Damien handcock cant even do the 4th official job right
Damien handcock cant even do the 4th official job right
Fair play Keith Fahey - great to see
go on Keith Fahey!! Great reception too (must be some pats fans in the crowd). Delighted for the lad.
did i just hear ppl Booing santa cruz when he went off?????
Hope they don't get a late goal from a handball.
Good workout. Doyle looks on top of his game and a real pity he won't be strutting his stuff out in SA. Of the subs was impressed by Green. Looks a good player. Composed on the ball and made a few good tackles.
Green did good, came on and got involved as if he had been a fixture.
From the starting 11 (Doyle apart), Lawrence impressed, could have been an extra effort as he is in the shop window.
Definitely a much better and more offensive performance, than we did against South Africa, up until we looked tired in the second half.
Looks like there is plenty of life in the old guard of Duff, Keane and Doyle.
First goal was ridiculous. Failed McShane bicycle kick, defender doing his best to score an own goal and then Doyle injuring himself nodding in the open goal.
Decent performance, good first half and 10/15 mins of the second half. We seemed to retreat into a shell after that. The usual suspects played well, Duff and Doyle. Lawrence continued to enhance his reputation in an Irish jersey, solid from Kelly, JOSH and Sledge. McShane with his mandatory error a game, the guy just never looks competent enough. Westwood kick outs in the second half were very poor for some reason. Whelan and Andrews did ok but again struggled to imposed themselves on the game.
Overall, good performance and keeps the good feeling about the squad going. The subs didnt really have much of an impact so I def would like to see a more balanced mix in the starting eleven on Friday. The likes of Stokes and Fahey should start.
A win against a team ranked above us should get us a few ranking points. Hopefully we follow it up with a win against Algeria on Friday.
agree with this summary.Quote:
Originally Posted by elroy
do you think that Trap will change it up too much again from the starting line up? He doesnt usually...
We are ranked 43 which is a 4 year low, Paraguay are on 30 so they are not that far ahead of us, so with that and it being a friendly I doubt we well move
much, also it will depend on the result of the game which drops out of the rating (depending on how they do it).
We should be going to S.A instead of Paraguay!!
Same old story, good first half, fall apart in the second when the subs come on.
Didn't see any of it but the report on soccernet was much more glowing than on here for the most part. Hard bunch to please?
I thought it was absolutely horrific. I wouldnt count anything on the first goal, one of those rare freak messups from defense. Lawrence's goal had a touch of class about it.
I was tearing my hair out watching how much space paraguay were given. It's this tactic of building a fortress around the box that we use, it works for 80 mins, but its not impregnable. This was the worst midfield performance i've seen since trap took over. Any time the ball was there it was only our wingers available.
Possession was 70% to 30%...watching your team win with the opposition having that much of the ball almost feels like a loss. Every long ball we lost, every 1 on 1 header we lost except the odd one mcshane won. Passing was horrific and noone but duff and lawrence seemed to be looking for the ball. Player ratings:
Westwood : 6 - Couldnt have done much with the goal. Had very little else to do, seemed confident tho
Kelly : 7 - Was impressed with kelly. Defended well, made very few mistakes and was decent enough going forward. Seemed hungry.
McShane : 3 - Mainly his fault for the goal. Made a couple of other criminal errors. You can defend very well for most of a game, but consistently it is his error when we concede and he's playing. Simply not trustworthy and not good enough.
St Ledger : 6 - Played well, did very little wrong
O'Shea : 7 : Based on this performance, i think he should replace kilbane and use one of the many right back options over there instead. Made no mistakes, only problem was as usual his distribution was crap
Lawrence : 8 - Thought he deserved man of the match to be honest. Good distribution, was making himself available for the ball, good tracking back, great finish
Whelan : 4 - Good defensively but terrible outside of that
Andrews : 5 - Same as whelan really, a little bit more adventurous going forward
Duff : 8 - Same ol great game from the duffer. Won a lot of crucial free kicks
Keane : 5 - Had one good chance where he let the defender beat him. Didnt really do much all day
Doyle : 8 - Dodgy goal, great assist for lawrence, work tirelessly. Same ol Doyler
Subs :
Green : 5 - Didnt impact the match much but to be honest, i didnt notice any difference between him and whelan/andrews. Pretty much the exact same type of player
Fahey : 5 - Made no impact, did nothing to impress me
Foley : 5 - Same as above, and please trap, dont bother with him as a winger, we have far far better options
Sheridan : 2 - Was he even aware he was playing? Showed no energy at all. For a guy trying to impress his manager he failed imo. Did look ok on the ball when he had it but really could have done better
Long : 6 - Only sub who tried to make an impact. Infused some energy into his game and should have won a late penalty.
The biggest thing to be learned from the game I thought was that Sheridan doesnt have the football intelligence to be an international footballer.His movement off the ball was awful.There were a few times when he could have made a run to either clear space for the other striker or to get in on goal himself and he didnt seem to know what to do.Ive thought the same thing when I seen him play for Celtic a few times and I was hoping for an improvement last night but it didnt happen.Long on the other hand looked pretty sharp when he came on I thought
I didn't rate Sheridan before today and I definitely don't now. I don't understand why play him over Stokes. Stokes scored 20+ goals in Scotland and Trap hasn't seen him aside from the B games while Sheridan scored 6 and failed in the Championship. Might as well have called up young Joe Mason who actually scored for Plymouth. He's only 21 which is young, but not that young in football terms. Long did OK in his brief cameo but he's far too streaky. Honestly I hope neither of the two are anywhere near the squad when Qualifying starts in the fall. Obviously this is the point of friendlies to figure these things out so I'm not too mad, though I will be if Trap sticks with him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Last night looked every inch a friendly between a side saving itself for the World cup and a team playing out an end of season match. I was impressed with the RDS, and the pitch looked great, but our view was terrible.
Paraguay were excellent on the ball, and the best player on the pitch was there #16. He was central to the possession they had, always available and only because of the lethargy of those ahead of him, his prodding went unrewarded. They stretched us very well too, and the wide ball was on constantly on both sides.
Doyle was magnificent. Stephen Kelly looked like he was on for a shocker, but I thought he came into the game well. Glenn was quiet I thought, whereas Andrews was more involved. We watched Paul McShane specifically, and the fella doesn't seem to have a clue I'm afraid when the opposition show a bit of movement. Twice prior to the goal Santa Cruz and the #11 criss-crossed and McShane was left standing alone, and the goal was directly his fault. I just wouldn't have him anywhere near the team. It's a pity as he's obviously very committed, but even that turns to rashness at times.
We have looked most comfortable as a back 4 with O'Shea and Dunne as our centre-halves and I'd stick with that. Ledger obviously is decent, but tbh I'd prefer to functional competent full-backs managed by two excellent centre-halves, and that should be the main goal defensively. The thought's of McShane replacing Dunne at centre half worry me greatly. He perhaps can combat a bulky forward, but the tricksters will make a fool of him.
Yep. Quite a lot of people (though by no means a majority).Quote:
Originally Posted by back of the net
Fairly tedious friendly, I thought. Not that I really expected anything else. Was impressed with Green; generally played the simple ball, but moved it around well from the middle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelmusic
Im not for a second saying we are at the same level, but we play in a style similar to that adopted by Inter. Its very tight and organised at the back, almost defending our box at times but very hard to break down. Paraguay had plenty of possession against us but most of it was over and back across our defensive line. They often ran out of ideas, resulting in them carelessly losing the ball and we had one or two breaks with Doyle and Duff arising from their errors that we shouldve done more with. Duff particularly shouldve scored on at least one occasion.
I just your point that it can be frustrating to watch but I think if you change your viewpoint and accept that this is the way the lads are being asked to play and for the most part it works well. How many times did paraguay get behind the defensive line, very few.
On the headers, I did notice how JOSH is head and shoulders above everyone else in the team, we're a small team generally.