We were quite streetwise last night overall. It's a long time since a home crowd have felt the need to boo us, other than our own!
We were quite streetwise last night overall. It's a long time since a home crowd have felt the need to boo us, other than our own!
O'Neill got us a draw away in Poland and home and away vs Denmark in his last year and beat the USA. Kenny hasn't gotten anywhere near a result like that. Take off the LOI tinted glasses. Kenny is massively out of his depth. Our next match is make or break as to if we finish bottom or second bottom in the group. Progress!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
If it had gone to VAR, it is likely that both would have gotten a yellow, and then O'Shea's lunge where he did himself would have been his second and we're down to ten for an hour or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Straightstory
In all honesty, I'm not looking at it through LOI tinted glasses. But I'm generally inclined to give a guy some credit for what I think is a project that might just belatedly be taking shape. I said that I appreciated a lot of what we did last night and SK deserves credit for it. That's all really. For balance I thought Lux was a sh1tshow and I'm not forgetting that. Serbia was good in parts.Quote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
By all objective standards O'Neill's last year in charge was just awful. I hated every minute of it. Poland away had some merit I agree, but so too did Slovakia and Finland away under Kenny for example.
or more likely he wouldn't have made that later lunge knowing he was on a yellow. not even sure the "lunge" was a yellow. reply showed a touch of the ball first imoQuote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
Slovakia and Finland are a level or two below Denmark and PolandQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
One of the main positives for me that I meant to add earlier was clear improvement in Idahs strength and hold up play, he addressed it before as an area they'd focused on at club level and in preseason and it was evident there last night. Hopefully he can identify the other areas and work on them too.
Great resource. For the sake of conversation, here's a comparison of the various full/wing backs last night:Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
https://i.imgur.com/HJYNJd2.png
Noticeable how much more involved in the game Doherty was than Coleman.
The three centre halves. (O'Shea excluded)
https://i.imgur.com/vRLZdyl.png
Dias's is similar to Duffy's, except it has a peninsula into midfield where he got on the ball more, which is a function of Portugal being on the front foot, but also shows the value of an elite ball-playing centre half. Pepe's is much quieter - more like Omobamidele's than Duffy or Egan.
Here's our three midfielders.
https://i.imgur.com/UFhsq6q.png
Hendrick was all over the pitch, with Cullen on his left and McGrath covering much less ground than either and staying relatively strictly on the right.
Here's the various strikers.
https://i.imgur.com/Uxqg5gi.png
Interesting how confined Rafa's role was. Jotta put in a huge shift, too.
The Poland XI wasn't their first choice XI so the comparison is fair. We were dogged but utter rubbish with the ball against Denmark in the NL.Quote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
While I agree, interesting that Slovakia beat Poland and Finland beat Denmark as recently as the Euros.Quote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
Anyway, pointless comparing that pretty much nothing Poland friendly to a Euro playoff in Slovakia.
Last night was good, only an idiot could see it as anything other than a step in the right direction tbh.
Now, remains to be seen if we can keep moving in that direction.
In those last games under O'Neill, the players looked fearful, timid, hesitant, and confused as to their roles and gameplan. Extremely passive. Worse than when things were going off the rails under Kerr in '05 and Trap in '13.
Last night, despite being on this horrible run, the players looked encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go. The young lads repaid the faith and stood up manfully. Cullen showed why Kenny has persisted with him despite some iffy performances in the NL. McGrath was a brave call that paid off. We could have picked a more experienced CB like Lenihan to sit on the bench, and left Omobamidele off to play for the U21s - instead, we saw a 19-year-old step up and make a name for himself, possibly showing his club manager that he's ready for the Premier League. We played some good football under intense pressure. Credit where it's due.
We've been mostly poor under Kenny so far, but that's what happens when you've had five years of players retiring, stagnating and declining, and literally no-one in the now-24-28 age-group coming through to replace them. We've had to throw in young players to sink or swim, and there was always going to be a difficult transitional period.
Kenny will get more goodwill - and deservedly so - if we get two good performances and results in the next week, and more again if he keeps picking the young lads and moves away from the likes of Collins, Hendrick and McClean.
Oh yeah O'Neill did a great job against DenmarkQuote:
Originally Posted by weldoninhio
Testify, brother Supreme Feet!Quote:
Originally Posted by Supreme feet
Where exactly is this data coming from? Are they wearing GPS throughout the game and that data is freely available to 3rd parties?Quote:
Originally Posted by John83
And yet under O'Neill in those last games we got 2 points from Denmark. Under Kenny we've 0 points. Is there an "encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go" table that might qualify us for anything?Quote:
Originally Posted by Supreme feet
John, thanks for bringing this up, because I feel like I'm a broken record on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by John83
It was the first thing I examined when tets provided the link. We are well accustomed to backs-against-the-walls performances, we do it quite well, even if it rarely produces victories.
It's probably the biggest gripe i have with Shane Duffy playing for us. He's too willing to get sucked into that mindset. I'd point to some of the times particularly in that final 20 mins, where some of his choices were unusual (albeit effective), and maybe just shows that he's not such a composed defender despite being very resolute. I think of one clear incident were he dived to head the ball no more than two foot off the ground, missed the header and the ball hit him on the shoulder, before he narrowly avoided landing on it, and a sure-fire penalty. That bit of composure is a big difference between where are we are, and where we could be.
Not a requirement for an elite ball-playing centre half, but an ordinary one.
they have those water-weight ducks in the stand, pressing down on clickers.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Re the Ronaldo slap on O'Shea's shoulder: We certainly would be furious if an opponent tried to get one of ours sent off like that. Disappointing behaviour by an Irish player.
Kudos too for calling it what it was, and not a punch or something more dramatic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Demesne Lad
I'm fine with it to be honest, they'd do it to us and Ronaldo tried it with Coleman late on letting on he'd been elbowed in the mouth. Fine with the home crowd wanting to do the time for killing Matt Doherty for time wasting also, and Bazunu walking a tightrope while taking his time. There was a cynical edge to us last night at times which will serve us well plenty on other occasions and very nearly did away to Portugal for WC points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Demesne Lad
Very proud of that team last night and their manager. Big week ahead.
Overall Kenny got the game tactically right and the players put in a tremendous effort only for that typically cosmic intervention from Ronaldo at the end.
That Santos' hand was forced at half-time, when he realised he needed to make a change, was telling and as the game wore on I think they genuinely ran out of ideas. Their two goals came from pumping crosses into an overloaded box - a perfectly basic tactic when chasing a game in the dying moments - and luckily for them they have one of the best headers of a ball in the world in their team.
The minor criticism I'd have is that Kenny persisted with Connolly for too long when he was wasting a lot of chances and losing the ball in crucial moments (the failure to pass to Idah being a major example). I can see why he persisted. He believes in the player and was showing that by keeping him on in the hope he'd eventually score. But after a while that wastefulness can hurt morale. I would have liked to have seen Parrott or Horgan introduced to offer something different, though bringing McClean on made sense when the intent was to protect the lead (albeit he failed on that front).
In terms of individual performances I thought Egan, Coleman, Cullen and Doherty were particularly strong on the night, but there weren't really any bad performances. Bazunu's penalty save then the free kick save at the end were big moments, Duffy cleared nearly everything that came into the box, McGrath's distribution and off-the-ball covering were excellent and Idah's hold-up play frustrated the hell out of two highly accomplished centre-backs.
Just a pity they couldn't hold out.
Re: the Ronaldo-O'Shea incident... players have been carded and sent off for swinging for an opponent. Regardless of your opinion on the morality of O'Shea's reaction, it should have been examined at the very least.
ah yes... the good old high moral ground argument. quite ironic given who was involved in the incidentQuote:
Originally Posted by Demesne Lad
Duffy's choices were effective, but somehow that shows his unsuitability for the team? :confused: I thought the back line was commanding and also composed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
On the point of composed defenders. I distinctly remember Premier League Player of the Year Dias playing a terrible pass out of defence under zero pressure during the game. He was absolutely atrocious when trying to defend Egan during the Connolly penalty shout too. It always intrigues me how these sorts of moments are generally not placed under a microscope when it is a certain player. They are exactly the sort of moments we'd use to dissect our own players to death. Well, I guess they might be dissecting it on foot.pt. :)
Absolutely. All's fair in love and war.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
All the best teams in the world play on the edge.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
Portugal do it with Pepe the standard-bearer. It helped Italy win Euro 2020. The Limerick fella Mulcahy breaking the Cork lad's hurl in the All-Ireland final. Good teams often tend to have a nasty streak.
I'd like to think we're better than that, some of us at least, and Kenny .
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
A typical Stephen Kenny team, masters of the dark arts.
Effective in stopping the attack, not ideal in that it just created a new one :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Predator
Jesus, I bore the place to death just focussing on our players. I'll be banned if I do it for opposition. But if we're going down that road....the standard of Portuguese crossing in general was awful - apart from the two peaches they scored from.Quote:
On the point of composed defenders. I distinctly remember Premier League Player of the Year Dias playing a terrible pass out of defence under zero pressure during the game. He was absolutely atrocious when trying to defend Egan during the Connolly penalty shout too. It always intrigues me how these sorts of moments are generally not placed under a microscope when it is a certain player. They are exactly the sort of moments we'd use to dissect our own players to death. Well, I guess they might be dissecting it on foot.pt. :)
Did you never do the finger trick against an opposition winger? blowing on the cf's neck was a favourite of mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
We lost to Portugal by the odd goal in the same way Azerbaijan, who lost to Luxembourg last night, did.
The fact we were minutes away from holding on for an unlikely (17/1!) victory makes it all the more heartbreaking.
Therefore I don't quite go along with some of the near euphoria expressed by some on here and elsewhere, though there were some positives to take from both this performance and the previous one against Hungary in terms of personal performances (Bazanu, Idah, Cullen, Duffy, and with certain, qualifications Connolly), a greater solidity in evidence, and the doggedness and application of the players, something which though shouldn't be taken for granted you would expect under any manager. Something to build upon perhaps, then.
That said, if the grim statistic of 1 win in 14 fails to cut any ice amongst the True Believers, then lack of LoI representation and unimpressive possession stats (only 30%) must raise at least a few doubts.
Im still depressed today after the result. My work colleagues all think Im a total psycho for the sh1t fit I threw when the 2nd goal went in yesterday.
I find it hard to understand those that are still focusing on the fact that we didnt win and continue to blame Kenny. With the amount of young players that have been introduced in the last year I think we are making very good progress. Some players came of age last night. Idah was just fabulous to watch at times.
The next 2 games are so vital. If we go back to the Luxemburg performance on Saturday against Azerbaijan then yes people are right to question Kenny, but based on last nights performance alone you cannot criticize him. Most fans I know feared a 4 or 5 nil hammering yesterday, myself included.
I believe we have great chance to kick on and win next 2 games now, and if we do I think Kenny should be allowed to get the next campaign.
Good spot, I don't anybody else remarked upon Idah's hold-up play last night. And in case Idah doesn't identify other areas to work upon, why not send him a message with a list.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
You're right. Good thinking. Hopefully Norwich backroom staff and coaches are available on their emailQuote:
Originally Posted by geysir
I think in pre-season and the start of the league, I've shown a bit of that so that's probably one of the main things that I've worked on during the summer,"
Idah explained that areas of particular focus during the summer were on his strength and fitness, while he is a participant in meetings involving the strikers at Norwich.
Showing key areas worked on and seeing instant improvement can only give the lad more confidence and belief in adding other attributes to his game.
Do you feel SK playing Idah in previous games when he wasn't as impressive as last night would have been important in his international development, leading to last nights performance ? Or would you deem these unconnected coincidental matters ?Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Very perceptive of you. This is exactly how it is in politics nowadays not to mention life in general. Quotes are almost always out of context while logic is nowhere to be found.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Just gonna leave this here
https://twitter.com/KennysKids/statu...864708105?s=20
I think that's wilful misrepresentation, an act of sophistry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trequartista20
There are no True Believers. I'd say most people not screaming for SK's head realise full well that his tenure has been near disastrous in terms of results and mostly underwhelming at best in terms of performances. But they'd also concede he was thrown in at the deep end and was a Hourihane nightmare miss away from winning his first game. COVID and the FAI's handling of COVID at times has ruined preparation in key games. He inherited an ageing squad with no natural successors. It's been pointed out validly that behind the Hendrick & Brady generation nobody really emerged until around now. There was justified excitement that a good U21 team that was evidently well-managed by SK could form the basis for a good senior team. These guys are only now developing into senior players. The FAI is broke. The stadiums have been empty and soulless.
I think there are those who don't rate SK and that's fine, but I've yet to hear a better suggestion that we can afford. There are very few if any True Believers, just those that recognise that turning our senior team into a team fit for 21st century international football after decades of underinvestment and short-termism isn't an easy job and takes time. Even if SK isn't the guy to finish this job he probably deserves to start it properly and that'd be a full qualifying campaign imho.
And "unimpressive possession stats". Oh FFS, really...
Any clown can see that we used the ball well a lot of the time on Wednesday. We were away to Portugal. Possession stats aren't a stick to beat SK with here. Crap stats and crap qualitative possession tomorrow would be.