Cant believe Robben is only that, must be the bald napper on him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
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Cant believe Robben is only that, must be the bald napper on him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingdom
First off, I didn't see the Damien Duff thread, nobody has posted to it for 5 days, people had lost interest in his thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by boovidge
Secondly, the mods can always more my thread into the Damien duff thread if they so wish.
Thirdly if I search on Damien duff he is mentioned in 250+ threads, are those all to be made into one thread? No because they also mention other
players the reality is things which people want to talk about do not always fall into a particular single category. It's complex.
Fourthly People complain about the proliferation of threads and the apparent solution of to this is to bung a load of threads into one big thread.
Now that does not solve the problem it just makes it worse, you still have the exact same number of threads but now they are all mangled
into one big ball of spaghetti in a super thread.
So it achieves little apart from a superficial appearance of order in the forum. However once a thread is opened that appearance of order soon
disappears into a bunch of mangled threads which are hard to read because they switch from one topic to another from post to post.
Often people do not even bother to quote the post the are replying to and another post is made in the meantime and it looks like they are
replying to them. The result an ugly mess.
That is made worse by a crappy editor which is not wiziwig so that you get spurious carriage returns all over the place. It does not have to be like that because I myself have wrote a much better editor than that
(still have the source code :D )
Furthermore the whole design of this vBulletin Solutions forums is rubbish, it is not properly threaded as for example the usenet forums are, which are much easier to navigate.
5. To use the forum as intended I have to open up and read a whole lot of threads whose content I may have no interest in whatsoever. So it seem to me that I and other "sensible people" :) are far more put out
than the people who find having to read a brief thread title a major psychological challanege.
Just baffles me why someone would want to persist with an obviously crappy system, but then let's not drag Trap into this ;)
6. When I explain my reasoning I never really get any logically valid responses, which does not really surprise me lol, I guess people just do not know why they like what I consider a to be an even worse system, so for me is a bit like trying to reason with some who has been brainwashed by Church of Scientology or whatever, it's not gonna happen.
Or people were more interested in other threadsQuote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
In case you haven't noticed, there's only one mod for the International forumQuote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
That's why we have a sticky at the top of the forum with links to each player's thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Everybody else seems fine with itQuote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
wiziwig editors would be massive drain on system resources, both client and server. For simple text replies, all the options you really need are in the existing editorQuote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
If you're using usenet as an example of a "proper" forum, you've got bigger problems, I stopped using that particular mess before 2000Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
So write a pluginQuote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Seriously, if you think this is a crappy system, try the soccer forum on boards.ie.Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Fine storm here in this teacup.
What about that Stephen Ireland chap......
Great bit of news: http://www.setanta.com/ie/Articles/2...d/gnid-146691/
Good on him. Would be great to see him in the LOI when he sees the time as right.
At Bray of course.
This is exactly the kind of attitude I wish every player had, an example as ever Damien.Quote:
I'm going to play until I drop.
Now time to revisit that whole "duff into centre mid" business again. ;)
Definitely. I wonder what his connection to Bray is though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Duff visiting, and patrolling with Irish troops in Lebanon.
http://twitpic.com/a3fj0b
He probably hasn't felt this exposed since the second half of the Spain game. :-|
Fair play to him though, good to see.
Agent Devlin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Delighted he's staying on. Probably still our most technically gifted player. I don't think players should retire from international football anyway, it should be the manager's call and if he thinks younger players have more to offer then fair enough.
He will have to adjust his game if he is going to keep playing so into midfield it is and then work his way back to sweeper !Quote:
Originally Posted by Murfinator
Great news.
Central midfield three of Duffer (captain), McCarthy and Gibson. Aiden and McClean out wide and Long up front on his own.
Defence? We won't need one.
But Trap picks Cox ahead of Duff in central midfield, so I don't see it happening.
It would be nice to give those a chance.Quote:
Originally Posted by brine3
He has the best close control of any player in our ranks and amongst the best passing stats as well so on paper I reckon he could. We're very well stocked in the wide areas and less so central and at full back so I really wish positional changes were something considered for the next campaign. I'd love to see Hunt at left back and Duff in centre mid.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
I just can't see Duff as a central midfielder. His tool kit is completely different to that of a CM although I do take the point that the best CMs can carry the ball very effectively. At the Euros many CMs ate up 10 to 15 yards if the space was free. In the last few years I honestly can't remember a single instance of an Irish CM taking the ball from a CB and carrying it forward more than a few paces.
Gibson has superb close control btw. I think it's harder to take the ball in CM than it is out wide, and also harder to find space.
Nobody seen Ryan Giggs as a central midfielder either Stutts.
Sir Alex?Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Well..if you want.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
mind you, he did think the same about Alan Smith!Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Well there was also some crazy folk that thought Alan Smith was a striker too.
Alan Smith was actually a good striker until he broke both his legs 14 times. Why on earth anybody thought that was the perfect preparation for a central midfield role I have no idea, but there you go.
I could just about see Duff being the "1" in a 4-3-1-2 but I think employing him out of his natural position would just imbalance the team. Point taken re-Giggs, though he never fully impressed me in CM and he had far better players around him than we do.
I think it's more a case of Duff being a good reader of the game. Cool head who can hold up a ball, but can also pick out the killer pass. He'd be ideal in a 4-3-1-2 situation if you ask me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
I have noticed that sometimes during matches that Duff drifts into the centre, probably out of pure frustration of watching the barren void that is Whelan/Andrews. And when he does, he does very well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Duff and Ireland centre mids with Green and Whelan out wide? Mouthwatering prospect!
It kind of reminds me of Milan's midfield of old - creative central players in Pirlo and Kaká, flanked by more physical ball-winners (Gattusso and I don't remember). Granted, we have no players of that quality, but perhaps something similar could be achieved with Gibson being minded by Andrews and Whelan while Duff gets a free role further ahead. It would seem to lack width, but a number of our strikers are happy to operate fairly wide a lot of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
Ambrosini I assume? Or Seedorf, but he's hardly a physical ball-winner. Even if we had players of sufficient quality, I don't think that formation is any more appropriate to combat a five-man midfield than our current system.
I agree. It'd give us more cover in the centre, but our full backs would be badly exposed.
...or it'd give our full backs room to get forward. Full backs are a vital proactive cog in the wheel and should not just be seen as being reactive.
Watching some teams at the Euros was a delight - the way the whole team was fluent and interacted. In most teams only the CBs and maybe a deep-lying midfielder were essentially fixed in position. Midfielders would cover for full backs, forwards would drop deep if midfielders advanced. Great stuff.
Our national XI at the Euros (and beforehand) is a metaphor for the whole structure of the game in Ireland. 3 distinct units with no conjoining thread.
I'd agree in principle, but I think we're relatively weak at full back, particularly left back. Thinking of the protection McGeady and particularly Duff offered the full backs in key games in qualifying, I'd expect trouble if they were left to their own devices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Yep, it'd help if we actually had good full backs. You could easily see Coleman or Kelly being a proper pro-active right back though.
Other teams seem to manage quite well to manage the threat of Duff and McGeady on the flanks, sometimes doubling and tripling up. It's rare to find a team that leaves its full back all alone to deal with the threat of a tricky wide midfielder.
Croatia really figured us out. They basically said "right, they aren't even going to try attack from the middle so mark the wingers like crazy and Ireland won't bother us." How right they were.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
According to Paul Rowan in yesterdays times, Duff spent a few days recently with the Irish forces (in Lebannon I think it was). This was in Rowans opinion reason to think that Duff might not be retiring after all!!!
Why would that necessarily mean Duff wasn't going to retire? :confused:
My point exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible