Republic of Ireland v Iceland - Tuesday, 28th March 2017 - Friendly 2017

[TrapAPony]

The strikers issue is a problem. The consensus seems to be that Doyle should have been named in his last squad, but who on earth should we be picking in his place?

Definitely not Rooney or Sheridan either. The obvious answer is Scott Hogan but that has all died down for some reason. Is he just not interested or is it just not discussed because he was injured at the time??

Another problem we have is how uncreative we are without someone like Hoolahan. Even worse is that people seem to forget that he will be 36 by the time we/if we qualify for the World Cup. We need someone coming through there too.

[SkStu]

we have Long, Walters and Murphy to be fair - theres goals in that trio. And some other options (Pilkington, Sheridan spring to mind) available at senior and youth levels. I don't quite think we are as desperate as being made out. The issue is around creativity and the absence of creative spark in the middle three when we are down Hoolohan. Brady may grow into such a role for us. I don't think it is alarm bells quite yet.

[pineapple stu]

The strikers issue is a problem. The consensus seems to be that Doyle should have been named in his last squad, but who on earth should we be picking in his place? Maybe time to try setting up cups of coffee with Patrick Bamford, Will Keane and Scott Hogan again!
The striker issue is just the most glaring one I think - it's far from the only one. I've been saying it for a while here; we've a shortage of players worse than I've known in almost 30 years following the team. People are (rightly) pointing out that Hoolahan is a big loss - but he's 34. Who's coming through to replace him? McGeady in the centre? Horgan, maybe? But he's a while away from Hoolahan's level of experience yet. O'Dowda? Not overly positive reviews about him here.

We still have very much the same team from the Euros, which was the oldest squad in the competition then and is a year older now. Our underage teams are largely poor, there's no professional league at home to develop players and the FAI think the LoI is great for providing ten senior internationals (including Horgan and Boyle now) when actually that's a really poor return.

I still think we're in for a long Scotland-esque spell in the doldrums.

[TrapAPony]

we have Long, Walters and Murphy to be fair - theres goals in that trio.

30 and two 34 years old SkStu. We are in trouble very soon if MON doesn't solve it.


People are (rightly) pointing out that Hoolahan is a big loss - but he's 34.


35 in May which is even worse, and as I said above he will 36 by the time we get to Russia, that's if we get there.

[SkStu]

Sure, I agree our medium to long term prospects don't look healthy but I think what I am saying is that there is time to turn it around. Long and Murphy have another 4-5 years left in them so we just need to bring in another two prospects during that time. In terms of this qualifying campaign, it looks like we have sufficient strength in depth to create and score the goals that will get us to the WC. Sorry, that was my context.

It is funny, I got challenged quite strongly before this campaign started for suggesting that post Euro16 was the right time to get our next level of players on board and primed (granted, my suggestions were founded on a very incorrect assumption that we wouldn't make the top 2 of this group). Most people who challenged felt that we should play our strongest and most experienced players to try and get us to Russia. So, I suppose we cant have it both ways. My preference has now changed massively. I think we need to go with what we know until the end of this qualification campaign and use all available friendly opportunities to bed in our less experienced players and, if we qualify, use early 2018 to bring more players through and on board.

Also, I agree with PineappleStu completely with respect to the FAI. They have a greater responsibility to the future of Irish football than the current management team. It is they who have failed to develop the league to a standard whereby we have ready talent to choose from and it is they who are not ensuring our young players are able to compete with other young players from around Europe and the World to be ready to make the leap from underage to Senior football in a professional league and it is they who continue to rely on a wing and a prayer that O'Neill can charm qualified but reluctant individuals into declaring for us.

And finally, I have been proclaiming that the end is near since 2007...I have been forced to recognize that sometimes this sh!t just sorts itself out and players come through. I don't think it is the right strategy (see my last paragraph) but so far it has kept us afloat.

[CraftyToePoke]

We're joint top of the group with our main competitors still to come to us. We need to practice big time on set pieces because with the retirement of Robbie chances from open play will be at a premium.

There is a lot in what you say in an overall excellent post, but we have been scoring from open play post RK, including two in the finals Vs Sweden & Italy no less. Into this campaign and Hendrick, Coleman, Long & McClean have all registered from open play at key times in big games and some more than once and we have begun to beat higher ranked sides while registering more from play than set pieces. I think there is remarkable credit due to MON here, yes, it relies on Wes but at least he uses him properly, not like his predecessor who had us delivering unwatchable muck while telling us it had to be thus as we had no one good enough to play differently.

We are joint top with Wales sent away having failed to beat us when they needed to and thought they would, and we wont have to field a side as weakened as that again unless an awful lot of bad luck comes our way. It was ugly, it threw away (temporarily I hope) the periodic green shoots of passing & possession focused play which have been beginning to emerge in our game, which have been so welcome to finally see. But we didn't lose and we could have still edged it.

Iceland was a hard watch, granted but if Hourihane doesn't duck - and I believe he has been given a very easy ride for that in reports and on here - then we draw, a clean sheet etc, small margins. There has seemingly been more discussion of KW's foot position etc than the guy in the wall, I repeat, in the effing wall, who ducked on his debut for his country. MON mentioned it though. But there we go, on and up.

I feel positive, overall, and of course the second half of the campaign will define it more than the first, but we are doing well and while not playing total football, its not always caveman football either (the last two games and their mitigating circumstances apart). We are half decent, it's a nice time to be watching the side and we have waited a good bit to say that :) so I am enjoying it.

We will probably need to beat Serbia at home to top it, but then again we beat Germany. Long scored ... also from open play ;)

[KrisLetang]

Well said to both of you's.

What is MON's contract situation? Is he a long haul manager now? If they went to Russia and didnt do well and went home after 3 games would he likely still be the man?

[backstothewall]

Iceland was a hard watch, granted but if Hourihane doesn't duck - and I believe he has been given a very easy ride for that in reports and on here - then we draw, a clean sheet etc, small margins. There has seemingly been more discussion of KW's foot position etc than the guy in the wall, I repeat, in the effing wall, who ducked on his debut for his country. MON mentioned it though. But there we go, on and up.

I don't think anyone is defending him ducking. It obviously shouldn't have happened. The nuance in KWs foot position maybe just makes for more interesting conversation.

[TrapAPony]

Sure, I agree our medium to long term prospects don't look healthy but I think what I am saying is that there is time to turn it around. Long and Murphy have another 4-5 years left in them so we just need to bring in another two prospects during that time..


He is 34 SkStu. I don't see him playing for Ireland at 38/39 years of age, I would hope not anyway. Might as well bring back Aldridge and Quinn if that is the case.:D Pretty bleak that we have just Long really. After that we need to hope that some young Irish striker turns out to be very good or that we recruit someone worthwhile.

[pineapple stu]

30 and two 34 years old SkStu. We are in trouble very soon if MON doesn't solve it.
Not sure what MON is supposed to do about it tbh. He can make more players, but it'll be 18 years before that impacts the senior team.

[TrapAPony]

Not sure what MON is supposed to do about it tbh. He can make more players, but it'll be 18 years before that impacts the senior team.

Robbie Keane debuted at 17 so possibly even sooner. :pCannot fault MON so far but sometimes I wonder just how much effort is really going on behind the scenes to get someone on board. Maybe we need to put an add on the paper. Strikers to apply.

[KrisLetang]

Too bad Sean McGinty and Liam McAlinden have not seemed to come up the pike. Both at least 6' tall and both only 23.

[SkStu]

Not sure what MON is supposed to do about it tbh. He can make more players, but it'll be 18 years before that impacts the senior team.

the MON Stud Farm has a nice ring to it.

[Closed Account]

30 and two 34 years old SkStu. Walters is only 33 dammit! Stop adding years. (same birthday as me but I've retired)

[tricky_colour]

The only bright moment in the game really was when O'Dowda went on a forward run, it kind of work up an understandably sleepy crowd.
He is at Bristol City, not sure if he is pullling up trees there though.

O'Kane started that move with a firm pass, later he made one which was rather too firm, although maybe O Dowda could have got on the end of it
if he anticpated it.

Seems pointless paying crossing into the box when our strikers are too short to have a chance of getting on the end of anything, which indeed the didn't.

[tricky_colour]

So it is perhaps interesting that perhap for the first time in the hsotory of Irish football we dominated posession.

Needlessly to say we lost.

Hence the lesson is if you are crap at football don't try to play it.

[tricky_colour]

I just realised the weird think about O'Kane is he passes the ball forward!!!!!!!!!

[KrisLetang]

He makes forward passes all the time, sometimes he gets slapped for them!

[samhaydenjr]

The strikers issue is a problem. The consensus seems to be that Doyle should have been named in his last squad, but who on earth should we be picking in his place? Maybe time to try setting up cups of coffee with Patrick Bamford, Will Keane and Scott Hogan again!


we have Long, Walters and Murphy to be fair - theres goals in that trio. And some other options (Pilkington, Sheridan spring to mind) available at senior and youth levels. I don't quite think we are as desperate as being made out. The issue is around creativity and the absence of creative spark in the middle three when we are down Hoolohan. Brady may grow into such a role for us. I don't think it is alarm bells quite yet.


30 and two 34 years old SkStu. We are in trouble very soon if MON doesn't solve it.

Just thought I'd weigh in on the striker issue - while there is certainly cause for concern, with three main strikers unlikely to play through the next qualifying campaign, there have been some recent developments that have given cause for some optimism for the future. Admittedly we had high hopes that the likes of Mikey Drennan, Terry Dixon, Sean Maguire and Aiden O'Brien would make the breakthrough but right now we have about close to a dozen options worth looking at over the next couple of years, and that's assuming neither Hogan nor Jutkiewicz comes on board:

- Firstly we should look at options who will definitely be available for the next campaign and while the names David McGoldrick, Adam Rooney and Cillian Sheridan don't set the pulse racing, they are all decent, experienced strikers capable of scoring goals and Rooney in particular would be handy to have in the event of a penalty shoot-out
- Will Keane expressed a strong desire to be picked just before a long-term injury interrupted his efforts to establish himself at Hull - his progress next season should be monitored
- 19-year-old Gerry McDonagh got a few goals earlier this season on loan for Wrexham and got his first league goal on loan at Cambridge - he also has a decent scoring record at underage level at his parent club, Nottingham Forest. He will hopefully be playing at a higher level within the next couple of seasons
- We have two underage forwards at Everton - Courtney Duffus and Sam Byrne. Hopefully they can get decent loan moves next season and give us a chance to evaluate their chances
- Reece Grego-Cox seemed to have slipped off the radar a little, with a so-so loan period at Newport, where he failed to register a goal and picked up an injury. However he then returned to QPR and promptly scored five goals in two games for their U-23s
- After a period where his career seemed to be going nowhere, Sean Maguire's outstanding scoring record at Cork City will hopefully lead him following Horgan, Boyle, Forrester and Towell in getting a shot in England
- Ronan Hale had an excellent scoring record for Birmingham's U-18s and has moved up to their U-23s
- I guess the young striker we're watching most closely is probably Glen McAuley with sixteen goals for Liverpool's U-18s this season (plus one for the National U-17s in the elite round recently)
- However the goalscoring star of qualifying for the U-17s is surely Aaron Connolly, with seven goals in six games (some of them crackers). On top of that he's got three in his first two games for Brighton's U23s
- Our other two strikers in the U-17s, Rowan Roache and Adam Idah, both look useful: Roache has already featured for Blackpool's first team; Idah, who only turned 16 a few weeks ago, got four goals in the qualifying campaign and will surely be moving on from College Corinthians soon, especially if he impresses in the finals.
- Two young lads in Southampton's U-18s, Jonathan Afolabi and Michael Obafemi, seem to be doing well, with Afolabi already after scoring for their U-23s

Of course it's possible that none of these lads will make the breakthrough to high-level professional football but with this number coming through it's also possible that five or six will make it and that by the time the qualifiers for Euro 2024 (or even World Cup 2022) roll around, we'll be saying "whatever happened to that striker crisis we were all so worried about?".

That is, if our forays into AI haven't led to the Machines taking over by then

[jbyrne]

Another problem we have is how uncreative we are without someone like Hoolahan. Even worse is that people seem to forget that he will be 36 by the time we/if we qualify for the World Cup. We need someone coming through there too.

I think we need to get away from the view that we can only be creative with hoolahan in the team. its the mindset of the management and by extension the players that we need to change. we need to risk a little more in the oppositions half and be less inclined to go long all the time. its just too predictable. we were creative against both france and Italy in the euros when hoolahan didn't start so why not again?

the north don't have more creative players than us on paper but play much better football from what I have seen

[DannyInvincible]

Just thought I'd weigh in on the striker issue - while there is certainly cause for concern, with three main strikers unlikely to play through the next qualifying campaign, there have been some recent developments that have given cause for some optimism for the future. Admittedly we had high hopes that the likes of Mikey Drennan, Terry Dixon, Sean Maguire and Aiden O'Brien would make the breakthrough but right now we have about close to a dozen options worth looking at over the next couple of years, and that's assuming neither Hogan nor Jutkiewicz comes on board...

Preston's Callum Robinson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callum_Robinson) is another striker whose eligibility has been confirmed (https://twitter.com/RobBrennan82/status/833994937196769280). Whether or not he'd be keen to make a switch from the FA to the FAI is another matter, but there's a possibility there.

[DeLorean]

On Westwood, I was watching him needless to say behind the goal. He had the wall organised but then it was moved back about 3 yards to the line the ref had drawn and he shouted a few instructions but no one listened and he gave up. They did move a taller player to the middle of the wall and a smaller one to the left I think. Much and all as I hate to admit it, he was flatfooted when it nestled in the net. I was surprised he didn't save it. On the positive side his distribution was better than Randolph and he fed the ball out to the full backs far more often than Randolph.

As to the game itself, we had a team which never played together before so I am neither shocked at the result nor at the performance. I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the crowd.

What did we learn, if we can learn anything from one game:

- (a) McGeady, who many wanted to start against Wales, is still the McGeady we love and who frustrates us. The standard in the Championship is dire (trust me) and a series of good games for Preston does not mean he is a new man. That said, he is one of the few Irish players who get us on our feet, only to sit down again. I still think he can produce that bit of magic so worth a squad place.
- (b) Hourihane - very reluctant to judge him on one game but did not have a great game and always took the easy option. Maybe with more experience, more confidence will come. Possible blame in the goal. Worth a squad place.
- (c) Doyle: it told us that he is not the player he once was and alas that injury he got playing for us really knocked him back. Not worth a squad place.
+ (d) Horgan put in some excellent crosses but with no natural striker they were wasted.
+ (e) Continued tactic of pretending to take a short corner which draws two defenders away for our one man. Surprised everyone doesn't do this.
- (f) A lot of people were attending an international for the first time. You can imagine their thoughts on what they saw.
+ (g) Austria only drew at home to Finland. No world beaters either.
- (h) McLean was ineffective in the role given to him. + You have to admire his energy and determination.
- (i) Looks like we have to rely on a 34 year old playing in the second tier of English football for our inspiration and whom the management were originally ambivalent about.
- (j) What has happened to the Jeff Hendrick of the Euros ?

+++ We're joint top of the group with our main competitors still to come to us. We need to practice big time on set pieces because with the retirement of Robbie chances from open play will be at a premium.

Great post. Just in relation to Westwood, I don't think there's any question but he was caught flat footed. I guess the two sides of the debate are whether or not Hourihane ducking exempts him from blame, for being caught flat footed, or whether he should have still recovered to make the save in any case.


Yep, I agree that KW himself felt he could have done better. I saw it in his body language too. He started going the right way but just stopped - but maybe in anticipation of a deflection. Had he continued he'd have made a decent save.

Well I think he knew if he continued the way he was going he would have saved it, so there's going to be an obvious frustration with himself. That's not to say when he watched it back later he wouldn't have be more annoyed with Hourihane than himself. I certainly would have been.

I agree about the nitpicking though. We're in a decent position with goalkeepers.

[DannyInvincible]

Great post. Just in relation to Westwood, I don't think there's any question but he was caught flat footed. I guess the two sides of the debate are whether or not Hourihane ducking exempts him from blame, for being caught flat footed, or whether he should have still recovered to make the save in any case.

Was Westwood definitely caught flat-footed? I'm not sure. He's on the move across the goal right from the moment Magnússon kicks the ball.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-nwAsveQMY

Westwood just doesn't complete his dive for some reason. Maybe, as Stutts said above, he was anticipating a possible deflection and so didn't commit to a dive as a result. That's not necessarily to say he'd have managed to save it anyway had he dived. It all happened very quickly.

Incidentally, does Westwood bless himself just as Magnússon begins his run-up? :confused:

I still think Hourihane staying grounded and ducking his head out of the way is unforgivable. In my opinion, he must accept primary responsibility for the concession of the goal. The free-kick was hit low and ended up in the far corner from where Westwood had positioned himself; that was the side of the goal that was supposed to have been covered by the wall whilst Westwood was covering the other side. If the ball goes over a jumping wall and in, I don't think anyone would be holding anyone to blame; we'd just acknowledge it was a perfectly-placed free-kick that gave the keeper no chance.

[DeLorean]

I think he stops because he can't see the flight of the ball until it's past the wall, therefore instinctively expecting it to hit the wall, as it should have. If Magnusson had got the trajectory he wanted it would have been visible to Westwood earlier and he probably would have got across to save it, as he wouldn't have paused and it wasn't very powerfully struck. When I say he was flat-footed, I mean once he stops he's unable to recover his momentum to get across. We really need to get to the bottom of this. :)

[TrapAPony]

How on earth can Westwood be given any blame for the Iceland goal?? :confused: The goal came because of Egan's silly foul and then all because Hourihane and Hendrick were too lazy to jump off the ground to stop the ball. Their failure to jump meant that Magnusson stuck the ball right in the corner. What goalkeeper was going to save that?:confused:

[Closed Account]

How on earth can Westwood be given any blame for the Iceland goal?? :confused: The goal came because of Egan's silly foul and then all because Hourihane and Hendrick were too lazy to jump off the ground to stop the ball. Their failure to jump meant that Magnusson stuck the ball right in the corner. What goalkeeper was going to save that?:confused:
The ridiculous over analysis is the problem. It was a good goal. Hourihane and Hendrick don't have to jump, sometimes you gamble they are going to hit it under the wall. Free kick in a dangerous position, they scored. End of story.

[DeLorean]

What goalkeeper was going to save that?:confused:

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/67/590x/Randolph-645947.jpg

[TrapAPony]

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/67/590x/Randolph-645947.jpg

I am glad Randolph agrees with me because he wouldn't have saved it either.;)

[geysir]

As the commentator said, it was a brilliant strike by the kid.
The first comment under that You Tube video that Danny posted Ireland vs Iceland 0-1 ALL GOALS & HIGHLIGHTS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-nwAsveQMY),
"Highlights? how can an Irish offside be a highlight?"
As funny as that sounds to some ears, that should be the matter of concern from that game.

That was the only alleged Irish highlight
However, it wasn't even an Irish highlight, it was a highlight of good defending :)

[tetsujin1979]

e-nwAsveQMY

[tetsujin1979]

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