a lot were in fairness, as far as I recall anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozymandias
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a lot were in fairness, as far as I recall anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozymandias
your pointing to me been hypocritical and i dont agree with that due too.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Tir Oilean
the differances are...
i never called to abandon games etc....
we are 3rd in the table in this group far from been utterly disgraced, while GUFC we're joint 2nd bottom at the time having not won at home all year.
we bought in tonnes of players who never made an impact, players been played out of position etc...
there not even comparable, tony can buy players in, staunton cant..... a new manager comes in for us he can change everything around, stan goes its gonna be basically the same team as it was under kerr.
i could also argue my point that we are a FULL-TIME team competing down the basement with PART-TIME players and not doing aswell as we should be... i still dont think tony is the man for the job and cant see us winning a league with him!!
ok sorry take out finland i meant the scandinavian countries by putting etc... after the 1st two!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ifk101
don't think so..never remember a protest trying to be organised..there was a section booed him after the swiss game..no calls for his headQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
There were loads here, slating him for his negativity and so on. That's what I thought anyway.
We're better then the Czechs??? :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by sligoman
Are you mad?
In response to the first post, I doubt anyone thinks its 'a given' we should be qualifying for major tournaments but at the very least we should be giving ourselves a real chance and playing to our potential. That is not happening at the moment because :
A) Out coach is selecting the wrong team ( and I doubt 99% of people would agree with McGeady in the first 11 on the evidence of the last two games or his previous performances for that matter)
B) There appears to be no game plan and Stan cannot make substituions effectively.
C) Our manager can't get the best out of what he has or even worse he appears to be unable to identify what it is he actually has at his disposal.
I'm not one for bashing Stan, he's an honest guy trying to do his best but he appears hopelessly out of his depth. Even in McCarthy's first error ridden campaign we were in contention to the last game. We've three games to go here and the results include a disastrous defeat to Cyprus, a diabolical performance against San Marino and more poor performances than good ones with no real sign of progress. Yes we've brought in young players but they're promising young players and it would have happened no matter who was in charge, so I feel its a bit rich to be claiming credit for this.
Personally I think a team with players like Doyle, Keane, Dunne, Finnan, McShane, the two Reids, Ireland, Duff and Hunt should be pushing the likes of the Czechs all the way. I mean I keep hearing about the lack of quality in players but who have the Czech got apart from Rosicky and Jankulovski? Don't make these other middling nations out to be something they're not. We have the players to compete we're just not using them correctly.
dito what nailer77 said
I think Nailers post is a good one.
Just watching Eurosport's round up. I see Portugal have just blown a lead late on for second time in a week and Scolari has lost the plot. I wonder what's being written on the Portuguese message boards.
If the Portugeuse FA had appointed Jorge Costa as manager, coming from putting out cones at Desportivo das Aves, they would have a bloody good point. But Portugal went and got a world cup winner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gilberto_eire
yeah you are right cause third place is such a great achievement for such a small nation:rolleyes::rolleyes:
where did i say it was a great position?!.... we are where we should be IMO behind the czechs and germany!. most of our team are mid-lower table Prem' and not all guaranteed starting positions at there clubs, hardly reasons for ppl to start threads about abandoning games and holding mass protests, ye'd swear we we're a world class team who qualify and do well in every tournament the way ppl are reacting to this!Quote:
Originally Posted by bennocelt
Let's be honest here guys' when the draw initially came out for euro 08.Can any of you honestly say that you thought Ireland would pip Germany or the Czecs to a place in the finals.Steve Staunton obviously is tactically inept, but that aside i don,t honestly think that any other of the so called top managers would have taken you to the finals with the squad of players at Ireland's disposal,no doubt that there are some decent players in the panel,Hunt ,Doyle,Keane,Dunne to name but a few,but imo the only world class player on the books is Given and that is never going to be enough to take yous through such a testing group.Best of luck with your remaining fixtures.
See this is the mentality that so annoys me about some Irish fans( although looking over your post it looks like your not Irish). Look at every other group, we have got the easiest group by some distance, particulrly with two teams qualifying. Germany are obviously very strong and probably the strongest in Europe. Everyone knows that the Czechs are on the slide, and are not a patch on the side of the early years 2000s. The Slovaks and Welsh ae really nothing teams. they are teams we shoul be beating. Mark my words we will not get a group as easy as that for some time and the Czechs will be doing very well to get 1 point in the European Championships. We let an excellent opportunity slip and it sickens me, that group was there for the taking.Quote:
Originally Posted by waide
ireland and scotland have a very similar player base.
i'd even say player by player we have a superior team.
but scotland can put up a good fight in their group containing france and italy.
whereas we limp out with 3 games to play.
there are very few well organised international team these days and anyone that is has a good chance of going far. counts more than having a 11 star players. look at greece in euro 2004.
look its time to stop talkin sh1te and start examining the facts of this debate. We do not have players capable of qualifying us for this tournament. Germany and the Czechs still have far far superior quality players than we have. We have no right to expect qualification to ANY major tournament. We are minnows in terms of World football who got lucky and qualified for a few WCs and one (yes, just one) European finals.
People are blind if they think that we should have qualified for this tournament - WE DO NOT HAVE THE PLAYERS. Look at the standard of player that got us to and represented us in our World Cups and Euro 88:
Irish squad for Euro 88: Bonner, Morris, Hughton, McCarthy, Moran, Whelan, McGrath, Houghton, Aldridge, Stapleton, Galvin, Cascarino, L. O'Brien, D. Kelly, Sheedy, Peyton, J. Byrne, Sheridan, Anderson, Quinn.
Irish squad for WC 90: Bonner, Morris, Staunton, McCarthy, Moran, Whelan, McGrath, Houghton, Aldridge, Cascarino, Sheedy, O'Leary, Townsend, Hughton, Slaven, Sheridan, N. Quinn, Stapleton, D Kelly, J Byrne, McLoughlin, Peyton.
Irish squad for WC 94: Bonner, Irwin, Phelan, Moran, McGrath, Keane, Townsend, Houghton, Aldridge, Sheridan, Staunton, G. Kelly, Kernaghan, Babb, Coyne, Cascarino, McGoldrick, Whelan, McLoughlin, D. Kelly, McAteer, A. Kelly
Irish squad for WC 02: Given, Finnan, Harte, Cunningham, Staunton, Keane*, McAteer, Holland, Duff, Keane, Kilbane, Kinsella, Connolly, Breen, Dunne, Kiely, N Quinn, G Kelly, Morrison, Andy O'Brien, S. Reid, Carsley, A. Kelly.
Now look at the weekends squad and tell me honestly if you think we have the calibre of player that deserves or has the ability to qualify ahead of the Germans and Czechs. In fact if you look at the squads from 88 til now the main thing that stands out is the gradual decline in the quality of our players (with a few obvious exceptions - the Keanes, Given and Duff).
Squad for Czech game: Colgan, Doyle, Given, Henderson, Dunne, Finnan, Foley, Kelly, McShane, O’Shea, Carsley, Douglas, Gibson, Hunt, Ireland, Kilbane, McGeady, Alan O’Brien, Potter, Reid, Doyle, Keane, Keogh, Long, D Murphy.
That squad is not fit to lace the boots of any of the previous squads that qualified. And that is all that those squads did - they just got us there. We didnt win the tournaments, in fact the furthest we got was, with our most talented squad, to a QF scoring 2 goals and winning no games!!!!!! And that was with top premiership players and continental players who were amongst the most influential players for their clubs at the time.
Its time to take the blinkers off people and realise that we dont have the quality to qualify for a major finals. The best we have is potential. If anyone can tell me why we should have qualified for the EC with that squad ill be impressed.
edit: i think we will have actually done pretty well if we come third in the group with those players.
Greece and Denmark winning the Euros. Scotland top of their group. The Czechs are a poor reflection of the team they had a few years ago. Baros is a joker of the highest order. There is not a truely world class team around ie a team even half full of world class players. And this is the weakest group we have been in since the old 3 team groups.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
How can anyone claim we are where we deserve to be? whether or not we deserve to be 3rd with the players we got is debatable but we definitely should not be 8 points off 1st and 6 points off 2nd and virtually eliminated with 3 games to go, when was the last time we were so far off qualifying?
I agree that sometimes fans are too quick to call for the managers head but this isn't one of those times, for me its rare to have a case that is this clear cut, Stan has to go if we are to have any reasonable chance of qualifying for the world cup.
Nobody expects Ireland to qualify for every WC/Euro but we do expect them to put up some sort of challenge.
In this group we lost 5-2 to Cyprus, barely beat San Marino away and put in mostly crap performances bar the Czechs at home.
At the moment Poland, Finland, Greece, Norway, Romania, and Scotland are all in contention for qualifying for the tournament. We are out with THREE games to go.
Are the players these countries have better than us? Would these countries put up with the crap we put up with? I dont think so.
Morbo, at the end of the day whats the difference between finishing 8 points or 2 points off qualifying. You are either good enough or you are not. Its that simple.
Noely, the Czechs are a team in decline but theyre still far superior to us. They have better quality in all areas of the pitch than we do. They know how to play the game and they deserve to be ahead of us. Jankuloski, Koller, Baros, Cech off the top of my head are players that would walk into our team.
Scotland have players playing in the top premiership teams and i would say at least half their squad play european football every season. We have Finnan and O'Shea. Robbie Keane in the UEFA too. Scotland dont have a League 1 player in their squad.
This may or may not have been the easiest group we have had and i think that it is a reflection of the players we have (and the manager) that they cant qualify from it. And also a reflection of the better quality player that we had when we qualified in 88, 90, 94 and 02.