Armenia V Republic of Ireland - Friday, 3rd September 2010 - Euro 2012 Qualifier

Today's match was definately up there with Cyprus at home of the last campaign for its scary factor. I was a nervous wreck! Echoing previous posts, it is a shame that a player like Liam Lawrence has ended up at Portsmouth. A real find for Ireland in the last year and busted his balls for the cause today creating glimpses of magic with his crosses, in the absence of Duff.
McGeady had a poor game but we can still hope he'll improve in the Russian League. I'd say he was one frustrated chap tonight.
Disappointed with Green tonight but I wouldn't rule him out just yet. His step up from the depths of the lower Championship to International football has been quite sudden.
Killer, as much as I love the man, he must be replaced or he could end up costing us a few games. Was so off the pace tonight and appeared very vulnerable. Not the Kilbane we saw THAT night in Paris.
Keane will be fine. He could have had three tonight. We'd be banjaxed without him.
And as for Kevin Doyle - the man is a godsend. What a totally selfless, brave and talented player. One of his finest performances in a green shirt, and he has had a few really fine games for us.
Overall, a very pleasing result but our players really need some game time in the soming weeks before Russia/Slovakia and I think we need Ward/Coleman/Cunningham to fill in a fullback position and relieve KK. Arshavin will tear him a new one!
One further note: anyone think that Trap left the pitch tonight looking a more than a tad p!ssed off or was it my imagination?

Great post SD but Trap definetely skipped down the tunnel a happy man. Witness the interviews. And the Fahey substitution and telling Fahey to stick "around" with Doyle and Keane was the key as in stay close to their flicks. Trap was happy. This match reminds me of Scotland away 87. Do the business. How many games have we played away over the years, in some cases semi-dominating and ending up with nothing. We deserved to win today and we did. But I'm sure like you/most of us I was kicking/punching stuff until and after the goal went in. By the way I have had a fair few pints celebrating!

Must have been paranoia then. Trap just seemed to storm down the tunnel fairly sharpish after the final whistle. Saw the interview with him afterwards and he did seem a happy man. His English is coming on very well I must say. Manuela must be working overtime. Lucky Trap!
For me the match stands in contrast to Montenegro away and the positive result this time is a reflection of the progress that has been made. The team of two years ago would not have made it out of Yereven with a win IMO. The Staunton Ireland would have been faced with a de ja vue of Cyprus away07!
Trap's formula, although not attractive to watch at times and entirely unconducive to relieving the fraught nerves of long-suffering Ireland fans, is working at the minute and is getting the best out of the majority of our key players. So to dust off an old chestnut - 'In Trap We Trust'!

And yeah Noely, I have a glass panel on a coffee table that needs replacing in the morning! :o

Yeah, Trap was a happy man alright. Manuela was positively giddy about the whole experience.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scooby Doo

Today's match was definately up there with Cyprus at home of the last campaign for its scary factor.

---

Speaking of Cyprus and scares, I'll bet the Portugese didn't see that 4-4 home draw sneaking up on them.

I was never tortured so much during an Ireland game in my entire life. Im on holiday in Canada at the moment and got my feckin times mixed up for kick off and by the time I realised I wasnt able to get to a computer to see it so was relying on text message updates for the entire game.Never wanna go through that again!!!

Without havin seen any of the game and just judging on what the match reports I read I reckon that is a game we would have drawn too often in the past. These fellas are no mugs at home as some of their results in recent qualifying show so from my point of view Im just delighted with a 3 pts start to the campaign and onwards and upwards from here

Very positive reaction to the result & performance from RTE panel

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/mns/2...action_av.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

Kevin Kilbane - was good going forward on the overlap, but still defensively suspect. Targetted quite a bit by the opposition,

---

Or just simply that Armenia's right winger was better than their LM and therefore he was the target for their attacks.

It would be nice if Dunne could manage headers like that in the opposition box.

I'm surprised at the overwhelmingly positive reaction from the RTE panel tbh. There are still some obvious flaws in our team. The absolute lack of creativity in the middle being the most obvious one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by geysir

It would be nice if Dunne could manage headers like that in the opposition box.

---

He did twice against Bulgaria. Dunne never just makes ordinary mistakes though, does he?

I have to say Given's handling has come in for some unjust criticism here. A lot of shots bounced just in front of him and I think he was fully aware that there was nobody following up. He took the safe option and took the sting out of the ball rather than risking a mistake. His only handling error got him a hard kick in the ribs in the first half, when he was trying to prevent a corner.

I was a bit surprised at RTE reaction but I think in the context of the heat and our players' far-from-ideal preparation I think they realised that this was a very decent result. I think this team has at least another 20% in it, if they can find it.

To Digress: great result for NI. Fair play to them. Better away result than anything we've managed for a long time!

Last 10 minutes were very nervy because everytime we cleared from a corner of free there was no pressure on their players outside the box, I had visions of a nasty deflection ending up in our net or some such.
Still as Trap would say it's all about the result. Roll on Tuesday.

George Hamilton on RTE, after Ireland scored, was back to his old tricks, did almost everything in his power to apply the curse. Fortunately his powers are on the wane.
Dare I speak so soon :)

For anyone who can access ESPN3.com you can watch the entire match again (and any other game from yesterday). Just watched the first half of the Andora v Russia game. Andorra had a few chances. Mind you they have possibly the worst footballer in international history playing at right back (sure to score against us on Tuesday now!). Unbelievably bad player. I would start McGeady again against Andorra. Yesterday McGeady's ball into the center early in the second half was an gem of a ball. I felt he did OK when he got a free run on the ball. He can't shoot and should be told by Trap to play the ball across the box when he gets close to the box. having seen both Russia and Slovakia yesterday there is very little between the three of us. Russia are very cautious under Advocat (mirror image of us in many ways) and will be very hard to beat but also will find it very hard to beat us they way the play. Slovakia are very open and I feel our best chance of topping the group is taking 4 points at least from them.

tbf to mcgeady he didn't really get much of the ball and he's not match fit. i do worry about his lack of defensive cover for kilbane though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by geysir

Or just simply that Armenia's right winger was better than their LM and therefore he was the target for their attacks.

---

that's a possibility, but compare and contrast the partnership of O'Shea and Lawrence VS Kilbane and McGeady. A fully fit, natural defender playing regularly at club level combined with a hard working crosser of the ball VS a square peg in a round hole combined with a more skillful player who shirks his defensive responsibilities. McGeady left Kilbane far more exposed than Lawrence did O'Shea. I honestly don't remember them getting to the byline to cross into the box on that right hand side.

I don't disagree with you Tets but just saying the Armenian right winger was their attacking player, the one who was talented enough and fast enough to take a player on and would be the natural focus of their attacks, regardless of who we had at LB.
Should also be noted also that the Armenia's RB was infinitely better than their LB. I thought when it came to subs time that Trap would have taken off a knackered (out on his feet) Lawrence, shift over McGeady to RM and bring on Fahey.
Surely we would have scored 2 then :)

Yep, I was convinced Lawrence was going to make way.

Robbie deserves stick for his misses, but watching the goal again he did great work to get Lawrence's pass under control and to turn the ball back into the danger area. The ball broke to Fahey a bit fortunately but it was pretty determined work by the front two.

Great atmos in the ground last night, and on the way in. Many thanks to a certain poster on here (who is on his way home now as I write) for sharing a taxi back to the centre. Arrived back tired but happy and relieved, the locals I was with were fierce cheesed off at a loss, they figured it was a draw all the way. Didn't think much of Green and looks like we'll need Dunne to lash into Pogrebnyak. Watched the Russia game on NTV at the hotel, they're not up to much and are a one man team, give Arshavin a couple of belts and they have nothing. Andorra had the best chances and were destroyed by the ref. Can't see any less than 2 points or at least 4 from Russia!

What was I saying a few pages back about Irish self-loathing?

From today's Indo - author unnamed, but I'm guessing David Kelly.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...d-2324373.html

You'd swear Armenia were full of skill and artistry and were worthy of a clear victory but for the gall of the Irish to actually create 3 gilt-edged chances and have a clear penalty turned down.

Lawrence hapless?

Not a cool head in sight? I thought it was the cool heads of the senior players that told in the end to be honest. A crazy Dunne moment aside, Dunne & O'Shea in particular were coolness personified. I think collectively the team realised that if Armenia could be kept goalless the match winning chance would come at some stage, no matter how late.

We actually created clear chances, via one route or another. They created a few scary moments, that were probably only as scary as they were because of the ingrained memories of Croatia, Macedonia, Israel and Slovakia away. Very imbalanced article - in my opinion the tone discredits any of the fair criticism that was offered.

All trying to be Dunphyesque. Kelly like a few other journos are ****ed off because Trap is not a "matey" type. You can be certain Trap won't ever be calling Kelly's mobile/landline/pidgeon/can on string (for any reason) playing the politician.