Why did we beat the Slovaks?

Keane plays well for Spurs because he has competition from Berbatov, Defoe and Mido for the two slots. He needs that for Ireland and he certainly has it now so hopefully he will COP-ON. And Stan will be as strong as Martin Jol.

He is not a number one striker (like Quinn or Doyle) but when he was asked to perform that role against Wales, he should have led by example and done it. Full Stop. He is supposed to be the fecking captain. I didnt see Finnan drifting over to right full and standing beside O'Shea !

I do agree that a withdrawn role behind Doyle will suit him, if he stops waving his arms like a windmill. If not McGeady and Ireland are hungry enough and potentially good enough to do it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thomo

ive never rated mcphail-ure, not even at leeds, as for flood he had a few good gmes for man city, but nothing spectacular, cover at best.

---

My 2 year old daughter has more physical presence than Flood.

As one of his biggest critics on this forum, have to say IMO O'Shea had his best game for Ireland on Wednesday. A pity it has taken 36 games for him to at last look like an international player. He was good, but he wasn't great and switched off once or twice. I hope he can kick on from here when he plays for us. If he can and stays sound, no reason why he won't get 80-100 caps.

Odd choice that Richard Dunne got MOTM. Personally, I would have given it to Paul McShane or Kevin Doyle.

well everyone, as i am from limerick, i think i will state the obvious. we scored more goals

As I mentioned in another thread what we are really missing is a hard-tackling creative CMF player to partner Carsley. Unfortunately their is no stand-out candidate. IMO the top contenders would be:

1. Stephen Reid (injured and struggles to bring his club form to international level, needs a run at CMF and not to be played on the right like against Germany)
2. A. Reid (injured and is not a proven CMF player yet)
3. J. O'Brien (injured, had a great 1st season but needs to start playing in CMF for his club and show the same form there, if not then he would be a more than capable replacement for Finnan)
4. Garvan (just back from a long-term illness and is starting to show his form from last season. He would probably benefit from one more season in the Championship but then I can see him being a real success in the Premiership.)
5. Darren Gibson (needs to prove himself at a higher level first)

So it probably makes sense for us to stick with the 4-4-1-1 formation at the moment and I think this is why we won the last game because we played a system that suited the players available to us.

We'll we could bring Garvan and Gibson to the States in May and give them games there. I think this tour could be very important for Staunton. I suspect he will play the team he wants against CZ and Slovakia in Denmark in August. All going well everyone should be fit!

Why did we beat the Slovaks?

I said before the 2 games that the return of Given gave me the warm fuzzy. For all the improvement across the team especially for the Slovak game if you substituted any of our other keeprs for Given I don't think we would have won both games 1-0.

Given has played 3 games for us in this campaign and conceded 1 goal, and that a deflection. Given gives us a huge boost.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DeNiro

We'll we could bring Garvan and Gibson to the States in May and give them games there. I think this tour could be very important for Staunton. I suspect he will play the team he wants against CZ and Slovakia in Denmark in August. All going well everyone should be fit!

---

I agree

Staunton should use the games in the states to blood some of the new lads at senior level.

Garvan,Gibson,O'Dea, Stephen Quinn,Keogh etc..

Maybe bring in Billy Clarke & a couple of the other u21 players into the squad as well.

One satisfying aspect of the win was that the winner came from a set piece, and so was the next closest chance (Long’s header which was cleared off the line). I hope this wasn’t just by luck.

I’ve lost count of the number of times Mourinho’s Chelsea has won tight games through the quality of their set pieces, Martin O’Neill’s Celtic teams too. With our current team there’s little to separate us from the teams seeded just above us and just below us so every little bit extra helps.

Set pieces under Kerr were atrocious and until Wednesday, set pieces under Staunton were poor too.

I thought the way the team lines up for set pieces was a lot different than under Kerr, there's usually a group of 4 or 5 players standing together, and 2 more standing further off. When the free kick taker begins his run up, the group splits and runs to (what you hope is) pre-arranged target spots. Since the 4 are being marked by 4 defenders who are now on top of each other, it does create some degree of confusion. I think this is what allowed Doyle to move in front of his marker on wednesday night.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

I thought the way the team lines up for set pieces was a lot different than under Kerr, there's usually a group of 4 or 5 players standing together, and 2 more standing further off. When the free kick taker begins his run up, the group splits and runs to (what you hope is) pre-arranged target spots. Since the 4 are being marked by 4 defenders who are now on top of each other, it does create some degree of confusion. I think this is what allowed Doyle to move in front of his marker on wednesday night.

---

You will see this on pitches all over Dublin on a Sunday morning.

It's not rocket science.

Football isn't a difficult game. the only hard part is making it look easy!
If set pieces aren't rocket science, why was the team under Kerr so bad at them?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Armando

Christ lads! KEVIN NOLAN DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR US

We wouldn't want him anyway. Poor distributor of the ball and hugely over rated. Give me either of the Reids anyday.....now if only they could get back to full fitness:(

---

Jayziz I would have thought being a poor distributor of the ball was guaranteed to qualify you as an Irish midfielder :D

P.S. The Slovaks top striker who plays for Nurnberg and whose surname begins with M ( Marek Mintal if you must know) was injured that's why we beat them rather than drew!

I thought the Slovaks were very poor against us. That's why we beat them. It wasn't because of a great performance on our part or anything like it.

Looking at the positives though at least we looked solid for the first time in a long time in both games (even against Germany I thought we looked a bit dodgy defensively though we got away with only conceding 1 goal).

Also I doubt if Slovakia will be that much better at home (they got hammered by the Czechs in a home game earlier in the campaign) so beating them again is far from beyond us. Unfortunately with our poor away record we'll probably do the usual, score early, sit back and try to defend for the rest of the game instead of trying to increase our lead and then concede a last minute equaliser.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Irish_Praha

1. Stephen Reid (injured and struggles to bring his club form to international level, needs a run at CMF and not to be played on the right like against Germany)

---

Funny thing is, he did OK there in the first game against Sweden and Robson then banged on about he and O'Shea were the likely future of the Irish midfield. Then he was played on the right and was crap, back in the middle against Holland (as captain) and was crap, along with everyone else and then that was it. Back on the RHS against Germany when the central midfield was screaming out for his presence there.

I'm not fussed about Finnan vs O'Shea. My tendency would be to pick Finnan on the right and have at least one side functioning prefectly, and take a chance on O'Shea or Stephen Kelly at left back but it's swings and roundabouts for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Superhoops

As one of his biggest critics on this forum, have to say IMO O'Shea had his best game for Ireland on Wednesday. A pity it has taken 36 games for him to at last look like an international player. He was good, but he wasn't great and switched off once or twice. I hope he can kick on from here when he plays for us. If he can and stays sound, no reason why he won't get 80-100 caps.

Odd choice that Richard Dunne got MOTM. Personally, I would have given it to Paul McShane or Kevin Doyle.

---

If O'Shea can cope with the presssure/quality of oppostion in Rome he should be
fine playing against a pretty low quality Slovak team!!

O'Shea was poor last night imo. He went past the half way line once and was shaky at the other end.