Republic of Ireland v England - Saturday, 7th September 2024 - UEFA Nations League

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

You want a guy who was relegated from the third tier last year and who hasn't featured yet for Stoke (through injury, granted) to be fast-tracked into the squad, and to assess a guy who's about Jamie McGrath sort of level - decent mid-table SPL, but never shown a sniff of anything better really?

I mean, we can do those things, but I think people need to stop putting them across as actual solutions to our problems at the moment, or even material improvements. There's nobody who's not currently getting in the squad who can really feel aggrieved about it. Certainly nobody who's going to magically make a huge difference.

And I don't mind the Doherty/Coleman/Brady/Stevens quartet being phased out - but I do worry that what comes in instead is going to be worse. Otherwise they'd be in the squad at the moment, and they're not.

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My points were about the futility of a continuation of the formation, personnel and playing style of the Kenny era when it has yielded so little in the way of performances or results to justify doing so, and also the need to consider succession planning and adding depth and options to our playing pool in areas of the pitch where we are lacking, or where the current incumbents are ageing and in decline.

I have nowhere suggested that the players i mentioned could and should immediately come into the starting eleven and that this would materially change our fortunes, only that in the positions where we are very obviously deficient in options, ie at fullback/wingback and at six, we should be conducting a proper and thorough appraisal of what is available to us.

Your points seem to be that player selection doesn't matter, that we should disregard the ageing profiles of the fullbacks you mentioned, and that when a coach picks a squad, whoever it is who happens to be in charge at the time, this must definitely represent the best of what we have available of us at that time, no questions asked.

I disagree.

I don't know how you make out i think player selection doesn't matter; it does.

But "fast-tracking" players is meaningless - we've fast-tracked a lot of players lately. Idah, Connolly, Parrott, Bazunu, Omobamidele, Knight, Obafemi for example - all capped before we'd probably have liked, usually out of necessity. Probably some others I've already forgotten. All capped early; some are options now, others aren't. It's not a panacea. There's no point fast-tracking players for the sake of it. They won't magically improve from a few caps - they'll develop at their clubs and from there we can see who's good enough.

Fullback is a huge issue. With Coleman injured, Festy has been called up. And fine - he's probably next in line. Certainly one of the obvious ones along with MacNulty, Manning, etc. But he's been crap on his cameos to date. And that's ultimately my point - if Coleman is playing Premier League and the next best option just isn't up to international level at the moment, should we shoot ourselves in the foot?

Ditto Ronan - do you not think he's been assessed already? He's received senior call-ups after all. But he's been in the Swiss second tier, then at St Mirren, and now he's at one of the worst teams in the MLS. Is he really going to add anything? (Edit - actually Rapids have improved this year. They were 28th of 29 teams last year. They're seventh this year so far)

Yet these are "immediate changes" you reckon the manager should make. I really don't see how they'll change things much. It's deckchairs on the Titanic stuff.

Again, we have big issues in some areas and need new options. I just think they aren't there at the moment, and there's not much point kidding ourselves about that. I think we haven't reached rock bottom as yet unfortunately.

Yet for all that, I do think we need to be doing better than under Kenny. I'm happy to write off yesterday, but I really would like to see some signs of progress on Tuesday. Kenny lost all his games against England, Greece and Finland - if HH does the same I'll be very worried about him

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

Coleman out, Festy in.

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Festy and ogbene wingbacks for me if we are to persist with 3 centrehalves, SS or troy off ferguson, smallbone molumby and Knight 3 in midfield

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I don't know how you make out i think player selection doesn't matter; it does.

But "fast-tracking" players is meaningless - we've fast-tracked a lot of players lately. Idah, Connolly, Parrott, Bazunu, Omobamidele, Knight, Obafemi for example - all capped before we'd probably have liked, usually out of necessity. Probably some others I've already forgotten. All capped early; some are options now, others aren't. It's not a panacea. There's no point fast-tracking players for the sake of it. They won't magically improve from a few caps - they'll develop at their clubs and from there we can see who's good enough.

Fullback is a huge issue. With Coleman injured, Festy has been called up. And fine - he's probably next in line. Certainly one of the obvious ones along with MacNulty, Manning, etc. But he's been crap on his cameos to date. And that's ultimately my point - if Coleman is playing Premier League and the next best option just isn't up to international level at the moment, should we shoot ourselves in the foot?

Ditto Ronan - do you not think he's been assessed already? He's received senior call-ups after all. But he's been in the Swiss second tier, then at St Mirren, and now he's at one of the worst teams in the MLS. Is he really going to add anything? (Edit - actually Rapids have improved this year. They were 28th of 29 teams last year. They're seventh this year so far)

Yet these are "immediate changes" you reckon the manager should make. I really don't see how they'll change things much. It's deckchairs on the Titanic stuff.

Again, we have big issues in some areas and need new options. I just think they aren't there at the moment, and there's not much point kidding ourselves about that. I think we haven't reached rock bottom as yet unfortunately.

Yet for all that, I do think we need to be doing better than under Kenny. I'm happy to write off yesterday, but I really would like to see some signs of progress on Tuesday. Kenny lost all his games against England, Greece and Finland - if HH does the same I'll be very worried about him

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Just on festy when he has had a few appearances late in hames for us it's been as a wide player in a front 3 and similiar to ogbene I don't think that is where his strengths lie at the moment. As a wingback left or right his pace and athleticism offers you a chance to get something out of a 3 centre halves situation which doherty and Brady just don't give u cause of their physical limitations.

Interesting stuff coming through from HH's press conference over the weekend. He confirmed that O'Shea and McCarthy remain effectively in charge for the Greece game and also the two games next month. Even down to O'Shea taking the pre match press conference for the Greece game, which seemingly has to be taken by the manager. So I guess O'Shea is the manager and HH is a Bobby Robson type consultant for the next three games at least. Sure he might as well let O'Shea take the last two games in November as well while he's at it...

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Originally Posted by Heimir Hallgrimsson

"When we play five at the back, again talking about initiative, sometimes you have three centre-backs against one striker. You need one to step up", he said. "Once they play better together they grow in confidence to take the initiative to say we don't need three players and I'll step into midfield.

"Then if that doesn't happen, the coach needs to change the formation, take one from here and put in there. We have versatile players so could move players around."

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The thing is he has clearly worked out a key part of what's wrong with our setup for the last three years. But is apparently going to let O'Shea and McCarthy decide whether they'll fix it or not. It's bizarre.

Think a bike shelter cost inquiry into HH’s job performance is needed. He’s two months into the job, based on his reported salary that’s €100K+ in pay, and he says maybe he’ll be up to speed on the players at some point in the future. All he has done so far is to fob off responsibility to two “coaches” out of their depth – if he actually looked at the games we have played so far this year he would have seen that. If he did look at those games, and thought it was ok to allow us to play the same way against England, he is taking us for a ride. We have a relatively small pool of international players and yet he needs more time to get to know them (he could with confidence say England has a better group of players now than when Iceland beat them – so up to speed on them but not us?). We’re in real danger of relegation – last thing we need is this passivity in the supposed leadership role. That he allowed Saturday’s game to continue the way it did without doing something questions his authority, ability, understanding and ultimately suitability for the role. And judging by his post match comments, it appears he’s going to allow this to continue against Greece. He needs to show some semblance of personal input for the Greece game. If not, I think he can take a hike and observe somewhere else.

Ken Early's thoughts matching my own (and several others') here. I've highlighted the bits that resonate most with me.

After Jack Grealish scored, it appeared that football was ultimately just a joke at Ireland’s expense

England dismissed Ireland while producing one of the most one-sided periods of play ever seen at the Aviva Stadium

Sometimes you just have to laugh. When Declan Rice surged through Ireland’s tattered defence with a series of one-twos and teed up Jack Grealish to make it 2-0, it appeared that football is ultimately just a joke at Ireland’s expense.
Has anyone ever enjoyed a match at the Aviva more than Grealish did on Saturday? Lee Carsley – unlike Pep Guardiola and Gareth Southgate – had trusted him to be the central creative hub of his team’s attack. The boos from the Dublin crowd, far from inhibiting him, just made him feel more important and special. Unexpectedly – gloriously – Grealish was the main character again. He hasn’t felt this alive since he was at Aston Villa.

His goal came at the end of a hypnotic three-minute spell in which England completed more than 50 passes and the only Ireland player to touch the ball was Sammie Szmodics, who intercepted a cross and spun to boot a desperate clearance out of play.

That move was itself the culmination of 15 minutes that were possibly the most one-sided ever played at this stadium. Between Rice’s goal in the 11th minute and Grealish’s in the 26th, England played 170 passes, Ireland just 19.

Ireland had signalled their new, more direct approach early on. Caoimhín Kelleher boomed a couple of free kicks deep into England’s half; goal-kicks were taken short but only so that one of the defenders could then hit it long. The first problem was that we had no target man capable of winning these balls: Adam Idah is no Niall Quinn. The second problem was that once England got the ball, it became horribly apparent that Ireland had no means of getting it back.

When Heimir Hallgrímsson’s Iceland beat England at Euro 2016, the English couldn’t play football like this. If you gave them the ball, they would give it back to you. Their midfield that day was Eric Dier, Dele Alli and Wayne Rooney – a centre back and two number 10s. England played 519 passes to Iceland’s 250, and they lost possession 34 times.


The week after England v Iceland, Guardiola started work at Manchester City. Premier League football is now practically a different sport. In Dublin, England played 713 passes to Ireland’s 203, and gave possession away just 14 times. Their players are doing at international level what they do every week for their clubs. As Rice said after Saturday’s game, “a lot of the players that play at City, Liverpool, Arsenal, we play a similar way, so it’s easy to adapt.”

That devastating first half showed how mad it is to fantasise that a return to some kind of Jack Charlton tactics could be effective in today’s international football. Sure, there’s always the slim hope you’ll force a defender into a mistake, but it’s much more likely that you get piggy-in-the-middled. This is why Stephen Kenny believed Ireland had to become a side who knew how to play with the ball.

Put ‘em under pressure football still exists, but now it looks like what Atalanta did to Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final last May.

The Italian team pressed man to man all over the pitch. When any Leverkusen player was on the ball there was an Atalanta player hunting him down. Whoever he might pass to would have another Atalanta player hunting him down.

Matching up man to man all over the pitch obviously meant that Atalanta were playing one on one at the back. This defied the conventional wisdom that you should aim to have one more defender than the opposition has attackers. Atalanta accepted that risk as a price worth paying for the ability to enforce their pressure game further up the pitch.

Compare this to what Ireland were trying to do on Saturday. We played a back five, including three centre backs who, most of the time, had nobody to mark. This meant that England had at least two and often three spare players in midfield. They played around the outnumbered Irish midfielders like they were training cones.

Yet the supposed increased defensive solidity brought by the extra defenders was illusory. Trent Alexander-Arnold played a 50-yard pass right through Ireland’s centre for the first goal. “Should never happen, at any level,” said Hallgrímsson.


Maybe it’s time to bin the back five. Yet Hallgrímsson seems reluctant to take any radical step. He humbly admits he doesn’t yet know enough about the players: is there such a thing as being too humble?

When Séamus Coleman was being treated for the injury that forced him off, several Ireland players gathered in front of the dugout for an impromptu timeout. The staff member doing all the talking was Paddy McCarthy, as Hallgrímsson watched on and John O’Shea hovered nearby.

“We’re all in it together,” Hallgrímsson said when asked who had picked the team. “Hopefully I will have maybe more authority as time goes on.” Yet he seems in no hurry to project that authority or to get any particular messages out there. At the time of writing, O’Shea is scheduled to do Monday’s prematch press conference, which is generally always done by the head coach.

Maybe that makes sense for now, since O’Shea and McCarthy effectively picked the squad and are helping to pick the team. But Hallgrímsson was brought in to be a leader. If the present arrangement continues much longer, he risks appearing superfluous.

How long will it take him to get up to speed? He has been in the job for two months and, according to Marc Canham – who yesterday announced he had been promoted to chief football officer at the FAI – he has known since March that he was the number one choice for the job. That’s a lot more thinking time than a new coach typically has before arriving into a job.

Ideally, of course, our new coach could have got to know the squad over a couple of friendlies, but that chance was wasted after Canham took nine months to actually make the appointment. Still, there have been just 41 players called up to Ireland squads over the last 12 months. It really shouldn’t be taking much longer for Hallgrímsson to get the measure of that initial group, and start making the decisions.

Canham has been promoted? Mother of Jesus.

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Originally Posted by ltfc_2004

We looked like a championship team playing a top 6 team in the 4th Round of the cup and we just got swatted aside.

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That's charitable. L1 or L2 I'd say. I was actually thinking I've seen more competitive minnows against whales in English cup competitions.

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

Even down to O'Shea taking the pre match press conference for the Greece game, which seemingly has to be taken by the manager.

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Perhaps a small oversight, but it should be something everyone involved is aware about, and it brings into question attention to details. Whatever is felt about the strength of our playing pool, the overall sense of frustration I have is that we are not maximizing the player pool/ resources available to us. That’s primarily a competency issue on the coaching staff, but maybe there within also lacks an attention to detail. The message from the camp all last week was the shortage of time to work with the squad – yet we play a back 5 which is coaching heavy to get right. And that back 5 looked disjointed and confused from the off. Harry Kane had a free header early on that was a certain goal if on target, but you can see the back 5 was not working in unison for that chance. I think Collins is the intended organiser at the back, but when the ball is played into Kane, Collins is a yard or two deeper than the rest of the back line. (BTW Collins has started the season brightly with Brentford playing in a back 4 – I actually think he positionally struggles (badly) in a back 5, tendency to drop deeper than the rest of the backline (can see that again for Grealish’s goal)).

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Originally Posted by ifk101

Perhaps a small oversight, but it should be something everyone involved is aware about, and it brings into question attention to details. Whatever is felt about the strength of our playing pool, the overall sense of frustration I have is that we are not maximizing the player pool/ resources available to us. That’s primarily a competency issue on the coaching staff, but maybe there within also lacks an attention to detail. The message from the camp all last week was the shortage of time to work with the squad – yet we play a back 5 which is coaching heavy to get right. And that back 5 looked disjointed and confused from the off. Harry Kane had a free header early on that was a certain goal if on target, but you can see the back 5 was not working in unison for that chance. I think Collins is the intended organiser at the back, but when the ball is played into Kane, Collins is a yard or two deeper than the rest of the back line. (BTW Collins has started the season brightly with Brentford playing in a back 4 – I actually think he positionally struggles (badly) in a back 5, tendency to drop deeper than the rest of the backline (can see that again for Grealish’s goal)).

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Well, the thing is that they have wasted the prep time for the England game working on a back 5. What are the chances that they abandon that in the 2/3 days before the Greece game? Unlikely, I would imagine. And a loss to Greece at home really drains momentum and starves us of a valuable point or 3...

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

At what stage does Heimir say "I'm the gaffer. The buck stops with me"?

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Ah. It appears he's delegated that to O'Shea as well...

'The boss is the boss' - John O'Shea says players know Heimir Hallgrimsson is in charge

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Ah. It appears he's delegated that to O'Shea as well...

'The boss is the boss' - John O'Shea says players know Heimir Hallgrimsson is in charge

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When I read that sentence today I despaired.

I haven't really had the wherewithal to even think of the game since I walked out of Lansdowne on Saturday evening, but I don't think I've ever been so bereft and just so sad at a performance from the national team. It was just empty.

Every fear I had pre-game came to fruition.

I had hoped of course; I am a child of the 80s and 90s after all... but my God, that was a low I didn't think we have ever achieved in the 35+ years I have watched us.

Some of our most horrific defeats over the years have at least elicited anger or were frustration-inducing, but this, this just felt different.

I see Our Man in Wembley has left the job, to be replaced by Tuchel. With headlines like "A Dark Day For England" following the appointment of a German to the role I can see why Carsley wouldn't be bothered.

Unfortunately, the English FA may have made a good decision in the long run and England will likely be even more dangerous opponents come November than they were last September.

As soon as he said he wasn't going to sing the anthem he might as well have just left then. Losing at home to Greece sealed his fate. I'm surprised he was interested to begin with given his clear dislike of the spotlight, was a bit naive of him to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

As soon as he said he wasn't going to sing the anthem he might as well have just left then. Losing at home to Greece sealed his fate. I'm surprised he was interested to begin with given his clear dislike of the spotlight, was a bit naive of him to be honest.

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Think there was media reports that he never applied for the job after Southgate stepped down. That he was only gonna be there for the Nations League as interim or for however long it took them to find a replacement.

According to the official announcement, Carsley will remain in charge for the games in November, with Tuchel taking over in January
https://www.thefa.com/news/2024/oct/...coach-20241510

If we end up playing England again next year another familiar face will be in the opposition dugout after Anthony Barry was announced as Tuchel's assistant manager.

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