Why do Given and the back 4 mess about with the ball when we need to score. Where is the urgency?
So frustrating. The Scottish back 4 coped with crosses all day long (bar the corner). It's bog standard championship football they come across every bloody week.
Does Martin O'Neill not realise that you cannot keep giving the ball away (by hoofing it up the field) in Todays Football.
Even reasonable international players will make you have to work too hard to get it back and put you under too much pressure.
Martin O'Neill is playing too old a style of football for todays international oppositions.
I knew fully well we wouldn't get out of this group when it was announced.
We got the hardest possible qualification group and we are just incapable of beating teams on a par or of a higher quality than us.
It's only going to get worse from here.
We have to move on from Keane, Walters and Whelan now. It's probably the end for Hoolahan too. Possibly O'Shea.
Pinned in our own half
We basically need to win our remaining matches ie beat Germany and Poland, we certainly need to beat one
of them and hope Scotland loose both those matches. But they will get at least a point I expect so really we need to
wind both, I guess a win and a draw could do it is Scotland get a point.
Basically we need 3 points more from Poland and Germany than Scotland get.
Doesn't sound too tough does it?
Maybe the Scottish team might be flying over the Alps....no forget it.
I have no confidence in O'Neill or Keane being the forefront of the change we need.
We have to make a play for Mick McCarthy & Terry Connor.
We could look for someone like Lars Lagerback but I think McCarthy is the most pragmatic option.
hear hear.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Around 2008/9 football embarked on a big change. Although the club game is in the ascendancy these changes, apart from Barcelona just going crazy and really changing things, I first noticed these changes watching international tournament finals. Looks like these changes are over our manager's head. Primitive and ineffective. Overpaid sinecure. Paul Rowan was right in week one.
There's a section in the brilliant David Winner book on Dennis Bergkamp Stillness and Speed were Bergkamp starts talking about in Holland as a rule they put their players with the most technical ability in the middle of the pitch. Their 'athletes' go out wide.
Today we had Brady and Hoolahan trying to affect the game from the periphery.
The pair of them and another should be in the middle of the pitch running the game.
O'Neill is never gonna buy into this.
Keane was the wrong substitution at the wrong time.
McCarthy played with some fire in his belly - played very well.
Given is done. He slows everything down and looks uncomfortable with the ball at his feet.
Back 4 is established & solid.
Whelan offers very little.
McClean was ineffective.
Long needed to start and he definitely should have got more than 10 minutes.
Murphy was good.
Referee was a poxbottle.
O'Neill has been a disappointment.
Very, very deflating result.
Cheerio Euros.
hear hear.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Around 2008/9 football embarked on a big change. Although the club game is in the ascendancy these changes, apart from Barcelona just going crazy and really changing things, I first noticed these changes watching international tournament finals. Looks like these changes are over our manager's head. Primitive and ineffective. Overpaid sinecure. Paul Rowan was right in week one.
I though McCarthy was timid. Keith Andrews would have relished that game. Can nobody carry the ball from midfield other than Wes?
Credit to Strachan, if Ireland were trailing in Scotland at half-time there isn't a hope that we would have the impetus to make a half-time change.
Murphy was a handful. Our goal (which was blatantly offside) came down to his physical strength. But neither he or Walters had the pace or quick thinking to put them to the sword. I read elsewhere that he waited for everything to come to him. He didn't push the extra yard to get his head (or boot) on the end of things. Walters, too, he is game but he just doesn't have the pace or ability to capitalise when he pressures an opposition player into losing the ball. What happened in the 3rd minute summed it up. Coleman was getting good balls in for a period; could have been a different story if the flaky Scotland defence were occupied with him.
Long should have started. The player Scotland feared, a player that could have punished their flaky defence and he was on the bench again. He will be in his thirties by the time we have another meaningful game and he will still be shafted again, and again, and again.
Yep McCarthy was non existent again.
Whelan was Whelan.
Why do the midfield always pass the buck to the centre backs to get moves going? Receive ball, turn and go forward. Whelan doesn't even look up, he's obsessed with giving it back to guys who by default (because they are defenders) are not as comfortable on the ball than a regular midfielder. This happens for 30 seconds with them all tapping around before its passed back to Given so he can whack it upfield. DRIVES ME NUTS.
Taking off Hoolahan when needing a goal was nuts.
If the results fall right(Scotland lose to Germany and Poland) Poland will be qualified with a game to play leaving us needing a win away in Poland to get third.
Whelan kicking up a fuss when he was being taken off. The cheek of him.
I raised the point before the game that Coleman & McCarthy's temperaments were an issue and it was proven true again.
Same thing as Glasgow. Naismith, Brown et al. shook them up and it affected their performance.
Scotland don't have our fear of losing against bigger teams. They will do what they need to do and even if they don't, we are incapable of beating a team the caliber of Poland.Quote:
Originally Posted by eekers
Clearly not, he is the only player we have with any confidence on the ball in midfield, Whelan and McCarthy don't really have that imo, they needQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
a lot more space, Wes reads the game better he has the ability to create his own space.
I was happy with the team's effort and aggression. If Brian Kerr's team had battled with that kind of intensity against Israel and Switzerland in 2005, history would be very different. They can't be faulted for that. One deflected goal was the difference between an old-school, 'put-em-under-pressure' triumph, and hopelessness, depression, and the usual 'rip it up and start again' conversations.
However, that effort and physicality was all we offered, bar Hoolahan, and I really don't see how things can improve from here. That effort was as good as we could have possibly expected, and it wasn't enough to beat a Scottish side with a ramshackle defence.
They don't have the awareness of Wes and hence play with fear, and quite rightly so, Wes has more awareness an it gives himQuote:
Originally Posted by shakermaker1982
confidence on the ball, if he gets into a tight spot he will usually have a safe outlet, McCarthy and Whelan usually won't.
Wes can get out of trouble with a quick turn or clever pass, McCarthy and Whelan would most likely get robbed leaving us in big trouble.
We are as good as qualified :)Quote:
Originally Posted by eekers
We've barely turned up for the whole campaign. Got out of jail v. Georgia. Score from a corner today (offside) and against Poland.
Hoolahan and Brady aside, a team full of passengers. Long sitting on the bench.
At least they expanded the field for the championship, so we'll have more games to watch that we're not participating in.