Republic of Ireland Under-21 squad v England (Turner’s Cross, October 16th)

[paul_oshea]

agbhon tha hooor

[eirebhoy]

Aye exactly. The system is at fault here, not the players. I've been impressed with every one of Quinn, Garvan, Clarke, Stokes and Rooney. All very lively, linking up well and playing good football.

[eirebhoy]

Poor 2nd half. The commentator mentioned a few times that 7 of the Ireland team were teenagers, only Walcott was a teenager in the England team. Where are all our 20/21/22 year olds? Surely not all of them are in the senior squad. :D

[zenokelly]

The scoreline flattered England but the defending was a complete shambles.

Thought O Halloran was very poor which was disappointing for me. But the performance was pretty decent.

[cavan_fan]

Poor 2nd half. The commentator mentioned a few times that 7 of the Ireland team were teenagers, only Walcott was a teenager in the England team. Where are all our 20/21/22 year olds? Surely not all of them are in the senior squad. :D

The good ones are. McShane, Long, Joey O'Brien(?) etc could havebeen in that team. The reason we are poor at U21 level is that we have a small player pool. U21 suits teams who can afford to leave good players out of theirsenior squad. Looking at the Enlgand team they would almost all make our senior squad and many would be in our team.That's why our U16 and U17's do well and then we appear to dip. Well that and playing 5 attacking players vs Enlgand!

[FarBeag]

Quinn looked good. Look’s a very similar player to Mark Kinsella style wise but better all rounder. O’ Halloran also after a dodgy start. Garvan improved in the second half but was at fault for the second goal. I think that the result was not a true reflection of the game but England did back off a bit in the second half. Roy Keane was there. Can’t have been too impressed with Stokes.

[Scratchy]

Another display of tactical ineptitude from Givens. :mad: The system employed tonight was simply not cut out to deal with England's attacking threat and we paid for individual mistakes.

I was reasonably impressed with Stokes and Rooney though.

[eirebhoy]

I think that the result was not a true reflection of the game but England did back off a bit in the second half.
I actually thought England were much more in the game in the 2nd half. We had more of the play in the first.

[Rebel11]

That was shocking stuff.

Not too many stars in the U21s for us.

[Kildare Lad]

Wasnt too disapointed with the performance, some of our attacking players done well. I was impressed with the 2 men in the middle. Sort out the defence and we have a good young side there.

[Pablo]

Just back.

Poor game. the Ireland team was amateurish in its approach. And were hammered. It should have been 5.

Givens got a nice feed of abuse.


The FAI got their 25 quid a seat and thats all they care about.

p.s.

Disgusting to see so many Cetic Shirted bigots there tonight booing the English anthem. Oh the irony. Still Ole ole ole etc. Par for the course for your average simpleton Oirland fan.


Come on you Boys in green.

[cheifo]

I listened to the match on 5live and they felt our main threat was Stokes.The sytem we had didnt suit a young team with forty something caps(England team had well over 100 between them).Garvan was asked to play deeper than he normally does.In fairness we dont have an outstanding holding player at this level but maybe Cregg should have started with Quinn out wide and Stokes up front.Givens should have put some subs on earlier.

[tetsujin1979]

The game was over after half an hour, at 3-0 down England were content to soak up any pressure and only Agbonlahor (sp?) and Noble seemed to make any kind of headway into the Irish half of the pitch in the second 45 minutes.
I thought the strikers and midfield did link up well together, with some nice passing and movement. But this left no covering back by the midfield, and for two of the goals Noble was allowed to run from midfield to the 6 yard area without any attempt to slow him down.
O'Brien was lucky to remain on the pitch after a horrendous tackle on Milner, if he had his leg on the ground, it surely would have snapped.
Garvan in particular impressed, despite the dive and the miss, he was driving the team forward and displayed a fine range of passing.
O'Halloran was the stand out in defence, some fine tackles and movement showed the lad does indeed have promise and a loan deal is surely in the offing - Wolves were linked with him lately and Mick McCarthy was in the crowd, along with Roy Keane.
Stokes and Quinn were unlucky not to score, but this England side hasn't conceded a goal thus far in the qualifiers, and have a 100% record.
What's more depressing than anything is that in 5 years time, you can imagine that England side will form the backbone of the senior team, some already have been involved with the senior side, how many of the Ireland team will be involved, and will they be an improvement over what we have at the moment?

[FarBeag]

FIRST TIMETO POST HERE BUT I CONSIDER MYSELF TO KNOW A LITTLE ABOUT FOOTBALL ARE THESE SITES A WIND UP OR SERIOUS ATTEMPTS TO DISCUSS FOOTBALL? IF IT IS THE LATTER WHAT DO YOU MEAN ABOUT STOKES? WERE YOU WATCHING THE MATCH ? I BET YOU YOU COULD NOT GIVE ME ANY EXAMPLES OF HOW KEANE WAS UMIMPRESSED WITH STOKES, PLEASE EXPLAIN AND PROVE YOU KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT FOOTBALL


Who the **** are you? Once what ever that stuff you took to-night or when ever your medication starts to work, ask me nicely and I might, just might give you an answer. Grow up you moron.

[paddywhack]

First I do not use bad language on this site to get a point accross
Second I just asked you a simple question , what exactly do you base you comments about young Stokes on , Were you at the match? I was he was our best player on the night , please give an instance when he did someyhing wrong , if you cannot every body who reads this will see that you know nothing about football you just make silly comments about Irish players . now either lets see what you know or else please stop posting on this site

[Risteard]

He was crap paddywhack. Loads of hand gestures that noone understood from the set-pieces and then failing to beat the first defender.

Everything (besides glimpses of Clarke and Quinn) about Ireland was mediocre at best but most obviously their organisation.

A 3-man midfield against a team with Theo Walcott and James Milner as wingers.
An absolutely shockingly poor decision by Givens there.

[razor]

Thought Quinn was muck against Portugal, was a tad better last night but still unable to play a forward pass, all sideways or back.
Garvan for me stood out, looks a real prospect, sadly no one else on our side did. How he didn't get a penalty in the 2nd half i'll never know.

[eirebhoy]

Givens:
"It's never happened to me before, going 3-0 down and feeling like the better team."

I agree that overall we outplayed England in the first half but when a team sits back and plays on the break they're allowing the opposition to outplay them. That doesn't mean the opposition will automatically impress. I was more impressed with the Irish passing and link up in the first half than any Ireland U21 I've seen in a good while. It's just sad that he doesn't recognise the fault. Starting a combative midfielder like Cregg (or thay Nottm Forest player) instead of O'Brien would have made a huge difference.

[greatbleddyman]

I was at the game last night and the first thing I have to say is what photos does Givens have of FAI officials in compromising positions. Is it a civil service position or what. Over the years he has moulded some excellent Irish players into some dreadful teams.

On the whole 3-0 flattered England but I think that they really just sat back and defended comfortably when they knew they had it wrapped up. They had some brutal pace and that counts for so much. It can create chances out of nothing. Englands football wasn't really of a higher standard but their pace and organisation especially left us in the shade. Never realised Huddlestone was such a beast, thought he looked a class act. Hart in Goal was also formidable.

As for our lads, seems unfair criticising young lads but they are well paid professionals. I hope Randolph didn't do himself justice, awful mistake for the first goal. Looks a bit on the short side for a basketballer's son.

Nolan started off very poorly and his passing remained poor. He defended well enough though once he came into it. Looks more of a centre half to be honest but a bit on the small side. Keogh was relatively commanding in the air but very slow and awkward on the ground, thought he got the run around. O'Dea was calm and assured and I thought did well. O'Halloran coped well with what was thrown at him and attacked well. The pick of the defence in my book.

Further up the field I thought Quinn was excellent, especially in the first half. He was involved in everything, ready to take it from his defence and turn and look up. Garvan too was good, especially in the second half when Quinn faded a bit and he began to run the show. O'Brien I thought was poor, created very little and his failure to track back created problems and led to him getting an earfull from Quinn and O'Dea after the third.

Clarke and Rooney I thought were busy and showed decent touches but all in all no real cutting edge on danger. Stokes I thought tried very hard and showed quite a bit of class. However the England defence were well marshalled and I thinkif the match was still going on Ireland wouldn't have scored.

All in all I think that England's greater organisation and struucture coupled with their pace causing Irish defencive mistakes was the difference. Quinn, Garvan, O'Halloran and Stokes in that order being the pick of the Irish

[Stuttgart88]

Objective opinion of Stokes' performance:

Tried hard and showed real flashes of skill but, as he has done nearly every time I've seen him, he makes poor decisions and tries to do too much by himself. He made some pretty careless passes too. Maybe if he passed more often he'd benefit from the practice.

Garvan was the class act last night and for the second game running I thought Keogh looked the better of the two CB's.

I'm not sure about the 4-3-3. They played really well in Germany in a classic 4-4-2, then only days later played 4-3-3 against Portugal and they were poor.

[Real ale Madrid]

[QUOTE=Scratchy;792289]Another display of tactical ineptitude from Givens. :mad: The system employed tonight was simply not cut out to deal with England's attacking threat and we paid for individual mistakes.
QUOTE]

And how long has Givens been in the job? 5 years? and no sign of anyone in the FAI even remotely asking a question over his ability to do the job. Same stroy with the senior job, its sad. :(

[ifk101]

[QUOTE=Scratchy;792289]Another display of tactical ineptitude from Givens. :mad: The system employed tonight was simply not cut out to deal with England's attacking threat and we paid for individual mistakes.
QUOTE]

And how long has Givens been in the job? 5 years? and no sign of anyone in the FAI even remotely asking a question over his ability to do the job. Same stroy with the senior job, its sad. :(

When you hear Stan talking about the future, where do you think it got that line from? ;)

[paul_oshea]

Once what ever that stuff you took to-night or when ever your medication starts to work, ask me nicely and I might, just might give you an answer. Grow up you moran.

I never knew galway people didnt like morans, whats wrong with them, they are lovely people. I know loads of them farbeag.

[geysir]

I couldn't watch all the game. Are our lads getting smaller?
Interesting experiment from Givens. But with a line up like that it's mandatory to score a few goals.
Was that O'Halloran with the bleached hair?

[sadloserkid]

Just back.

Poor game. the Ireland team was amateurish in its approach. And were hammered. It should have been 5.

Givens got a nice feed of abuse.


The FAI got their 25 quid a seat and thats all they care about.

p.s.

Disgusting to see so many Cetic Shirted bigots there tonight booing the English anthem. Oh the irony. Still Ole ole ole etc. Par for the course for your average simpleton Oirland fan.


Come on you Boys in green.

Pefect summation of the whole thing. Nothing particularly positive to take from it. Hart made two great saves but the others, while solid, were what you'd expect from a good keeper. For the most part our possession was in areas where England weren't even in a hint of danger. And even allowing for the quality/experience of Milner and Walcott our 2 full backs were shocking.

The booing of the anthmes was fairly primitive too. Naturally none of them seemed to even know the words of our own. Embarrassing for us as a nation as much as anything else.

[NeilMcD]

I thought Garvan was class. Travelled down for the game and I enjoyed the first half despite England scoring three goals on the break. We controlled the ball but found it hard to break them down I felt as their back four was more solid than ours. I dont agree with you about Keogh, O Dea was the organiser and much more assured with is tackling and Keogh was totally at fault for the second goal. We got troubled down the right a bit in the first half.

To me Garvan, O Dea both impressed but we were set up wrong and far too attacking considering we were playing such a strong team. I think again the managers tactics let the players down, where have we heard that before.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Ainsley Harriott's new TV show will be called '' Can't Score Won't Score''
The entire series will be taken up with people eligible to play for Ireland who allegedly play up front at both Under 21 and Senior Level ......