Serbia V Republic of Ireland - Wednesday, 24th March 2021 - World Cup 2022 Qualifier

[pineapple stu]

serbia had 4 shots on target... 3 went in. i don't remember the save to be honest.
I think the save was a very good parry in the first half from a narrow angle which went out for a corner.

Serbia's chances were a one-on-one (can't blame the keeper), an excellent lob (keeper suspect) and the forward getting above two defenders 8 yards out (shouldn't have been let get as good a header away from there). Luxembourg haven't anyone of the quality of Tadic and Mitrovic; I wouldn't be too worried about putting Travers in for that.

[seanfhear]

serbia had 4 shots on target... 3 went in. i don't remember the save to be honest. luxembourg will have noted the performance and it's too high risk to play travers again as he will be targetted.

cruel perhaps but sport can be like that.
Actually that was a good save by Travers. Ok , you’d expect him to make it and he did.

[RiffRaff]

The frustrating thing is we could have won with a bit more discipline. I would go with the same line up for next game. None of our keepers are ready so I would stick with Travers.

[Bielsa´s irish]

People being far to hard on Travers here. He made a very minor mistake and was punished by an incredible finish by Mitrovic. 99 times out of hundred he gets away with that and nobody even notices it happened.

Result aside that was much better. On another night Mitrovic knocks that over the bar or we nick another one from a set piece in injury time and everyone is raving about a brave away performance and a great point.

People need to chill out.

the serbs knew he was a newbie specially Mitrovic thats why he tried the lob.

[backstothewall]

The frustrating thing is we could have won with a bit more discipline. I would go with the same line up for next game. None of our keepers are ready so I would stick with Travers.

I'd give all 3 of them a game each.

If our goalkeeper is an issue against Luxembourg we have bigger problems to worry about anyway.


the serbs knew he was a newbie specially Mitrovic thats why he tried the lob.

He tried the lob because Travers was off his line and there was nothing else on.

Trying that lob is one thing. Pulling it off is another one altogether.

[seanfhear]

The ref did not give us anything / much until we got away with that unfortunate challenge from Coleman.

The Aaron Connolly one did look a penalty when you get plenty of chances to look at it.

[Bielsa´s irish]

serbia had 4 shots on target... 3 went in. i don't remember the save to be honest. luxembourg will have noted the performance and it's too high risk to play travers again as he will be targetted.

cruel perhaps but sport can be like that.

This!! Thats the thing, the Lux guys will smell blood there, I would play him one half vs Qatar though. I will try either O'Hara and in lesser chance Bazunu, but only because of age

[Bielsa´s irish]

serbia had 4 shots on target... 3 went in. i don't remember the save to be honest. luxembourg will have noted the performance and it's too high risk to play travers again as he will be targetted.

cruel perhaps but sport can be like that.


The frustrating thing is we could have won with a bit more discipline. I would go with the same line up for next game. None of our keepers are ready so I would stick with Travers.

That's our scenario. But that's why we should have played another keeper. I think. The teammates will try to keep him in the 11, I wouldnt because the Lux guys will target him

[centre mid]

the serbs knew he was a newbie specially Mitrovic thats why he tried the lob.

How many other speculative shots did they have?

[backstothewall]

If we want to have a go at anyone it should be Ciaran Clark imho. Mitrovic puts a hand on his shoulder which gives him the edge to win the header for the third.

He was a cute whore the way he did it, but an experienced defender like Clark shouldn't be getting done like that.

On the night Mitrovic was the difference between the sides. 1-1 was an fair reflection on the game when they put him on.

If he was Irish, he certainly wouldn't have been coming off the bench, which is where we are at the minute.

What we absolutely MUST do now is beat Luxembourg. No excuses.

[pineapple stu]

How many other speculative shots did they have?
Exactly. If Serbia sensed an issue with Travers, they would have been having more shots. Instead, they were playing to create clear-cut chances - as evidenced by three goals from four shots. And they had the players to create those chances, so they won.

Not saying Randolph wouldn't have done better than Travers, but it's clearly not the case that Serbia set out to target him.

[Bielsa´s irish]

How many other speculative shots did they have?

Check the replay, he looks up to check where our kid was, then got that one in. Again first goal we should have rushed a bit just to hassle Vlahovic he had a very quiet finishing

[Bielsa´s irish]

Exactly. If Serbia sensed an issue with Travers, they would have been having more shots. Instead, they were playing to create clear-cut chances - as evidenced by three goals from four shots. And they had the players to create those chances, so they won.

Not saying Randolph wouldn't have done better than Travers, but it's clearly not the case that Serbia set out to target him.

because we dominated the match, we had the ball apart from the first 10 minutes

[Bielsa´s irish]

Exactly. If Serbia sensed an issue with Travers, they would have been having more shots. Instead, they were playing to create clear-cut chances - as evidenced by three goals from four shots. And they had the players to create those chances, so they won.

Not saying Randolph wouldn't have done better than Travers, but it's clearly not the case that Serbia set out to target him.

we wouldnt have lost the match with Randolph or any other experience keeper in the match, they had 4 attemps on target 3 goals but they had a few more shot off target

[Bielsa´s irish]

How many other speculative shots did they have?

they had 14 shots 4 on target

[pineapple stu]

because we dominated the match, we had the ball apart from the first 10 minutes
What match were you watching?

We had less than 40% possession.

[Bielsa´s irish]

What match were you watching?

We had less than 40% possession.

44%

79 % pass accuracy

[pineapple stu]

39% (https://www.livescore.com/en/football/world-cup/uefa-qualification-1-round-group-a/serbia-vs-republic-of-ireland/337316/)

What's your source?

And even if it was 44%, how does that equate to "we had the ball"?

Pass accuracy is irrelevant.

[Eirambler]

Pleasantly surprised by the generally positive mood around the support after the game. Glad to see that people are more realistic about things than I maybe thought many were. I think the second goal probably helped with that - we finished the game on the front foot.

If only we could leave out a player like Mitrovic because we had a player like Vlahovic coming through. Maybe we will have in a few years, who knows.

[John83]

People being far to hard on Travers here. He made a very minor mistake and was punished by an incredible finish by Mitrovic. 99 times out of hundred he gets away with that and nobody even notices it happened.

Result aside that was much better. On another night Mitrovic knocks that over the bar or we nick another one from a set piece in injury time and everyone is raving about a brave away performance and a great point.

People need to chill out.
I agree, mostly. I don't think he's a bad keeper, but maybe not quite ready and perhaps a little lacking in match sharpness. I think the centre halves weren't quite up to the job today, which was disappointing in spite of the quality opposition as it was exactly the back five I called for. A pity Duffy is so off the boil - he'd never have given Mitrovic that header.

That said, I think we'd have had a result today if Randolph had been fit. Given the calibre of players in the Serbian team - I'd give an eye tooth for a player like Mitrovic and another for a Tadic - that's a good performance.

[Bielsa´s irish]

39% (https://www.livescore.com/en/football/world-cup/uefa-qualification-1-round-group-a/serbia-vs-republic-of-ireland/337316/)

What's your source?

And even if it was 44%, how does that equate to "we had the ball"?



Pass accuracy is irrelevant.
google it is delivered

[passinginterest]

https://www.uefa.com/european-qualifiers/match/2030770--serbia-vs-republic-of-ireland/statistics/?iv=true

Presumably official stats. 40% is respectble away and we used it pretty well at times.

[Bielsa´s irish]

I keep this team, maybe Robinson for Browne's place, Browne in Molumby's place and Long and Collins up front, Connolly from the bench if not injured.

Another GK. Me must hurry and hassle the Lux

[NeverFeltBetter]

Qatar are Asian champions so I don't think people should be assuming that's a must win like Luxembourg is.

[pineapple stu]

Qatar are Asian champions so I don't think people should be assuming that's a must win like Luxembourg is.
True - they're rated similar to us. But it is a game I'm not worried about losing if it bloods some of the younger players.

Assuming we win on Sat of course

[tetsujin1979]

because we dominated the match, we had the ball apart from the first 10 minutes
We didn't dominate possession, most sites give us around 40%, retract your post unless you can provide evidence to the contrary

[Bielsa´s irish]

For Lux match.

---------------------O'Hara---------------------

Coleman O'Shea Clark


Doherty Browne Cullen Stevens

---------------- Robinson--------------------------

-------Long-----------------Collins

[Bielsa´s irish]

We didn't dominate possession, most sites give us around 40%, retract your post unless you can provide evidence to the contrary

Ok we didnt dominate, that was my opinion, based of what I saw until the got that 2nd goal, only had around 40 % of possession

[backstothewall]

I think, despite the result, we found a way of playing tonight. A way of playing that allows us to get Coleman and Doherty in the same team, or have to resort to ramming square pegs into round holes.

The dropping of Duffy seems significant. If we are to go to 3 at the back, one would assume that Egan will come in for O'Shea when fit, to make up a regular back 5 of Doherty, Coleman, Egan Clark and Stevens. Duffy will need to work out how to sort himself out, but he'll have to do it on someone else's time.

The midfield isn't nearly as clear, but it's good that Hendrick and Brady will now have to fight their way back in. Both have been trading on past glories for far too long now. I would assume Hourihane will get another opportunity now that he's back playing regularly for Swansea, and it has to be recognised that the threat he offers from dead balls adds another string to his bow. But if we are going to invest time in midfielders, I'd prefer to give the chance to Knight, Molumby etc to find their feet, rather than give the Euro 2016 guys yet another go at getting out of their funk. It's nice to have Premier League players in the line-up, but i can't see either of them having that status in 12 months time anyway.

I've always thought Robinson to offer a threat, and he put in a cracking cross for Browne's goal. Collins and Long looked like an old fashioned 9 & 10 partnership when they came on. I think in Collins we may have a striker capable of leading the line until one of Idah or Parrott grab the brass ring. Aside from that Connolly is a different type of player, and is further along in his development. Working out the best system to get these guys into a team together is the next challenge for Kenny.

There's no bad time to do this, but this would be a great time to pull a quality midfielder with an Irish grandparent out of a hat

Genuine positives, for the first time in a long time. Despite the result.

[geysir]

I was impressed with the teamwork, the work ethic and attempts to play ball. Kenny has done a lot of work behind the scenes, with the players and it showed.
He managed to bridge a huge gap and we looked quite decent overall.
Our football in the final third was pretty woeful, in stark contrast to theirs.
If it's a race for 2nd place we are still in it.

[CraftyToePoke]

Got a really pleasant surprise from the game earlier.

No it hasn't all suddenly clicked into total football perfection which seems to be the only thing that will please some but we added goals to a goal threat and acquitted ourselves well, away to the second seeds. They had more polish than us ultimately and it told, having Mitrovic on the bench where we have Jimmy Collins, having a Tadic, having to hope James McClean will save the day, a keeper who looks to have regular errors in him, etc etc does have a bearing on happenings in football matches believe it or not whatever manager you have.

Is Kenny out of his depth ? its looking like a no, he might just be ok given time, where yesterday even his most ardent cornermen had that nagging doubt he may well be.

Will it be all pointless tippy tappy ? Again a no, we scored two goals, and if missed chances are a valid reason to slate Kenny then tonight's goals despite coming in a loss do negate that criticism. We can score.

Will we put our foot through it when we need to, again we did.

Will they play for him ? yeah, they definitely did.

Will he make the big calls and drop our underperforming name players, yup.

Will he adapt to the player pool available and set up as required for certain fixtures, he did.

If this was about can we show enough in immediate games to merit giving his tenure some time to see where it leads, again it was a yes performance.

Would I ( and most of you on here I suspect ) have taken that twenty four hours ago ? I would anyway.

Now all this amounts to exactly f**k all unless we beat Luxembourg IMO, and not just scrape past them but have more of the ball, create the better chances, take a couple of them while ideally not letting any in. Tonight for all I've said was still a loss and it needs to be followed by a win.

[Bielsa´s irish]

Last time we got 1 point they had 4, we are gonna beat them in September mark my words, 3 to 3.
For that we need Portugal to put them to the sword in Belgrado. We missed Egan and James McCarthy, Molumby is still learning his trade, but showed agressiveness and he can win back possession, a good ability, I would have liked McGeady from the bench, he could bring something different, it showed we lacked that spark in the final third of the pitch.

I guess Kenny will play Travers on Saturday

[seanfhear]

How often does Mitrovic pull off his first ? Travers will learn from that and who ever was marking Mitrovic should have been a bit tighter as well.

Tadic had the freedom of the park for Mitrovic’s second. Was Molumby gone off at that stage ? Two centre backs should be making sure that Mitrovic does not get such an easy header even if Tadic is allowed to put in on his head !

[Fixer82]

Connolly needs to score every game if he’s to get away with gloves and that stupid haircut

[ifk101]

In two minds about last night. The positive is Stephen Kenny. He made the hard calls and we looked better for it. But we lost the game, and individual shortcomings were exposed. Tadic obviously stood out for them, but they had a 19 year-old dominating us at the back which puts the quality of our younger players into perspective. We do have good players coming through, but they are at an age now where they should be able to push on and show they possess the quality to win games. Hoping to see that against Luxembourg.

[boynemunich]

If we have Randolph tonight then it is a different result. Never mind the goal but Randolph would have been more vocal and helped the defense that little bit more. Travers will learn more from this in the long run though and no doubt he will bounce back.

Despite having no consistent run with players Kenny is really putting a stamp on a team with limited quality. I really hope he is given the time like Michael O Neill was. It's very fine margins at the minute such as penalties vs Slovakia and last night could have easily gone our way and the narrative is completely different.

He has really highlighted how awful our fanbase are though. The only people giving out are the ones with EPL profile pics and handles. The sooner they realize they are EPL fans rather than football fans the better for all parties involved. Even saw some guy on twitter giving out that Brady and Hendrick didn't start because the play in the EPL.

[paul_oshea]

Theres a habit on this forum of exaggerating the potential of our players, and with equal measure the abillity of the opposition. Where is this thing with Mitrovic, hes being talked
about like hes a class A striker? How many goals did he have in a 3 year period at Newcastle 20? The second goal was a good finish no doubt but we all know Travers should not be
getting beaten from there. So lets keep perspective here. Tadic is a good player, but that Serbia team is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Last
night I didn't see anything to be worried about from them. They're very consistent in performing inconsistently.

I think the biggest positive is Kennys flexibility. He really has now proven that he is willing to change and try different things, but still keeping the same press, high(er) line
and trying to pass the ball when we get it. The funny thing is last night, we picked the players pretty much we all wanted, he made the big calls, he realised what he needed to do it and did it.
THe sad irony here is all day long Duffy is going to win headers for you, and he would definitely not have gotten beaten twice yesterday. Had he been in there then I think the result would have been
different, but we can't blame Kenny for that. My hope is that 3-5-2 with everyone available is given another go, and see how we get from there. I'm not buying the thing of not enough time before last
night, kenny has had enough games and time to breed familiarity with a couple of formations and systems.

I liked molumby getting stuck in, on another day he probably would have been booked for persistent fouling, even though he was out of his depth physically at least and losing the
individual duals, he was getting niggly and fouling and interrupting their play. That goes a long way especially when you can get away with it for so long, we definitely lost the bite
in midfield when he went off. We had no one to break up their play through a foul or just get in their face, and they found more space. But you can't put 2 goals down to 2 midfielder.

Another positive for me last night was that we actually seemed to have some set-pieces worked out before hand. Granted the crossing and corners were generally poor, terrible the second half, we
still showed that stuff had been worked on. Coleman was superb last night, in that role, and as a leader, he was making so many decisive tackles. Robinson was the little bit of class up front, we could have
had a second from him, he kept winning frees and relieving pressure for us too. For me the boat is beginging to sail and Connollys trying to jump onto it. That peno, he should have controlled the ball before that
and come on the outside he was straight through, hes quite frustrating at times.

I think our biggest problem is we have players who do good things, followed by bad things. Before our first goal both Doherthy and Browne had given the ball away twice, but for the goal he starts and finishes it
like in his first goal for Ireland. We need players who are consitently giving us 100% and aren't so insconsistent with in game performances. THe good is always negated by the bad. That surely should be down
to focus and composure and a little experience to get yourself out of a tricky situation when it arises. IF we could get that from all 11 players on the pitch I'd be very happy and you start to see huge improvement
overall in our game.

The reality is though we had few chances again, we were still well down in the possession, 40% seems high for me, but in the last 10 mins they had shifted down through the gears so we could have made
up quite a bit there. I also wouldn't read too much into the 2nd goal we got, theyd taken the foot off the gas by that stage. THe next 10 mins we had nothing to show, and for the same period before the goal.

I feel very sorry for Travers, he just looked so nervous - forde hasn't had much time or isn't much good : D You'd hope he can help in that department. In the short term he's not just going to bounce back.
He's going to be affected by this, he needs to play the next game, and even half of the qatar one - if we are serious about giving him a chance.

I'm happy after last night to go back to 4-3-3 , if(3-5-2) its based on the doherty experiment hasn't worked, perhaps when he gets his confidence back, but he is offering us nothing and thats effectively why we went 3-5-2. Not that I didn't like it, but its mainly to accommodate our best players, and Doherty certainly isnt one of those, and never has been for us.

Im with ifk101, overall only real positive was Kenny overall, his attitude and flexibilty. We have to now push on from here and actually start dominating games and scoring, like lux, like qatar etc.

[Siberian]

This!! Thats the thing, the Lux guys will smell blood there, I would play him one half vs Qatar though. I will try either O'Hara and in lesser chance Bazunu, but only because of age

I never thought I'd see the day when we would be talking about Luxemborg 'smelling blood' coming to Dublin :(

[DeLorean]

Happy out with last night really, as happy as one can be in defeat while knowing you've very little chance of qualification after Match Day 1, but I guess we knew this anyway. Without counting any chickens, we've a long way to go, but it felt like the real beginning of a new era, a potentially bright and exciting one.

By and large we saw the faces we wanted to see and the formation/adaptability we craved. Better still, those faces produced and the tactics worked, just undone by moments of inexperience from, well, inexperienced players. We now know that we don't need to rely upon the more established, generally underperforming contingent.

Ultimately it's a results business so kudos for 'acquitting ourselves well' will only last so long, but realistically that's where we're at right now. It absolutely needs to be followed up with a good win at the weekend though, the many positives from last night could go out the window otherwise. Ideally Portugal will win in Serbia too, I think it's important for these player's development to stay in contention in the group for as long as possible.

O'Shea's battle with Vlahovic reminded me of McShane's with Jan Koller back in the day, they had a right game of cat & mouse as McShane described his duel at the time, before being punished for his first lapse of concentration. Hopefully those lapses don't become a feature for O'Shea the way they did for McShane!

Cullen and Robinson were excellent, Doherty poor again and a predictably difficult night for Travers. The rest showed well I felt.

[passinginterest]

Connolly seems to be picking up a lot of criticism and for me a lot of it is unfair (not so much here but in other reports etc). He's one of those players that's easy to criticise and dislike, he wants to be the centre of attention, the hair, the dramatics etc. and the little disciplinary scrapes at club level draw unwanted attention too. At the core of it, I suppose it's fair enough to say he's a goal scorer and he's not scoring any goals, but I think for Brighton and ourselves he adds huge value when he plays. I've watched him for Brighton a few times, one that stands out against Man Utd, where he was a constant threat, think he won a penalty that they missed and when he was taken off they went to bits. I think he's critical to the pressing game, he closes defenders so quickly and that gets lost in the bigger picture, he also makes relentless probing runs, we just didn't seem to have the vision to find him.

Let's not forget this was a lad who could have easily pulled out of the squad with cracked ribs, but played through the pain barrier and ran himself to the point of cramp on both legs (the fact he rarely, if ever, gets a full 90 at club or international level probably doesn't help his endurance). I'd love to see him get a few goals, I think there was at least two crosses into the six yard box where he probably lacked that half a yard of reaction time a pure number 9 has to get across the defender and score. I think he gives us something very different, every continental side has that type of head wrecker who falls over at the slightest touch and constantly threatens to win a penalty or get someone sent off, it's something we've rarely had (maybe Duff at times).

[paul_oshea]

Cullen and Robinson were excellent, Doherty poor again and a predictably difficult night for Travers. The rest showed well I felt.

I think it was sutts who called for Collins and Cullen. And to be fair its two good calls, collins is our main goal threat at the minute - as sad and all as that may be. If Kenny could find a way to accommodate him in the side without losing any of the other positive, it would be massive(I'd be happy enough with him in place of connolly - he still doesn't judge the runs properly into the box for the pull back or ball across goal, Collins would).

[NeverFeltBetter]

It's good to see the support for Travers in various places today, more sympathy than criticism. He's just a step out of position for one goal and his defence let him down for the others. The idea that one of the other options would have stopped that lob are extremely speculative.

This talk of why wasn't Duffy in the side drives me mad. He's been so bad at club level recently.

[DeLorean]

It's good to see the support for Travers in various places today, more sympathy than criticism. He's just a step out of position for one goal and his defence let him down for the others. The idea that one of the other options would have stopped that lob are extremely speculative.

I agree, it was a mistake of course but the chances of "the brute" Mitrovic channeling his inner Eric Cantona were quite slim. Travers had a nervousness about him anyway but to be expected.

[Straightstory]

Connolly needs to score every game if he’s to get away with gloves and that stupid haircut
And a very, very ill-matching beard. He looks awful.

[backstothewall]

Theres a habit on this forum of exaggerating the potential of our players, and with equal measure the abillity of the opposition. Where is this thing with Mitrovic, hes being talked
about like hes a class A striker? How many goals did he have in a 3 year period at Newcastle 20? The second goal was a good finish no doubt but we all know Travers should not be
getting beaten from there. So lets keep perspective here. Tadic is a good player, but that Serbia team is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Last
night I didn't see anything to be worried about from them. They're very consistent in performing inconsistently.


Mitrovic is a smashing player. He arrived at Newcastle as a 20 year old, and only got 2 seasons before they benched him, and then eventually sent him out on loan to Fulham.

He's got 52 goals in 127 appearances for them. In truth he's far to good for Fulham. If they go down he'll almost certainly move on.

What Stephen Kenny wouldn't give for a striker with that sort of record.

[shakermaker1982]

How many other speculative shots did they have?

Tadic tried a cheeky corner that nearly caught him out.

[shakermaker1982]

Just spotted the Irish Times ratings:

Coleman and Cullen 6, Molumby 5. I must have been watching another game. I thought they all did well. I thought there was a big drop off when Molumby got subbed.

I'd start the same team again against Luxembourg (keeper - see how he has reacted mentally post game). If Connolly isn't 100% then Long gets the nod.

I'm a bit gutted we are out of contention already. We'll need to beat Serbia and probably require a win against Portugal.

[paul_oshea]

Mitrovic is a smashing player. He arrived at Newcastle as a 20 year old, and only got 2 seasons before they benched him, and then eventually sent him out on loan to Fulham.

He's got 52 goals in 127 appearances for them. In truth he's far to good for Fulham. If they go down he'll almost certainly move on.

What Stephen Kenny wouldn't give for a striker with that sort of record.

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

[John83]

I'm a bit gutted we are out of contention already. We'll need to beat Serbia and probably require a win against Portugal.
I don't think an away loss to the second seed is really the end of the world. Our odds have probably lengthened only very slightly. Put it this way, if we were second seeds and gave up a draw at home to third seeds, we'd be annoyed. We almost certainly do need a home win against Serbia to qualify, short of Portugal having an utter disaster campaign, but all that's changed is that a win or a draw away to Serbia would have made a home draw with them a decent result. I doubt we'll match their results elsewhere, so I don't think we'll qualify anyway, but there's a little more positivity after last night.

[Diggs246]

Theres a habit on this forum of exaggerating the potential of our players, and with equal measure the abillity of the opposition. Where is this thing with Mitrovic, hes being talked
about like hes a class A striker? How many goals did he have in a 3 year period at Newcastle 20? The second goal was a good finish no doubt but we all know Travers should not be
getting beaten from there. So lets keep perspective here. Tadic is a good player, but that Serbia team is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Last
night I didn't see anything to be worried about from them. They're very consistent in performing inconsistently.

I think the biggest positive is Kennys flexibility. He really has now proven that he is willing to change and try different things, but still keeping the same press, high(er) line
and trying to pass the ball when we get it. The funny thing is last night, we picked the players pretty much we all wanted, he made the big calls, he realised what he needed to do it and did it.
THe sad irony here is all day long Duffy is going to win headers for you, and he would definitely not have gotten beaten twice yesterday. Had he been in there then I think the result would have been
different, but we can't blame Kenny for that. My hope is that 3-5-2 with everyone available is given another go, and see how we get from there. I'm not buying the thing of not enough time before last
night, kenny has had enough games and time to breed familiarity with a couple of formations and systems.

I liked molumby getting stuck in, on another day he probably would have been booked for persistent fouling, even though he was out of his depth physically at least and losing the
individual duals, he was getting niggly and fouling and interrupting their play. That goes a long way especially when you can get away with it for so long, we definitely lost the bite
in midfield when he went off. We had no one to break up their play through a foul or just get in their face, and they found more space. But you can't put 2 goals down to 2 midfielder.

Another positive for me last night was that we actually seemed to have some set-pieces worked out before hand. Granted the crossing and corners were generally poor, terrible the second half, we
still showed that stuff had been worked on. Coleman was superb last night, in that role, and as a leader, he was making so many decisive tackles. Robinson was the little bit of class up front, we could have
had a second from him, he kept winning frees and relieving pressure for us too. For me the boat is beginging to sail and Connollys trying to jump onto it. That peno, he should have controlled the ball before that
and come on the outside he was straight through, hes quite frustrating at times.

I think our biggest problem is we have players who do good things, followed by bad things. Before our first goal both Doherthy and Browne had given the ball away twice, but for the goal he starts and finishes it
like in his first goal for Ireland. We need players who are consitently giving us 100% and aren't so insconsistent with in game performances. THe good is always negated by the bad. That surely should be down
to focus and composure and a little experience to get yourself out of a tricky situation when it arises. IF we could get that from all 11 players on the pitch I'd be very happy and you start to see huge improvement
overall in our game.

The reality is though we had few chances again, we were still well down in the possession, 40% seems high for me, but in the last 10 mins they had shifted down through the gears so we could have made
up quite a bit there. I also wouldn't read too much into the 2nd goal we got, theyd taken the foot off the gas by that stage. THe next 10 mins we had nothing to show, and for the same period before the goal.

I feel very sorry for Travers, he just looked so nervous - forde hasn't had much time or isn't much good : D You'd hope he can help in that department. In the short term he's not just going to bounce back.
He's going to be affected by this, he needs to play the next game, and even half of the qatar one - if we are serious about giving him a chance.

I'm happy after last night to go back to 4-3-3 , if(3-5-2) its based on the doherty experiment hasn't worked, perhaps when he gets his confidence back, but he is offering us nothing and thats effectively why we went 3-5-2. Not that I didn't like it, but its mainly to accommodate our best players, and Doherty certainly isnt one of those, and never has been for us.

Im with ifk101, overall only real positive was Kenny overall, his attitude and flexibilty. We have to now push on from here and actually start dominating games and scoring, like lux, like qatar etc.
How long did this take to write!