Now that trap ended the love affair and the heartbreak is over SvD speaks a lot of sense in the clear light of day rather than the blurred skies of love.
Those having a go at Mons tactics and lineup and yet who watched frustratingly over and over again traps one dimensional mickey mouse philosophy have me baffled.
Mon had a plan A and a plan B and even a plan C. He cannot be to blame for bradys mistake or the Irish players fear to get on the ball.
what he can be blamed for its our lack of coherence /cohesion or inability to do anything with our setpieces and the utter disregard for anything
that looked like urgency. We wasted nearly as much time as the polish did jig acting as we did from our own frees.
Still if a player is afraid to take ownership of the ball then Mon can't be blamed for that either.its all comfort zone stuff.
I still hope he can address it - it doesn't help that we have had so many different starting 11s and 7 from the previous competitive game.
By the time we have Scotland at home we will have played 3 home games so no excuses, there should be some consistency in team selection and player
familiarity by then.
Mccarthy annoys me time and again we needed someone to take the ball off the full backs something he does regularly and well at
Everton yet he never came to support the full backs and offer himself, available for a pass, or a nice turn and go.
Don't forget McLean came on when they were wrecked. His direct running works wonders after 70 mins and against mediocre opposition
but against a decent full back his pace is matched and that's all he's got let's face it.
Long did his usual give away a petulant free when he had no need to do it, he could have dispossessed the Centre back but needlessly pushed him
in the back instead. He took the ball down well for the goal, but he was lucky with the deflection, it looked like slow motion because it took an
age to get in because of said deflection. Everyone over scrutinises keanes input and game, yet Longs is not scrutinised nearly enough by those keane haters, people
only want to see the good he does in the same way they only want to see the bad in keane, he has nothing to prove, why is the world always trying to
bring in the next new thing and write people off before time? Having said that Keane didn't have a great game and I thought his positioning and
reactions were poor, mentally slow. I'd still probably go with him and long or walters for scotland. Long is a great impact sub, plenty of running
and of running and changing things up when a defender is mentally tired and assured that he has the beating of the attacking team after stifling them
for 70+ mins. Same goes for McClean.
I am quite worried about the players reaction and what they have been coming out and saying in the papers, I always get the impression
they dont grasp the importance of each fixture and where we stand relatively, the possible permutations etc. They should be disappointed that
they didn't take the poles yesterday as it would be far more difficult in warsaw if its a must win game, which it will more than likely be.
I was happy with the performance yesterday, I thought we would draw but the performance would be good, it was, except only for about 1/3 of the game.
We needed to bring it to them and tire them early, but we were poor and although wessi sprayed the ball around we were fairly one dimensional in attack.
We should have exploited their right back more often and earlier on, but robbie didnt offer much, and there was no overlap. Which brings me onto wessi
he usually gets involved in lovely 1-2s with the wide players or full backs but he didnt do it yesterday, he also got muscled off the ball too often, and
against superior opposition it would have ended a lot worse, away from home I would be a lot more worried about that.
"But when you look back on that era, there was a sense that Trap got away with it. How many 'big' teams did we actually beat in a competitive match? None."
-Stephen Reid.
ALways felt this with Trap and always said it too, interestingly it's what everyone has been saying ever since Trap left!.
Great to see CD consistent again, one thing ye have to give him, he is always wrong!
I think everything else has been pretty much covered already so I won't bother repeating it.
