against an already qualified german team content to get a draw. he was poor the following wednesday against cyprus when he actually came up against a team willing to close him down
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The Germany game was unreal. It was a pleasure to see an Irish midfielder with such quality on the ball. Picked the correct pass every time whether it be a simple one or the more difficult option. Showed for the ball all the time and his delivery was different class. He's a real player and I think Keane isn't doing him any favours at the moment either. Anytime I see Sunderland he's the one who makes things tick for them and Keane either substitutes him or leaves him out for the next match. His substtutions on Sunday bordered on lunacy. Down 1-0 and take off your only 2 creative players ie. Reid and Malbranque for Diouf and Murphy with a half hr still to play. Reid was excellent against Isreal at Landsdowne a couple of yrs back as well in that 2-2 game. Well first half anyway, unreal pass for Keanes goal if I remember right.
Im sorry but we cant use games against San Marino as evidence of Reids influence, he scored a deflected free kick that night fair enough.
Away to San Marino- disaster, didnt play
Wales at home - didnt play
Wales away - meaningless game, though did put in a decent performance.
Slovakia at home - didnt play
Slovakia away - didnt play
Czech away - played
Czech home - He played, in our best performance of the campaign
Cyprus away - didnt play
Cyprus at home - Played, ineffective, Only Given came out of this game with any credit
Germany at home - a meaningless game really and that was evident by how the germans played, where we had very few chances bar Keanes attempted lob.
Germany away - didnt play
The previous campaign (WC 2006) he featured in most of the games. However, didnt play in our best performance away to france.
For some reason in recent years we are obsessed with players that arent in the Irish squad as opposed to those in it. Dont get me wrong, I think Reid is a good player, but not half as influential as people are making out. IMO S Reid is far and above are more valuable player to us.
Thats a great point. We are in a good position in the group right now... Until that changes we shouldn't be critising Trap.
I think it's ridiculous some of the comments and articles i've seen lately about Trap.... Esp that knob-head in the Sunday World (Curtis) I hate that man with a passion :mad:
i still remain unconvinced of all these games where Andy was a key performer for us.
S Reid has already captained his country despite relatively low number of caps, he would have alot more only for injury. Reid has been a regular in a first XI in the premiership for a couple of years now. A Reid has never been able to say that.
any idea with Steven RED when he will be fit?!
That captaincy point is completely irrelevant. It was a friendly against Holland with no Given, Keane, Dunne, etc. What does that prove exactly....that because a shrewd operator like Stan chose him to wear the armband it proves he's a more important player than his namesake!!!
In relation to naming games where either player were key performers for us...u could count them on one hand I would think. That doesn't matter though I'm sure both players would have a bigger lists if StevenR could have stayed fit and AndyR was selected.
Maybe I'm just too pragmatic but I'd take Steven over Andy any day.
I'd rather watch Andy play, from an aesthetic and entertainment viewpoint, but if I'm a manager trying to win a game, it's Steven every time.
At the end of the day though, Ciaran, however inaccurate his viewpoints may be on other points, is accurate on this one: "Steven Reid has had even fewer influential games for us than Andy!"
The reality is that Steven Reid has been injured for the majority of our qualifiers since breaking into the Irish squad, and when he initially played for us it was as a right sided midfield player.
As a right sided midfielder he's never really impressed me. He's not particularly pacy, not very tricky, and his crossing is not really the best.
I think he's fantastic in the holding or box-to-box central roles, but this has not where he has played for the majority of his time with Ireland.
It is only in this campaign that he has been used in the centre on a consistent basis.
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]A lot of people seem to like looking at Andy Reid through rose-tinted glasses these days. [/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]I’ve never seen Reid play brilliantly with any consistency. The Germany game stood out for me for 1 reason and that was the fact that a German team came over and without trying very hard, looked very comfortable in handling us, apart from Keanes chip into Lehman’s arms.[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]He is without doubt one of the best passers of the ball we have but the way we are set up now with Duff & McGeady doesn’t leave room for him.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]The system would have to change to accommodate Reid and I don’t think anyone could see Trap changing the team to accommodate one player. [/FONT][/COLOR]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]I’m quite happy with 7 points from 3 games, with Bulgaria looking sloppy and taking a few points off Italy a possibility. It gets a bit tiring to hear player after player getting written of as “not up to this level” after failing to dominate games in their first few internationals. Who would have thought that we would ever be thinking that O’Shea was a key player for us?:confused:[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Its very possible and probably very likely that if we continue with our solid if unspectacular performances we will qualify second. 1-0 home win in the playoffs and a 0-0 away. [/SIZE][/FONT]
Nicely typed:rolleyes:
Can I join that bandwagon? I thought years ago he would however not recently :D
John O'Shea is no more a key player than most of our team. We are fairly thin on the ground in most positions. The only area really that we can afford an injury really is on the wings as we have a small bit of cover there. We can also afford an injury or ten in the centre mid cos we're just basically gonna be replacing crap with crap by the looks of it anyway.
To be fair I always thought it too:p , when he was buzzing up and down for Man U. Then after seeing him at Lansdowne over the years, he just looked so unsure of doing anything that generally he did absolutely nothing.
Having said that, he has been one of our consistant players over the last few years. I havnt seen the stats but he seems to be playing a bit more for Man U these days as well.