4-4-2 in some shape or form is going to be at least a plan B (if not a plan A) in the near future. Words like inept and Trapesque are ridiculously overblown in this scenario.

Fair points. I wasn't saying he shouldn't have done it. Indeed, how was he to know what it would be like without trying it? Paul suggested I might have been critical of O'Neill personally, or of his supposed "ineptness", but that was to put words in my mouth. Martin isn't in my bad books at all; I think he's far from inept. It's certainly a good thing to experiment at such a point. No harm in trial and error. I'd just be worried if the clear limitations weren't noted and we persisted with something akin to how we finished the game. As pineapple stu says, what will have been learnt if Hoolahan is dropped for tomorrow night?

[backstothewall]

Fair points. I wasn't saying he shouldn't have done it. Indeed, how was he to know what it would be like without trying it? Paul suggested I might have been critical of O'Neill personally, or of his supposed "ineptness", but that was to put words in my mouth. Martin isn't in my bad books at all; I think he's far from inept. It's certainly a good thing to experiment at such a point. No harm in trial and error. I'd just be worried if the clear limitations weren't noted and we persisted with something akin to how we finished the game. As pineapple stu says, what will have been learnt if Hoolahan is dropped for tomorrow night?

I agree. But being honest, what would have been learned from trying something new against a team so bad. He would learn more about a new system in a training match behind closed doors against a LOI side.

[DeLorean]

In hindsight Robbie was right to take the penalty.

In hindsight? Why, what do you know now that you didn't back then?


It would have been a different story, perhaps, if he was on a fourth goal.

It wouldn't.

[SwanVsDalton]

Fair points. I wasn't saying he shouldn't have done it. Indeed, how was he to know what it would be like without trying it? Paul suggested I might have been critical of O'Neill personally, or of his supposed "ineptness", but that was to put words in my mouth. Martin isn't in my bad books at all; I think he's far from inept. It's certainly a good thing to experiment at such a point. No harm in trial and error. I'd just be worried if the clear limitations weren't noted and we persisted with something akin to how we finished the game. As pineapple stu says, what will have been learnt if Hoolahan is dropped for tomorrow night?

Exactly. As long as these substitutions and changes are building up a picture of the team's strengths and limitations.

Also, in fairness, a half hour without a goal is 'O'Neill out!' territory, so maybe we're not being harsh enough.

[DeLorean]

Bump.