Serbia v Rep of Ireland - Rajko Mitić Stadium, Belgrade (WCQ) Monday, 5th Sept. 2016

[EAFC_rdfl]

I'd agree it was a penalty too, as annoying as that is given the way the Serb went down, but it's one of those forgivable ones. What he did a while after was a different case, when he flung their winger to the ground during a Serbia breakaway. The play was through the middle so it went unnoticed by the officials, otherwise it would have been at least a yellow card. It looked like Coleman was giving him a bit of a going over for it at fulltime though, pointing towards where it happened. Hopefully next day out he will be a bit more disciplined

[tetsujin1979]

Long and Walters were brutal, we do really need goals to start coming from every player.

Serbia were atrocious lads apart from the wings. You wouldn't have spotted on tele, but they were at 6s and 7s and couldnt organise themselves off the ball at all, ivanovic has no excuse here really, before the ball was played in for the offside goal we had 3 free men, no one picking them up. It was criminal that we still stayed offside, as they had so much space and time to move around. Their keeper was brutal.

Actually the tv coverage pointed that out throughout the game. But you wouldn't have spotted that on your high horse.


I have not seen as bad a team organised defensively as they were, or a keeper as dodgy as theirs was. It's two points dropped. Even though the pitch was bad, we never used our pace, and their defenders weren't tracking anytime we made a run.

Get over your own negativity and the talk of when did we last beat blah blah blah nonsense. The fans and the players have a brittle, weak mentality. We were screaming the stands to push out and actually get on the ball. Everytime we had space we headered it or blasted it instead of taking it down, with loads of time to do so. Anytime we attacked we looked like scoring they were that bad.

Murphy said himself for hte goal, he had so much time that its one of those you end up missing. Because you have too much time to think. I read that and thought, well why the fc*k didn't ye go and do something about it then. It happened everytime we got a quick ball into the box.It almost as if a bad pitch doesn't allow you to move and control a ball at pace

[paul_oshea]

Thanks for enlightening us!! There was me thinking they were one of the best drilled sides I'd seen in a long time

I havent read all the posts on here but most that have stood out are sayig how a draw isnt a bad result and out they outplayed us and/or we were lucky to come out with a draw.

All we needed to do was show a bit bravery a few more attacks and we would have scored.

[ifk101]

Post Euros hangover? :-)

The performance was poor but happy with the result.

[SwanVsDalton]

That was also my take, but that's a penalty. The Serbian guy drew the foul, as he is quite entitled to do, and Walters fell into the trap. Once the Serb got there first Walters had no business placing a hand on his back and down he went as soon as he felt the contact. You are right that the trip, which was also enough to give a penalty for in my opinion, happened on yer mans way down, but there was already enough before that happened.


The Serbian fella had possession, and Walters had no business running that close to the back of him. He was caught completely out of position, and either the Serbian fella was going to get a shot away or Walters would nick the attacker and cause him to go down. Daft defending; no complaints about the peno. I'm not sure how much it'd take to knock you in that situation tbh.

Sorry chaps, we'll have to agree to disagree. Haven't seen it back but I didn't see a foul and this argument seems to boil do (apologies for the reductivism) 'the foul was coming/Walters was too close to him'.

Maybe I really am old-fashioned, but I still need a foul before a penalty is given. Just cause Walters is in his proximity or was late or was out-of-position or clumsy doesn't give the Serbian a licence to throw himself to the ground. Likewise, I can't see how Walters apparently grazing his knuckles against the Serb's back - as he's bringing his hands up - is enough for him to fall over.

All being fair, Walters should have been in a better position or less clumsy - but he still actually has to foul him to give away a penalty.

I reserve the right to withdraw all the above if I see the clip back and Walters kicked him in the ankles. :)


i haven't seen it back but i thought there was minimal contact on mcclean when he won the free kick that led to our first goal. serbia were all over us when they got the pen - who's to say if it wasn't given they wouldn't have scored a later goal giving us no chance to get back into it.

None of that is to say Serbian didn't deserve to be in front. I'm not really complaining about the penalty award, we've had plenty of soft dubious ones in recent years.

[pineapple stu]

I'll agree on not agreeing with "He had a licence to go down", and that there has to be a foul rather than clumsiness.

I just think there was more contact than there appears - not just the (small) nudge on the back, but also a potential clip of the heels.

My first reaction was that it was a stonewall penalty, because Walters did defend it very badly and got the wrong side of his man.

The lack of any real complaints and how close the referee were would all seem to back it up.

But the bottom line is still that we were blessed to come away with a point in a match where Serbia's defence in particular were so abject that we could easily have had all three.

[livehead1]

Long is begining to grate me a bit, chewing his gum, everyone calling for him to start for about 4 years, retire robbie and Long himself coming out saying similar to things of those effect when he would score or if he wasn't getting enough chances has he perceived it.

Well you've had your chance the last year and half or so and you aren't doing much about it.

Especially that dreadful goal he scored against the world champions that kept us in with a shout of qualifying for the Euro's...

[OwlsFan]

I regard the penalty decision as irrelevant as a second goal was on the cards anyway. As least it came early enough for us to fight our way back in to the game. We were just blessed they didn't score a third.

Nor do I agree that the "game was there for the taking" against a team who enjoyed far more possession than us and created more chances than us and who could retain possession.

p.s. Randolph has been taking penalty saving lessons from Given.

[DeLorean]

Accuse me of lacking ambition but I'm very satisfied with a draw. Being realistic it's going to be a very tall order to qualify for this World Cup but that is the kind of start that gives us a chance at least. It puts us in a position where we we can take four points from our fixtures with one of our direct rivals, obviously a lot of work to do to achieve that but you'd have to be hopeful that we can beat them at home. A defeat would have been a disaster really so my overriding feeling is relief that we avoided that, much like the Sweden game in Paris, despite them being "there for the taking" also.

The performance was desperately poor but we all know we can do better in that regard. It's still very early in the season with fellas trying to work up to full fitness. We were very poor in Georgia this time two years ago and diabolical in Kazakhstan in the campaign before that. This was a much tougher fixture to start out than what those should have been really.

O'Shea, Coleman and Walters, in particular, must be well short of 100%. Of course that begs the question of whether they should have started at all but obviously O'Neill felt they were too important to leave out for this one. I think the pitch and the early lead gave a few too many of our players an excuse to refrain from doing the right things and just pump it long in an aimless fashion, Whelan and McClean the biggest culprits, but probably slightly unfair to single them out when it was such a poor showing overall.

Long also struggled to make an impact but you'd have to feel for him, a thankless job chasing balls that weren't even aimed in his general direction. I can imagine O'Neill seeing the pitch and telling the players not to take any chances. He often laments our sloppy ball retention and lack of bravery in possession but he was setting his stall out with the exclusion of Hoolahan from the starting line-up.

To Serbia's credit, they made light of the conditions in that respect and continued to do the right things throughout, in our half at least. I thought Tadic looked a class above every player on the pitch last night.

Six points from our next two games are essential but will set us up nicely for Vienna if we can manage it. As for whether or not the other teams (namely Austria & Wales) will pick up results or not in Belgrade remains to be seen. Austria won all their away games in their last campaign, scoring eight goals in wins in Sweden, Russia & Montengro, so they'll have no fear of the trip. Who knows though... maybe an Austria win might be a better result for us anyway in the long run. Wales will have unpleasant memories of their 6-1 humiliation in Serbia a few years back, but they're a different proposition now.

[marinobohs]

I regard the penalty decision as irrelevant as a second goal was on the cards anyway. As least it came early enough for us to fight our way back in to the game. We were just blessed they didn't score a third.

Nor do I agree that the "game was there for the taking" against a team who enjoyed far more possession than us and created more chances than us and who could retain possession.

p.s. Randolph has been taking penalty saving lessons from Given.

Not sure I could ever buy that a penalty (especially one that was converted) is irrelevant but fully agree that we were outplayed and getting a point was a good result.
Irrespective of how poor they were (and God they were) we were worse. Shocking display from all and we should be thanking our lucky stars we got a point. Ironically the peno seemed to waken us up. didn't think it was a penalty but ref seemed a bit of a homer in the cards he dished out and Walters gave him the opportunity with very clumsy defending.

[DeLorean]

He was the same ref as we got in the Estonia away leg, he certainly wasn't a homer that night anyway in fairness. Think he just had a bit of a bad night, the yellow cards were bizarre. They'd bother me more than the penalty concession, I can't see whether Walters clips him or not from the replays. If he does it's a penalty, if he doesn't it's not. Either way, it looked a stonewall penalty to me on first viewing so I wouldn't blame him for giving it.

[Stuttgart88]

I think the carmaker's point about some players lacking match sharpness is fair, and I was going to say the same earlier. It's something we might have to live with throughout the campaign I fear.

[shakermaker1982]

Players need to be playing regular football if they want a start. If they are stuck on the bench for their club then they need to go out on loan. MO'N needs to get that message out there.

We need to replace O'Shea and Whelan asap. McClean is nothing more than a 20 minute impact sub.

As I said last night before the game I'd have taken a point but when you are 1 nil up after 3 minutes and Serbia could implode if we went for the jugular it's disappointing when do that Irish football speciality of going into a shell.

[liamoo11]

The optimism before yesterday reminded me of the away game agin Russia at the start of the euro campaign in 2002. All the chat was we wood roll the Russians over after our super performance against Spain in the World Cup. That didn't go so well with a far better quality side and bench http://m.goal.com/s/en-ie/match/russia-vs-republic-of-ireland/49356/lineups than we have now. A good point last night. At no point in our history have we ever routinely gone to nations like Serbia and won remember Croatia away in 1999 goal in last minute after never getting out of our half and the Croats missing a truck full ? We can get out of this group but there are goin to b a few more nights like last night to get it done

[tricky_colour]

The Serbian fella had possession, and Walters had no business running that close to the back of him. He was caught completely out of position, and either the Serbian fella was going to get a shot away or Walters would nick the attacker and cause him to go down. Daft defending; no complaints about the peno. I'm not sure how much it'd take to knock you in that situation tbh.


I think Walters was in a tricky position (no pun intended), the player was always likely to go down if he touched him. The player ran across Walters path as much as anything else.

[Charlie Darwin]

Long and Walters were brutal, we do really need goals to start coming from every player.

Serbia were atrocious lads apart from the wings. You wouldn't have spotted on tele, but they were at 6s and 7s and couldnt organise themselves off the ball at all, ivanovic has no excuse here really, before the ball was played in for the offside goal we had 3 free men, no one picking them up. It was criminal that we still stayed offside, as they had so much space and time to move around. Their keeper was brutal.

I have not seen as bad a team organised defensively as they were, or a keeper as dodgy as theirs was. It's two points dropped. Even though the pitch was bad, we never used our pace, and their defenders weren't tracking anytime we made a run.

Get over your own negativity and the talk of when did we last beat blah blah blah nonsense. The fans and the players have a brittle, weak mentality. We were screaming the stands to push out and actually get on the ball. Everytime we had space we headered it or blasted it instead of taking it down, with loads of time to do so. Anytime we attacked we looked like scoring they were that bad.

Murphy said himself for hte goal, he had so much time that its one of those you end up missing. Because you have too much time to think. I read that and thought, well why the fc*k didn't ye go and do something about it then. It happened everytime we got a quick ball into the box.
Ahhhhhh he said it!!!!

[Drumcondra 69er]

Thoughts on last night's escape for anyone interested....

http://afalsefirstxi.blogspot.ie/2016/09/murphys-law.html?m=1

[geysir]

He was the same ref as we got in the Estonia away leg, he certainly wasn't a homer that night anyway in fairness. Think he just had a bit of a bad night, the yellow cards were bizarre. They'd bother me more than the penalty concession, I can't see whether Walters clips him or not from the replays. If he does it's a penalty, if he doesn't it's not. Either way, it looked a stonewall penalty to me on first viewing so I wouldn't blame him for giving it.
It isn't a question of 'there was contact therefore it's a penalty' or 'he was entitled to go down because he felt a touch', no matter how many times those lines are repeated, because there has to be enough contact to cause the foul.
What usually fools a ref is the simulation, convincing him that enough contact has been made. How many times do we see refs not give a penalty because he thinks the forward is making too much of light contact? Contact is not an offense.
The ref was right there last night, in a very good position to see what transpired.
I couldn't see the offense myself, there was no trip as such with one leg being clipped against another and I thought the dive was too enthusiastic.
Similar to Robbie's penalty v Russia, but I thought his legs were clipped.

[DeLorean]

Yeah, I just can't see if there's a touch or not. If there is a touch I think it would be enough to impede him, I think the onus is on Walters to ensure he doesn't clip him given the poor tackling position he got himself into. Kostic may have exaggerated the contact but it may still have been enough to put him off his stride. I've just no idea if there actually is any contact or not so I'm happy enough to sit on the fence, but it's definitely not one I'd be too upset about.

[SkStu]

Really dont know how to take that game though. So many good reasons as to why we may have played poorly but then the reality of just how poorly we played at times was sobering. I agree with Pineapple Stu's comments above about blooding another generation of players.

I think that this is the real issue for discussion here by us fans in some way - what does this campaign need to deliver? I think we can all agree that our best hope is to somehow secure a play off spot. That would be a significant achievement given how difficult qualification for the WC is now. So, if that is our (admittedly probably just my) stretch target then why arent we looking at this as a transition campaign with something semi-realistic to aim for.

Keep a strong core 11 - with Coleman, Hendrick, Brady, Long and a couple of others as our regular starters - ditch the older players - like O'Shea - and older/useless peripherals who will never be our dependable starters - McShane, McGeady et al - and start bringing in the standout YOUNGER players we have from the Championship as squad players and give them squad experience and playing experience depending on the game scripts. Some mightnt work out but some definitely will.

I mentioned the need for succession planning to begin at the Euros and it didnt happen - and thats fine, understandable in the circumstances - but a "new campaign, new players" philosophy would have been nice to see. It seems we are sticking with the tried and tested in the hopes of qualifying.

I am sure the mandate O'Neill is working with from the FAI/Delaney is qualification at all costs so he may also feel he has no time or grace to blood some youth. If we were to look more strategically at this campaign and the next 2 or 3 campaigns then we should be blooding these players now and getting them ready for some, perhaps more realistically attainable, qualificaiton campaigns ahead.

[SkStu]

with respect to the penalty, it just was not a foul from what i could see and therefore, in my opinion, shouldnt have been a penalty. The only clear contact is the dragged foot which was clipped intentionally against the foot of Walters. In other words he was almost on the deck before there was any clear contact. It was a stinker of a call but Walters did give the ref a decision to make by virtue of being so close to the attacker and perhaps that was careless. I think the ref just got fooled, and that happens a lot in the modern game, so we'll just have to get over it.

[Stuttgart88]

Geysir, nowhere in the rules does it say there needs to be contact. Excessive force or carelessness are the criteria as far as I can recall. We can argue all we like as if it was a trial by jury but we all know what constitutes a penalty and what doesn't. I think - but can't confirm without the scrutiny of a replay - that the Serb positioned and paced his run across Walters to ensure a clip on the heel or a push in the back. Nothing bordering on assault but enough to ensure Walters could fairly be charged with carelessness.

Separately, it's kind of telling that Walters was that deep from open play in the first place, no?

[backstothewall]

I thought the rules might be handy for this one



A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences
against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless,
reckless or using excessive force:
• charges
• jumps at
• kicks or attempts to kick
• pushes
• strikes or attempts to strike (including head-butt)
• tackles or challenges
• trips or attempts to trip

If an offence involves contact it is penalised by a direct free kick or penalty
kick.

• Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration when
making a challenge or acts without precaution. No disciplinary sanction is
needed
• Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or
consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned
• Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and
endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off

He carelessly charged an opponent. Then he carelessly tripped him.

As I said above I'd love to change the rules back to the way they were when i was a kid in the 90s but this is what we have today.

[Cymro]

Never a penalty. Neutral opinion settles it.

But the draw is a nice result for us, not complaining like. :D

[tricky_colour]

He ran across Walters somewhat, rather deliberately I would say, there was not really much Walters could not to avoid a collision.

It is somewhat akin to those insurance scammers who cut in in front of you and then slam on the brakes, there is nothing you can do
because the thinking time covers more distance than the stopping distance.

Walters should put in a counter claim for whiplash.

Hopefully Shane Long will get us one back in the return leg! :cool:

[jbyrne]

He carelessly charged an opponent.

really? I think its stretching things to suggest that what walters did constitutes "charging".

[Stuttgart88]

I thought the rules might be handy for this one



He carelessly charged an opponent. Then he carelessly tripped him.

As I said above I'd love to change the rules back to the way they were when i was a kid in the 90s but this is what we have today.I'm not sure the rules above are any different from those years back. Interpretation maybe...

A key phrase above is "in a manner considered by the referee". So, Walters was careless in a manner considered by the referee [probably] involving contact. Sure, the player drew the foul by getting between Walters and the ball, just as Duff and Keane have done lots of times (e.g., Russia at home that time he was clipped from behind. Keane played for it and the defender was dumb enough to oblige).

[pineapple stu]

He can't have run across Walters as he had possession in the first place. It was Walters who didn't get out of his way, or challenge him in a fair manner (which, penalty or not, he didn't do)

[DeLorean]

Interesting comments from Coleman (and Long to a lesser extent) here. (http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/seamus-coleman-players-to-blame-for-irish-negativity-419743.html)

[geysir]

Geysir, nowhere in the rules does it say there needs to be contact. Excessive force or carelessness are the criteria as far as I can recall. We can argue all we like as if it was a trial by jury but we all know what constitutes a penalty and what doesn't. I think - but can't confirm without the scrutiny of a replay - that the Serb positioned and paced his run across Walters to ensure a clip on the heel or a push in the back. Nothing bordering on assault but enough to ensure Walters could fairly be charged with carelessness.

Separately, it's kind of telling that Walters was that deep from open play in the first place, no?
I never said that there has to be contact, but where there is contact, then there has to be enough in order to cause a foul.
A hand on the back is not a foul in the box, otherwise there would be 50 -100 penalties a game. A hand on the back is contact.
A hand on the back and the forward falls to the ground, the ref has to decide whether the player was pushed with enough force, was faking it or both were equal culprits.
If the ref does award a penalty to the forward, a common refrain is 'oh there was contact', or 'once a forward felt a hand he was entitled to dive'.
I don't know what Walters did because I couldn't see it, I didn't see a trip or a push or what was Walters to do, become invisible when a player turns into his path, dives and makes contact with Walter's foot 3/4 way through the dive?
But the ref was in a good position. I don't think Walter's got a yellow did he?

[seanfhear]

Coleman was certainly in no mans land for the chance that he eventually and fortunately blocked . He played the attacker onside and we were lucky .

[Stuttgart88]

But the ref was in a good position. I don't think Walter's got a yellow did he?
No, I don't think he did.

[tetsujin1979]

Brady, Whelan, Hendrick and Ward all got booked, that's going to come back to haunt us

[Colbert Report]

Does anyone know where I can get a video of the match? I missed it on Monday and would like to be able to go back and watch it now. I live in the USA if that makes any difference. Ta

[Drumcondra 69er]

Coleman was certainly in no mans land for the chance that he eventually and fortunately blocked . He played the attacker onside and we were lucky .

In fairness, I don't think Coleman could have got forward quick enough to play the attacker offside from his starting position, dropping back to the line was proven to be the right call. Touch of no man's land for the starting position alright.

[DeLorean]

Brady, Whelan, Hendrick and Ward all got booked, that's going to come back to haunt us

Is it three you need to accumulate for a suspension these days? Brady & Hendrick have become key players for sure. I wouldn't be too concerned about the other two (despite Ward being very good the other night) barring an injury crisis.

[seanfhear]

Ward was booked for a decent robust challenge . It probably wasn't even a foul . Those kind of tackles are part of the game .

[paul_oshea]

He went in though with the studs showing. I can see why it was a foul.

I watched the game again last night, and we thought it was innocuous enough at the time, however, 9 times out of 10 those are given as penalties, the player played the ball in front of him, well in front of him, walters was too slow to get in front of him and came across him, behind him, and gets contact with him. The ref sees him go down and walters is standing between the ref and the player. Its a completely stupid piece of covering/defending, but it was a dangerous enough position potentially from which he could have done something. It reminds me in gaelic football when a forward holds and locks in the defenders arm, making it looking like he is being held, and then falls over - refs always fall for that too. There was contact for sure, whether its the kind of contact given in Geysirs definition I am not sure.

Coleman was very poor last night, I hope its injury and fitness rather than anything else, his defending hasn't been as good as it used to and he didn't get forward much the last day, he was also doing a ward all night long and they were hogging the touchline getting attack after attack, thankfully their crossing was as bad as ours and they rarely beat the first man.

McClean and Long are much better impact subs, had we brought on hoolahan, long and mcclean with 25 or 30 to go I think we would have sneaked another one. I am happy enough about when the penalty came they were going to score anyway and we had ample time to get a reply.

On or around the 37th minute I think, we had won a corner, I turned to the lads with me and asked why do we always do this when leading, the easy option was taken from McClean to just look for the corner(low ball hit against the first defender) and waste a bit more time and maybe we get something from the corner, it was the simple and negative option and it really annoyed me as it's something we always do. There were 3 lads in the box and McClean should have gone for the good ball beating the defender with a bit of height in it. There was a really good chance we could have scored from that with a decent ball, especially given how poor they were defensively and how bad their marking was. I was glad to hear Houghton say the exact same and that McClean has to be positive there, put height in it and beat the first man. O'Neill and the players themselves need to look back on these things and remedy them, drum it into them that in these positions we need to attack and take the chance, be positive, go for it, don't settle for the simple, lets take a corner negative approach.

There are many little simple things that we can do when leading, that all applied together during the course of a match that would make a big difference. O'Neill must see this and start to implement a fix for it.

[tetsujin1979]

Is it three you need to accumulate for a suspension these days? Brady & Hendrick have become key players for sure. I wouldn't be too concerned about the other two (despite Ward being very good the other night) barring an injury crisis.

it's two according to this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_%E2%80%93_UEFA_G roup_D#Discipline

Receiving two yellow cards in two different matches (yellow card suspensions are carried forward to the play-offs, but not the finals or any other future international matches)
Definitely going to haunt us

[DeLorean]

Might be better off picking them up in the next game and sitting out Moldova!

[tricky_colour]

Interesting comments from Coleman (and Long to a lesser extent) here. (http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/seamus-coleman-players-to-blame-for-irish-negativity-419743.html)

I think the problem Coleman alludes too, ie sitting back after going a goal ahead is a common one.

Indeed I seem to remember one of the Serbian players saying the exact same thing about Serbia when they went ahead.

It seems the problem is easy to diagnose but it is rather harder putting the solution into practise.

I think is the fear of losing which is the problem, if you are already losing you don't have so much to worry about!!!

As for Long were the tables reversed, he would have won us a penalty in the same situation, indeed I am pretty sure he has already.

[DeLorean]

It seems the problem is easy to diagnose but it is rather harder putting the solution into practice.

Well put and I agree it's pretty common across the board, especially when a team is playing against opposition of similar or higher quality (particularly away from home). We did okay for the rest of the first half against France having gone 1-0 up after a couple of minutes, but were pinned back in the second half for a variety of reasons. It's not as if we just collapsed into our shell after taking the lead though. Sweden came on pretty strong after we scored alright but we were never going to dominate for ninety minutes I don't think. We picked B&H off pretty well at Lansdowne having gone 1-0 up relatively early on.

[OwlsFan]

I think that this is the real issue for discussion here by us fans in some way - what does this campaign need to deliver? I think we can all agree that our best hope is to somehow secure a play off spot. That would be a significant achievement given how difficult qualification for the WC is now. So, if that is our (admittedly probably just my) stretch target then why arent we looking at this as a transition campaign with something semi-realistic to aim for.

I am not sure why you think that our best hope is a play off position. I think we have as good a chance of securing the top spot as any of the other main contenders. Not long ago we scoffed at winning the Celtic Cup or whatever it was called against opposition such as Wales. Now we seem to fear them. We are equal to if not better than them (Bale aside). Serbia we have a nudge on after the away draw and Austria. We were better than them at home and they outplayed us away in the last campaign under Trap when the team was starting to implode. I would be equally hopeful as the other nations are of a top spot. Certainly not looking at a play off spot at this stage.

Thus I don't think it is time "to blood new players" for the future. Pick your best team and if the new players are better than what's there, play them but not as an experiment for some future campaign. World Cups come around only every 4 years and are precious and should never be written off until mathematically impossible to qualify. Then you blood new players but not before.

[backstothewall]

Bale is a quality player but I would expect there to be very little room for quality play in either game against Wales. Both games are going to be like FA Cup matches. Hardly any time on the ball, and even less quality on show. Maybe late on when legs start to give out there might be a bit of space for him to do something but with the way he plays for Wales his legs will be likely to be as far gone as anyone else

[pineapple stu]

We are equal to if not better than them (Bale aside).
Ah we're not though. Are we really one (world class) player away from a European semi-final? Not a hope.

Wales have flown past us in terms of skill and confidence.

[DeLorean]

Ah we're not though. Are we really one (world class) player away from a European semi-final? Not a hope.

Well we weren't exactly a million miles from a quarter final against Iceland, throw a Bale into the equation and he could easily have made the difference.

Although I don't see the point in saying "Bale aside" - you can't just take him out of the equation when he's the most important part of the equation. Plus I'm not sure we've anybody playing at the level Williams, Allen & Ramsey have produced in recent months either - so that's four players they have that are automatically better than any of ours, one of which is on another planet.

I agree with everybody to a point-

I agree with SkStu that we should be bringing new players in for the likes of McShane and Pearce, nothing to lose there. I'd stop short of mass changes for change sake though. We do need to freshen things up a bit and reward players who deserve to be selected.

I agree with Owls that the World Cup qualification campaign shouldn't be jeopardised in the hope of future gain. That might be okay if we have no realistic chance of qualifying, like Toshack & Wales seemed to do at one point, but this is a dream group in a lot of ways.

I agree with Stu-eile that Wales have definitely passed us out since the Nations Cup. It's not that they managed to get to the Euros semi final a such, but more the manner in which they hammered the likes of Russia and Belgium, stuff we could only dream of, despite my comment above. Austria's qualification campaign was seriously impressive last time as well, regardless of the demise of Russia and Sweden. They were still results we never could and probably never will be capable of producing.

Backstothewall - it's an interesting point about Bale's quality not showing if the games are tight. I think the opposite in a lot of ways but I know what you're saying too. He was totally out of the game against Northern Ireland in the Euros because of their defensive setup, but he still produced the one moment of quality that made the difference and has done that countless times for club and country. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a quality player perform so poor so often, but still come up with something when it's really matters.

But we are realistically capable of getting results off everybody in this group, which is something we didn't fully believe last time (even though it ended up happening). I wouldn't rule out top spot yet either, but I would snap your hand off for a playoff place if it was offered.

[Stuttgart88]

I think anything can happen in this group too, but I think we need to pull our socks up. IRL v WAL could be a slugfest like Glasgow where we bring a more technical team down to our level.

I think we're deluded if we think we can play to the standard that Wales played at key times during the Euros. Look at our respective performances versus Belgium. What would we have done with an early lead against Russia, who were poor but surely better than Serbia?

Bale, Allen and Ramsey all played to a very high level last summer and all the rest did their jobs well too.

[DeLorean]

Play football and forget the World Cup, warns Richard Dunne (http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/play-football-and-forget-the-world-cup-warns-richard-dunne-419969.html)

[Stuttgart88]

But the argument isn't so much to play nice football, it's to simply not give up initiative and retreat every time we have something to defend.

[DeLorean]

Being able to pass the ball to each other would help on both counts but Dunne is saying that it's easy to talk, but a different thing when you look up and it's just a sea of red shirts in front of you. Obviously the opposition are going to come on stronger when they're losing too and make it even tougher for us to play football/not retreat. Regardless, there was no excuse for some of the hoofing the last night, the worst I have seen I think.