Georgia V Republic of Ireland - Saturday, 2 September 2017 - World Cup 2018 Qualifier

[passinginterest]

That's an odd substitution too.

[tricky_colour]

well done mcclean, brady put him in trouble

[passinginterest]

Is it 4-4-2 now with Brady and whelan in the middle? *looks like McLean might have pushed inside.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Much better in last ten minutes. Georgian midfield have switched off big time.

[DannyInvincible]

Georgia seem to be tiring. Their intensity has definitely dropped.

[pineapple stu]

Is that McClean suspended now?

Idiotic

[pineapple stu]

Have we now no centre-mids?

How's this working?

[shakermaker1982]

James and Brady CM. can't be any worse than Whelan and Arter

[osarusan]

Georgia tired now.

If we keep swinging balls into their box we might nick one.

[ger121]

Georgia tired now.

Must have been all that running around with the ball.

[tricky_colour]

Last chance saloon, for both sides..

[tricky_colour]

Come on!

Now or never

[BonnieShels]

This has been a heinous performance all round.

Absolutely pathetic.

[SandwichBoy]

Rubbish. No coherence in our play whatsoever.

[boysingreen]

Don't deserve to be anywhere near a World Cup. Gutted.

[shakermaker1982]

Abysmal.

Duffy played well - MOM. The rest? Muck.

[ger121]

There's a bang of the Trap days in at lot of these 'performances' under O'Neill. Now the results are looking very similar too. Granted we beat lower ranked teams under Trap.

[SandwichBoy]

Glenn Whelan is hopeless, waste of a body. Need more energy in the middle.

[DannyInvincible]

Looks like we were settling for a draw there. That's unforgivable. Really frustrating and depressing. Even if we do finish second, the likelihood of us missing out on the play-offs (as only the ninth-best second-placed team) is very high now.

Terrible performance, and worrying. We've racked up a few of those this campaign now. Even when the changes were made, there was no structure to our play whatsoever. Just odd that there was no Hoolahan.

[boovidge]

A result like this has been coming a while though hasn't it? Same story every time we take the lead in a game.

[pineapple stu]

Draw a bad result too because we're very close to being the worst runner-up, who don't get into the play-offs.

[zero]

you'd have to think if wales win tonight they'll pip us for second. we need a surprise result i.e. beating serbia to keep us in it.

very hard to see that happening, but one must hope.

[Colbert Report]

I don't think we actually played that poorly. Georgia were very, very good, especially in holding onto the ball and threading passes together. Obviously we were missing someone who could put things together in the centre of the park, but I can't say any of our individual players did that badly.

Why O'Neill didn't sub Walters for Hoolahan with about ten minutes to go is a bit of a head scratcher. Need a big result against Serbia on Tuesday.

[DannyInvincible]

Georgia had 568 completed passes to our 150. That's four times as many passes as we had. Embarrassing.

Was McClean one of the players on a booking before the game?

[pineapple stu]

I don't think we actually played that poorly.
We played very very poorly. Yes, Georgia could play a bit, but they haven't won a hammer yet for a reason. They're not that good.

Every ****ing pass was a lump up the pitch. Crosses were without looking up. We couldn't keep the ball at all.

We were shocking.

[jbyrne]

only consolation is thats three qualifiers in a row that weve been poor. due a big one tuesday hopefully. dire stuff tonight. less than 2 passes a minute!!

[Colbert Report]

McClean not suspended. Believe it or not, that was his first yellow of the campaign.

[boysingreen]

I'm assuming order of best results in Wales/Austria is?

1 - Draw
2 - Austria win
3 - Wales win

[pineapple stu]

Always a draw

[seanfhear]

Was Darren Randolph Our Most Attacking Player.......?

[DannyInvincible]

Draw a bad result too because we're very close to being the worst runner-up, who don't get into the play-offs.

It's a serious concern now as any three points we do pick up against Moldova (assuming we win that game) won't count towards the final tally as results against the bottom team in the group are discounted for the purpose of ranking the runners-up. The chances of us getting any more than two more points - by beating either Serbia or Wales, in other words - for those rankings are pretty slim.

[tricky_colour]

Well if can get a win v Serbia this won't matter. (if*).

We drew at home to Serbia and Georgia,

We beat Georgia away maybe we will beat Serbia away too?

[DannyInvincible]

If hoofball is actually O'Neill's game-plan, then he needs to use the correct personnel for that, as inexplicable and depressing as it is. Brady was just a passenger and O'Neill might as well have started Murphy instead of Long.

O'Neill's interview with Tony O'Donoghue (https://twitter.com/RTEsoccer/status/904046485767045125) was needlessly tetchy and defensive. He refused to answer why he thought we played so badly despite claiming that he knew the reason why. He also spoke about possibly having been happy settling for a point before the game... :confused:

This was a game we should have been winning.

[DannyInvincible]

Well if can get a win v Serbia this won't matter. (if*).

Chances of that happening in light of how we've played throughout this campaign? I'd say it's pretty unlikely. We were shocking away to Serbia in the first game. We were awful against Georgia in both games against them. Against Austria and Wales at home, we played very poorly as well.

[BonnieShels]

This Better be a draw.

[pineapple stu]

Worth noting Serbia are doing well lately too. Top scorers by a distance. They'll fancy the chances of getting a goal or two on Tuesday. We have to get an early hours I think.

[bwagner]

The Dutch invented total football, Barcelona invented tippy tappy....Ireland over the last ten years have invented....wait for it....the art of playing football without playing football. I despite these performances and they have been plenty !! Roy Keane.... How does he not go insane watching that?

[TrapAPony]

Would take an Austrian win or draw v Wales here now. Here's hoping. Desperate stuff from us against Georgia. Watching paint dry would be far more exciting than watching us 'playing' anti-football

[jbyrne]

The Dutch invented total football, Barcelona invented tippy tappy

tippy tappy is worse to watch than us. never got it no matter how successful it was

[CraftyToePoke]

Jesus that was hard to witness lads, that was truly ugly.

[boysingreen]

Anyone come across a table that ranks the second place teams 1-9?

[tricky_colour]

Rugby?

[pineapple stu]

Anyone come across a table that ranks the second place teams 1-9?
Wikipedia

[harry crumb]

Is the ultimate aim of this whole thing to go and try and win the World Cup?

We are regressing.

[shakermaker1982]

Brady behind Long was a total waste of time tonight.

I don't even know what you can do with the MF to make things better. I'd hope we'd give Hoolahan an opportunity - he at least tries to get us playing & something different to lump it into the box.

[DannyInvincible]

Anyone come across a table that ranks the second place teams 1-9?

You'll get it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(UEFA)#Ranking_o f_second-placed_teams

[AlanOB]

Analysis of another incoherent Irish performance -- General O'Neill's luck is finally running out: http://bit.ly/2eyiadJ (https://t.co/hBIc3VUrJB)

[TonyD]

The rank hypocrisy of Liam Brady tonight was something to behold. Slamming Martin O'Neill ( rightly so) for his tactics when he defended to the hilt the exact same style from his mate Trappatoni.

[koneinc]

Chances of that happening in light of how we've played throughout this campaign? I'd say it's pretty unlikely. We were shocking away to Serbia in the first game. We were awful against Georgia in both games against them. Against Austria and Wales at home, we played very poorly as well.

Quite frankly, a decent win away at Austria aside, we've not been up to much in this group. If we do not up our game significantly, I fear for us against Serbia.

[backstothewall]

It would be fairly typical of this Irish side to bounce back from this awful performance and result with the exact opposite on Tuesday