Andorra V Republic of Ireland - Thursday, 3rd June 2021 - Friendly

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Yeah, there's letting your man go at a set piece, and there's the entire team standing still while the keeper obligingly wanders into no-man's-land alright. It was a nice header, but it must be so much easier when under no pressure at all. That one was a team effort.

Interesting stat at the end actually - Andorra had one shot on target and we had four. So none of the three keepers made a save between them apparently.

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Yeah that can’t be right, Andorra keeper saved a Manning shot straight at him.

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Originally Posted by ontheotherhand

It was a late McCarthy era performance in some ways. Not great and painful to watch at times but we got an acceptable result with a bit of a late rally.

Really disappointed in Egan, Doherty and Hourihane. Very disinterested performance from 3 senior players. I don't care who your manager is, you go out and play well for your country. That might be harsh on Egan but it was his man for the goal. We were disjointed in the middle of the park and I was expecting Hourihane to shine against such weak opponents. I'd be fairly confident the likes of Jack Byrne would have loved taking on that sort of team but Hourihane wasn't showing for the ball which is a basic requirement for an attacking midfielder you'd think. He wasn't the only player guilty of it either though so you'd wonder what they have been working on in training.

I'd be happy enough if Doherty never got another cap. He is so slow and cumbersome. Or just doesn't care. Or a bit of both. The ball went out his way in the final third about 4 times in the first half and he just cut back and slowed us down every time.

Delighted for Troy, Knight and Horgan.

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Why are we constantly surprised by Hourihane and Doherty. They have been terrible under multiple managers now. I would have liked to have seen McGrath come in for Hourihane tonight

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Originally Posted by Razors left peg

Why are we constantly surprised by Hourihane and Doherty. They have been terrible under multiple managers now. I would have liked to have seen McGrath come in for Hourihane tonight

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Hourihane is a poor player... disappears every game and gives possession away the whole time. It's like he is trying to be Paul Scholes with none of the talent. On a positive note, I have to say Troy's first goal was absolutely excellent.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Yeah, there's letting your man go at a set piece, and there's the entire team standing still while the keeper obligingly wanders into no-man's-land alright. It was a nice header, but it must be so much easier when under no pressure at all. That one was a team effort.

Interesting stat at the end actually - Andorra had one shot on target and we had four. So none of the three keepers made a save between them apparently.

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Sky Sports saying we had five shots on target - https://www.skysports.com/football/a...d/stats/443226 - which would include Manning's chance.
Some sites differ on how various stats are calculated, most will differ on things like possession and passes, but they'd all be around the same value

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Originally Posted by Diggs246

Hourihane is a poor player... disappears every game and gives possession away the whole time. It's like he is trying to be Paul Scholes with none of the talent. On a positive note, I have to say Troy's first goal was absolutely excellent.

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It was a super goal, seemed to have the attitude that he was going to grab game by scruff of the neck and have a go at them. Really hope it can kick start him into the player that we thought he was going to be.

This quote from the post match press conference is troubling - https://www.the42.ie/stephen-kenny-39-5457427-Jun2021/

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We haven’t conceded from a set play but that was a poor one today and I have to have a look at it. It’s not something we had been focusing on, defending set pieces. We haven’t had that long, only four or five days off with a day off in between that. We can’t train every day coming into a match so we haven’t been focusing on defending set pieces.

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Teams like Andorra focus on set pieces as their best chance to score, surely he knew this? Are we supposed to believe that at no point during the training camp to date, nobody thought to tell the defenders who to mark at corners, frees and throw ins? Because their goalscorer had the freedom of the penalty area when he scored, and that's not an exaggeration.
Are they going to focus on set pieces before facing Hungary on Tuesday?

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Originally Posted by Diggs246

On a positive note, I have to say Troy's first goal was absolutely excellent.

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Missed opportunity for a pun on “Cracker” there!!

I was delighted for him getting the second goal. I felt sorry for him after his first. It seemed anti climactic for him, given the context. A teenage forwards debut goal should have had them buzzing. Instead the recovery from the concession against such a low profile nation just sucked the good out of it for him.

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Originally Posted by dr_peepee

Missed opportunity for a pun on “Cracker” there!!

I was delighted for him getting the second goal. I felt sorry for him after his first. It seemed anti climactic for him, given the context. A teenage forwards debut goal should have had them buzzing. Instead the recovery from the concession against such a low profile nation just sucked the good out of it for him.

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What gave you that impression? First celebration was your bog standard "I've scored to tie things up but we have a lot of work to do" look and the second he celebrated as you'd expect. Seemed delighted. Said he was over the moon in his interview. Don't think there's any need to feel sorry for the lad.

I think the biggest issue is the consistent underwhelming performances of the senior players selected in the team - when they should be setting the example. Last night again. You can fob it off as our players being technically inferior but not against Andorra. Maybe this is the lingering legacy of previous management(s) - a culture of playing the percentages and fear of being proactive on the ball.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

This quote from the post match press conference is troubling - https://www.the42.ie/stephen-kenny-39-5457427-Jun2021/

Teams like Andorra focus on set pieces as their best chance to score, surely he knew this? Are we supposed to believe that at no point during the training camp to date, nobody thought to tell the defenders who to mark at corners, frees and throw ins? Because their goalscorer had the freedom of the penalty area when he scored, and that's not an exaggeration.
Are they going to focus on set pieces before facing Hungary on Tuesday?

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was on some of the tv coverage last night that they were concentrating on attacking situations in camp all week.
The panel was questioning how effective that was given there was so much sideways and conservative passing in midfield most of the evening

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Originally Posted by dr_peepee

Missed opportunity for a pun on “Cracker” there!!

I was delighted for him getting the second goal. I felt sorry for him after his first. It seemed anti climactic for him, given the context. A teenage forwards debut goal should have had them buzzing. Instead the recovery from the concession against such a low profile nation just sucked the good out of it for him.

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I know what you mean. I was thinking of Stephen Ireland's late, late winner against San Marino, or Steve Finnan's equaliser against Cyprus. You should celebrate a goal, but in both cases the performance beforehand drained the joy from the strike

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

This quote from the post match press conference is troubling - https://www.the42.ie/stephen-kenny-39-5457427-Jun2021/

Teams like Andorra focus on set pieces as their best chance to score, surely he knew this? Are we supposed to believe that at no point during the training camp to date, nobody thought to tell the defenders who to mark at corners, frees and throw ins? Because their goalscorer had the freedom of the penalty area when he scored, and that's not an exaggeration.
Are they going to focus on set pieces before facing Hungary on Tuesday?

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Hadn't seen that quote, that's really troubling actually. Surely in international football, with limited time to work with the players, you start with getting the basics like set pieces right before you do anything else. That we hadn't looked at them before the game is another example of what seems to be a real naivete in the current management.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

I know what you mean. I was thinking of Stephen Ireland's late, late winner against San Marino, or Steve Finnan's equaliser against Cyprus. You should celebrate a goal, but in both cases the performance beforehand drained the joy from the strike

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Speaking of joy being drained.....it was quite surreal to see Kenny conferring with a guy who spent Saturday night in the Chelsea dugout winning the European Cup whilst Ireland were deservedly a goal down to Andorra!

I think we have plenty of decent players but I thought their faces and body language from the first minute suggested a bunch of lads who clearly weren't enjoying playing for Ireland and, to my eyes, they actually looked like they really didn't even want to be there. Grimaces all round. So much.....not even sloppiness, way worse than sloppiness. It was dispiriting.

I don't think all of them are like that, though. Knight, for example, is a gem and some of the others seem more perplexed than anything.

I don't see the point of the whole thing anymore, to be honest. Our best match under Kenny was his first and our worst was the latest game. To my mind, we were beaten last night. Beaten by what Darragh Moloney was calling "the Andorran press". Staggering stuff.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

This quote from the post match press conference is troubling - https://www.the42.ie/stephen-kenny-39-5457427-Jun2021/

Teams like Andorra focus on set pieces as their best chance to score, surely he knew this? Are we supposed to believe that at no point during the training camp to date, nobody thought to tell the defenders who to mark at corners, frees and throw ins? Because their goalscorer had the freedom of the penalty area when he scored, and that's not an exaggeration.
Are they going to focus on set pieces before facing Hungary on Tuesday?

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Thats ridiculous didnt hear or see that myself, but thats ridiculous really.

Is it me or is it very quiet on here? Are the flying columns hiding in the bushes?

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

Thats ridiculous didnt hear or see that myself, but thats ridiculous really.

Is it me or is it very quiet on here? Are the flying columns hiding in the bushes?

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Hungry for the Hun-gary = = If thats goes pete tong then all hell is going to break loose !

We're scored four times under Kenny prior to last night and the complaint is we didn't focus on defending set pieces in the build-up to a friendly game against Andorra. Sweet Jebus. And if we are practicing attacking set plays, surely defending them is an aspect of that exercise if not the focus. :-)

exactly, the build up to yesterday's game had to be focused on attacking improvements. Scoring 4 would suggest perhaps it paid off, though it did take until their legs were gone a bit.
Very disappointed in some of the senior squad members, vindicates continuing to blood the younger cohort and let them learn from their mistakes themselves, as they'll learn damn all from the older lads it seems.

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Originally Posted by ifk101

We're scored four times under Kenny prior to last night and the complaint is we didn't focus on defending set pieces in the build-up to a friendly game against Andorra. Sweet Jebus. And if we are practicing attacking set plays, surely defending them is an aspect of that exercise if not the focus. :-)

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Well our attacking set pieces aren't very inventive or working out so well, so the defending wouldnt need to be up to much :P

When we say older lads, they're not massively experienced, bar Duffy/McClean really. And we know how his career trajectory has gone over the last couple of years.

Sadlier was saying something similar after the game - that they've had a decent spell of time to prepare for these games, yet when you look at how they played, you'd have to ask yourself "what have then been doing?"

"They were dropping into areas too deep to receive it, in the full-back areas, which sometimes can be very effective in controlling games against top-class opposition, but against opposition that are sitting off you, it's not effective.

Kenny thinks Andorra were dropping off?