Republic of Ireland V Cyprus - Wednesday, 15th October 2008 - World Cup 2010 Q

Just back from Dublin.


McShane was all at sea and CM was dreadful. No ball winner in midfield. I like Whelan but I thought he was awful. Gibson was decent enough but not assertive enough. OK, both mucked in and won some important challenges in and around the box but where it mattered most they were totally impotent.

That said, everything else was working well. O'Shea and Kilbane were a bit careless early on but I really thought that Dunne, O'Shea, Kilbane and Given looked the part for most of the game and with Finnan back I think it's a good defence.

McGeady was abit infuraiting with his final ball, though I think it's a thankless task bein a winger without a really tall centre forward. His general play was good though he lost the ball carelessly a few times which could have been costly. I think he was unlucky with the goal chance - the keeper closed him down very well. Good point above about getting no support from McShane. Kilbane stuck to his station too for pretty much all the game.

Keane worked hard and had a pretty good game. The stars of the show were Duff, Doyle & Dunne.

I saw SKY's highlights last night and without the tension of an important live game it looked far more comfortable than I recalled at the match. We countered really well at times and with better finishing could have been out of sight.

Yet again I have to say that there's not much wrong with this team that a good CM wouldn't improve drastically.

I hope Trap uses the Poland friendly to good effect.

Robbie Keane is but a shadow of his former self.
There were a few moments last night when he got the ball in counter attacking situations, no longer is he willing to take players on and go for goal, now its basically turn into trouble and give the ball away easily or just fall over comically and give the ball away easily.
A once great player falsely trading on his glorious past.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by razor

Robbie Keane is but a shadow of his former self.
There were a few moments last night when he got the ball in counter attacking situations, no longer is he willing to take players on and go for goal, now its basically turn into trouble and give the ball away easily or just fall over comically and give the ball away easily.
A once great player falsely trading on his glorious past.

---

While I dont agree with your post, he does seem to get the ball in good positions and just stop or look for a free.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by razor

Robbie Keane is but a shadow of his former self.
There were a few moments last night when he got the ball in counter attacking situations, no longer is he willing to take players on and go for goal, now its basically turn into trouble and give the ball away easily or just fall over comically and give the ball away easily.
A once great player falsely trading on his glorious past.

---

Was Keane ever the kind of player who'd pick the ball up 50 yards from goal and make something of it?

I've heard a few people mention now that Keane has lost pace- to be honest he's never been pacy.

He's certainly not slow, but he never had the ability to kick the ball past people and win a sprinting match.

His main attributes are his close control and general guile. He gets his goals and makes his contributions at club level by linking midfield and centre-forward with good passes in tight spaces, and good off the ball running.

It is his intelligence that has always made him the player he is, not any sort of pace.

There was one time early on he covered for McShane at our own right hand corner flag, making a tackle and clearing the ball up the touchline. Just illustrates how hard he works for the team.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by razor

Robbie Keane is but a shadow of his former self.
There were a few moments last night when he got the ball in counter attacking situations, no longer is he willing to take players on and go for goal, now its basically turn into trouble and give the ball away easily or just fall over comically and give the ball away easily.
A once great player falsely trading on his glorious past.

---

Most of the times he received the ball last night the ball was hoofed up to him and he was in the final third with absolutely nobody anywhere near him. He seemed to be looking for an outlet to pass to with about four Cypriots in front of him but there was rarely one. Most players would struggle in that situation.

It's one of the problems with having deep lying central midfielders who rarely look to burst into the opposition half to support the attack. This was exacerbated by the fact that McGeady and Duff were also helping to defend and were slow to join the attack.

Thinking about things, I have come to the conclusion that either
a) trap things we are crap defensively, based on what he saw in the last qualifiers, his quotes as he said in the press earlier this week, and how we slipped silly goals that cost us so dearly
b) trap is trying to instill a defensive aspect to our game that has been missing drastically and when we get this mentaility back, he will start to tell the midfield to push on more etc. I think that maybe he is just gearing us up so that we don't ship goals as easily as we did and in the future when this has come to pass he will play a more attacking midfielder with a defensive midfielder. I think he is trying to build a winning mentality in this team and get a run of unbeaten(with few goals) matches so that our confidence is boosted no end and therefore we can look to be more expansive in the future.

Trap is a defensive coach he always has been and always will. Why is it a surprise to people. Just watch the Italy Sweden game of 2004. If we continue to win 1-0 I will not give a damn.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NeilMcD

Trap is a defensive coach he always has been and always will. Why is it a surprise to people. Just watch the Italy Sweden game of 2004. If we continue to win 1-0 I will not give a damn.

---

I agree but yet the bench was a positive bench only one defender...then again he didn't use it

Nobody looked comfortable on the ball unlike the first two games especially Killer and McShane but also centre midfied. It was basically get rid of it as soon as you can even if you are not under pressure.

McGeady can be frustrating and I would of put Hunt on for the last 20 mins just to freshen it up but in his defence he improved in the latter stages and when he often received the ball there wasnt another Irish player near him to play the outlet ball to. Doyle ran his socks off but the Keane/Doyle partnership just doesnt seem to click - maybe the quality of the service ? although Duff had a great game.

All in all, disappointed with the performance but delighted with the points (it has often been the opposite) the few concerns being centre midfield obviously ,the worry if we go 1-0 we could very well struggle and the lack of substitutions used (A Reid for the last 20 minutes with the extra space becoming available and tired legs around ?.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yo2EnR6m-s

bumping thread

Closed thread.