Why did we beat the Slovaks?

[stojkovic]

I thought the way the team lines up for set pieces was a lot different than under Kerr, there's usually a group of 4 or 5 players standing together, and 2 more standing further off. When the free kick taker begins his run up, the group splits and runs to (what you hope is) pre-arranged target spots. Since the 4 are being marked by 4 defenders who are now on top of each other, it does create some degree of confusion. I think this is what allowed Doyle to move in front of his marker on wednesday night.

You will see this on pitches all over Dublin on a Sunday morning.

It's not rocket science.

[tetsujin1979]

Football isn't a difficult game. the only hard part is making it look easy!
If set pieces aren't rocket science, why was the team under Kerr so bad at them?

[CollegeTillIDie]

Christ lads! KEVIN NOLAN DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR US

We wouldn't want him anyway. Poor distributor of the ball and hugely over rated. Give me either of the Reids anyday.....now if only they could get back to full fitness:(

Jayziz I would have thought being a poor distributor of the ball was guaranteed to qualify you as an Irish midfielder :D

P.S. The Slovaks top striker who plays for Nurnberg and whose surname begins with M ( Marek Mintal if you must know) was injured that's why we beat them rather than drew!

[youngirish]

I thought the Slovaks were very poor against us. That's why we beat them. It wasn't because of a great performance on our part or anything like it.

Looking at the positives though at least we looked solid for the first time in a long time in both games (even against Germany I thought we looked a bit dodgy defensively though we got away with only conceding 1 goal).

Also I doubt if Slovakia will be that much better at home (they got hammered by the Czechs in a home game earlier in the campaign) so beating them again is far from beyond us. Unfortunately with our poor away record we'll probably do the usual, score early, sit back and try to defend for the rest of the game instead of trying to increase our lead and then concede a last minute equaliser.

[Stuttgart88]

1. Stephen Reid (injured and struggles to bring his club form to international level, needs a run at CMF and not to be played on the right like against Germany)
Funny thing is, he did OK there in the first game against Sweden and Robson then banged on about he and O'Shea were the likely future of the Irish midfield. Then he was played on the right and was crap, back in the middle against Holland (as captain) and was crap, along with everyone else and then that was it. Back on the RHS against Germany when the central midfield was screaming out for his presence there.

I'm not fussed about Finnan vs O'Shea. My tendency would be to pick Finnan on the right and have at least one side functioning prefectly, and take a chance on O'Shea or Stephen Kelly at left back but it's swings and roundabouts for me.

[Condex]

As one of his biggest critics on this forum, have to say IMO O'Shea had his best game for Ireland on Wednesday. A pity it has taken 36 games for him to at last look like an international player. He was good, but he wasn't great and switched off once or twice. I hope he can kick on from here when he plays for us. If he can and stays sound, no reason why he won't get 80-100 caps.

Odd choice that Richard Dunne got MOTM. Personally, I would have given it to Paul McShane or Kevin Doyle.

If O'Shea can cope with the presssure/quality of oppostion in Rome he should be
fine playing against a pretty low quality Slovak team!!

[eirebhoy]

O'Shea was poor last night imo. He went past the half way line once and was shaky at the other end.