We do NOT have a good squad

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Originally Posted by an_ceannaire

u think John O'Shea is better than Darren Fletcher? Well i think ure wrong, i think Fletcher is LESS **** than o' shea basically!!McFadden is far superior to both

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Actually, he pointed out that Sir Alex Ferguson seems to think O'Shea is better than Fletcher. Most people seem to agree that neither is particularly good.

There's far too much negative feeling about our squad flying about. Sure, we're not France, but there are relatively few teams with substantially better squads than us. Sure, Duff's no world-beater, but he's certainly a match for Joe Cole, and maybe for Robben (who was far and away Holland's best player at the last WC). Mourinho thought as much anyway.

Finnan is average is he? He seems to be good enough for Liverpool though, in spite of a fair bit of competition for his place over the past couple of seasons.

We lose a couple of games and suddenly the players are rubbish. :rolleyes:

Nope, i am a Shels fan, and if i had to pick a foreign team it would be Celtic. No allegiance atall to Everton or any other English team. But I presume you took that because I have Weir as captain? I am a firm believer than defenders and centre mf's make the best captains and weir would JUST get the nod over Dunnie on experience alone. As for Walter Smith, no one on earth would have "stan not the man " over him as manager

Why combine both teams they have their team we have ours. Some people like to be pessimistic and some like to be optimistic. However no matter what your viewpoinnt, calling people muppets and making general abusive statements about fellow posters is never a good thing. YOu have some valid point an ceannaire but are ruined by your abusive nature which makes anyone a loser in any debate.

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Originally Posted by NeilMcD

Why combine both teams they have their team we have ours. Some people like to be pessimistic and some like to be optimistic. However no matter what your viewpoinnt, calling people muppets and making general abusive statements about fellow posters is never a good thing. YOu have some valid point an ceannaire but are ruined by your abusive nature which makes anyone a loser in any debate.

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Well said.

Neil i never abused anyone personally, well no fans anyways. If your talking about the players, well i have no sympathy. Have a look at John O'Sheas bank balance and compare it to mine and see if he cares!!!! I do however hate this Irish attitude of "dheara sure, they did their besht!"
its horse sh*t and ever since Roy departed it seems to be creeping back in. Sure leave Stan alone, he was a great player......SO WHAT! He is a terrible manager, Delaney is a joke of a CEO and players like O'Shea and the other jokers are just taking us all for an emotional train wreck and they dont care because they have the page 3 stunners and the millions in the bank. God bless the days we have 11 players on the pitch who would die for that shirt. You only had to see the look on Aldo and Ronnies face on TV3 after Nicosia to see the hurt they felt, not like a certain Mr O'Shea! And the IDIOTS who applauded them off!!

I dont say leave him alone, I think leave his family along would be correct. I agree with you we have some average players and most people here agree with you. But we dont have as bad a team as other would suggest. I think we have a very poor manager who is very in experienced and should never have got the job in the first place.


YOu have just called fans muppets. YOu start your post saying you did not abuse any fans and now you have called a load who went out there and paid their cash idiots.

Sigh , games arent won on paper , they could have 11 better players than us but if we had the right tactics and mentality we could beat them , All this who would get in who's team is pointless.

[QUOTE=an_ceannaire;558207]Lads will ye take off the green tinted glasses and wake up! What are ye like! Why are Irish people so bloody afraid to be negative! Ye are probably the same clowns who actually APPLUADED them off the pitch in Nicosia!!

Yes Neil and i stand by that completely, what i am saying is i didnt insult anyone here personally. But i do completely abhorr the idiots who did clap that disaster off the pitch in nicosia, they are why we are how we are, because the players can get away with it, and they know it. Ride the storm for a week, put in a good effort against the Czechs and all the lads will come on board again! Waahheeeyy we're all going to heaven, waaheeyy Ted !
I didnt pick and person out personally, but as a collective, those people who applauded are as much to blame as any John O'Shea or Steve Staunton.
(what are you an about me picking on someones family?!)
Give me Tom Humphries over Gerry McDermott any day!

Some on here are a bit over sensitive!

i'll tell ye a story:

when the story broke that roy keane was coming home from saipan there was a report on sky news (i know it's not the guardian but anyhow) at the end of which they cut to paddy o'reilly's pub in rypongi where they interviewed an eegit in irish jersey, stupid hat and cheesey smile. when they asked her what she thought she said :
' arry sure we'll have the craic anyway for the few weeks '
with that she waved her arms in the air and started singing 'olé, olé, olé' and the whole pub joined in.

moral:
a lot of people in this country are too willing to accept mediocricy and happily jolly along on the great craic element.

i shouted at the TV wake up!: anyone who knows football knew that our realistivc chances of progression to the semi-final or further in that tournament left in saipan. although what followed was a credit to the lads who were left and the manager who all pulled together full of pride and battled. main leaders in that team: niall quinn, gary breen and gary kelly and along with manager mick mcCarthy.

our current crop seem unable or unwilling to muster the pride and spirtit of the vintage of 2002.


the point here is that we have an average team made up of average players who play in an overhyped league combined with a total lack of ambition or hunger from these over payed so-called super stars. more interested in their colourful boots, sponsorship deals and fancy haircuts. not a real man among them - exceptions: richie dunne and shay given.

england have the so-called best players from the best teams in this league and still looked useless in the world cup. and very very average since then.

who got to the world cup final: france and italy - probably not the most gifted teams in the tournament but teams who play with pride and passion and most of all have a will to and know how to win.

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Originally Posted by galwayhoop

the point here is that we have an average team made up of average players who play in an overhyped league combined with a total lack of ambition or hunger from these over payed so-called super stars. more interested in their colourful boots, sponsorship deals and fancy haircuts. not a real man among them - exceptions: richie dunne and shay given.

england have the so-called best players from the best teams in this league and still looked useless in the world cup. and very very average since then.

who got to the world cup final: france and italy - probably not the most gifted teams in the tournament but teams who play with pride and passion and most of all have a will to and know how to win.

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Who are these people who are overhyping the Premiership? Most people would agree that it is probably the second best league in the world. Even if Sky for commercial reasons proclaim it the best league in the world it's not that much of an exaggeration.

Of the French team that played in the World Cup Final 3 played in the Premisership and 2 had played in the Premiership and these 5 included most of their most important players (Vieira, Henry, Makelele, Gallas).

I know it's trendy to knock the Premiership but if we had a team of players from Serie A we'd all think we were doing well.

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Originally Posted by NeilMcD

YOu have some valid point an ceannaire but are ruined by your abusive nature which makes anyone a loser in any debate.

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I only found one valid point "Shay Given is a class goalkeeper"
was there more?

the premiership as a whole is over hyped - outside the top 4 teams liverpool, man u, arsenal and chelsea (these are good teams) the rest is average and not much better than that on offer in contintential europe (and i am excluding spain and italy from this). blackburn and reading and sheff utd could be beaten by greek or israeli opponents and no-one would think much of it.

i've said this on another thread but how many irish players would make it on a premiership 11. in 2002 we had 3 from our WC squad in the offical one, this year we have none. do we have any player who would figure in a realistic top 50 world player list or even a top 50 european list and i mean a list made up from non english journalists! the answers are no.

paint it how you want - true we have a player at liverpool and one at united but they are nowhere near being their top players - the rest of our squad are average.

irish fans in general are not the booing type but if i paid a lot of cash to go over to cyprus to watch that muck performance and dire attitude you can be dam sure that i'd have no problem with fans booing. and besides its fans that go to away games that are a credit to the team with their support and attitude for the most part. I'm not one of these btw, dont have the cash!

Seem to have the same discussion on 2 threads alright.

It's easy to say the Premiership is crap except for the top 4 but all leagues are the same. Of course Reading are weaker than Man Utd but are they weaker than Levante??

On the point about the top 50 in the world, I think we'd have one player (Given assuming you have 4 goalies).

But most people would have probably 5 or so from Brazil, Argentina, Holland, Italy, France, Spain, England.

The point is that most of what should be our peers (Sweden, Romania, Belgium etc) would have no more than one player too. At the moment our peers are Scotland and NI and they wouldnt have anyone within a mile of a top 50.

So again why are we a weak team?

Well said. Totally agree.
Ireland as a nation accepts mediocrity and celebrates in Eurovision victories.
Roy Keane summed everything up and was berated by 50% of the people in this country.
We have a serious "ah sure its only a bitta craic" attitude problem in this country and until that is addressed we are going nowhere as a nation not to mind a football team.

I never said that you mentioned Stauntons Family that was in relation to journalists bringing Stauntons family into it. You just misunderstood me there, just a bit of a mix up.

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Originally Posted by cavan_fan

On the point about the top 50 in the world, I think we'd have one player (Given assuming you have 4 goalies).

At the moment our peers are Scotland and NI and they wouldnt have anyone within a mile of a top 50.

So again why are we a weak team?

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given is a brillant keeper granted but top 4 in the world i don't think so. he would only be pushing for top 4 in the premiership with cech, van de sar and lehmen so he is by no way a given (sorry about the pun) for world top 4 keepers.

you say that our peers are NI and Scotland and i say this is the answer to your final question

Given was in the Premiership team of the season last year ahead of the likes of Cech and Van De Sar and is a better keeper than both no matter what the s**te tabloid media claims. If Given had Chelsea's defence in front of him he'd never concede. He is miles better than Lehman btw who is dodgy as f**k.

Of the current team Carr, Finnan, Duff and Given have all been in the Premiership select 11 in the last few seasons so we should really be doing better than NI, Wales and Scotland.