Pick the first team for the World Cup qualifiers

Goalkeeper; Given (poor Euros but still our best keeper by far)
RB; Stephen Kelly (Coleman in reserve)
CBs; Dunne and O'Shea. (Clark and Duffy as reserves)
LB; Cunningham (Wilson in reserve)
2 DMs; Gibson, Andrews, McCarthy, Whelan (take your pick which two)
AM; Hoolahan (Fahey in reserve)
RM; McGeady (Coleman in reserve)
LM; Duff (McClean in reserve)
CF; Long (Doyle and Walters in reserve)

No place for the doc (donkey), Green (useless) or Ward (Bohs reject) in my squad. Bobby Keane may do with a place on the bench. I'd also have the U21s playing the same tactics and formation as the seniors.

GK: Given
RB: Coleman/Kelly
LB: Wilson/Clark
CB: Dunne and O'Shea
CM: Whelan, McCarthy, Gibson
RM: McGeady
LM: Duff/McLean
CF: Keane/Long/Doyle

Wouldn't be against having Fahey in the middle of the park either.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ifk101

Goalkeeper; Given (poor Euros but still our best keeper by far)
RB; Stephen Kelly (Coleman in reserve)
CBs; Dunne and O'Shea. (Clark and Duffy as reserves)
LB; Cunningham (Wilson in reserve)
2 DMs; Gibson, Andrews, McCarthy, Whelan (take your pick which two)
AM; Hoolahan (Fahey in reserve)
RM; McGeady (Coleman in reserve)
LM; Duff (McClean in reserve)
CF; Long (Doyle and Walters in reserve)

No place for the doc (donkey), Green (useless) or Ward (Bohs reject) in my squad. Bobby Keane may do with a place on the bench. I'd also have the U21s playing the same tactics and formation as the seniors.

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Bohs reject?

-----------Given
--------Dunne O'Shea------
Kelly-------------------Hunt
------Andrews--Gibson-------
-----Ireland-------Duff------
-----------Keane--------
--------Long----------

Bench: Westwood, Coleman, St Ledger, McCarthy, McGeady, Walters, Brady

No more wingers, we get our width from fullbacks now. Duff playing centrally, Keane in a withdrawn role and JOS pushed back into the centre.

Time should be called on the careers of Ward, Green, Cox, McShane, Foley and Fahey. Doyle dropped until he recovers club form.

-------------Westwood--------
Kelly----Dunne----Sledge----Clark
----------McCarthy--Gibson----
Coleman----Hoolahan-----McClean
------------------Doyle-----------

Alternatives:
Wilson for either full back
O'Shea for Sledge
Long for Doyle - I assume above Doyle is back to his spritely self
Long for Hoolahan, but more advanced.
Andrews still has a near term role - better bench option than Green!

I wholly agree that Duff is always our most reliable go-to man or out ball but McCarthy, Gibson and Hoolahan are all happy to take a pass. Our main width comes from Coleman and McClean but they're both able to put a tackle in and can allow their full back get ahead of them if necessary.

I've gone back in favour of Doyle again, though I could easily be persuaded that there must be a role for Long in the team.

I can see Dunne being crucial for the first 3 or 4 games before being phased out, but Duffy, Pearce, Clark could all emerge and Sledge and JOSH are fine anyway.

My thoughts on he players that might retire


Given.

A bad tournament. Westwood is a good goalkeeper but we could do with him getting first team football at as high as level as possible.


John O'Shea.

We really cannot afford a player of Johns ability to retire especially as he is a defender and our options are not gret in this position. Should John be moved to centreback where he is playing his club football.

Richard Dunne.

We just cannot afford to lose a centre back of Richards ability as we do not have any alternative that comes any where near his standard.


Damian Duff.

Damians loss of pace became more noticable at the euros. Would Damian be willing to be in squads if he was not a guaranteed starter ?

Robbie Keane.

For the first time in our history we have 4 quality forwards. I believe that any two from Doyle/Long/Walters could produce results as good as Robbie has produced at the euros. Would Robbie be willing to be a squad member if not guaranteed a starting place.

Not that I want them to retire but of the 5 possibles then I believe that we would be extremely badly hit if Dunne and O'Shea call it a day. We just don't have replacements of the necessary quality.

It would be some ask to hope that McClean could replace Duffer but at least there is a possibility.There is at least the possibility of replacing Robbie and Shay as I have outlined above.


Re our midfield;

There is no way that Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews are capable of doing the job Trap requires from our midfielders To be honest they would have to be TWO ROY KEANES or else we have to find two Irish Christiano Ronaldos to play on the wings. Trap expected two midfielders to do more than was possible considering the quality of the two wide men in his 442.


His system was brutally shown up against the better quality teams (3 times at the euros and also in the Russian match.

Re;Trappatoni.

I think the old dog is too old to learn new tricks. Also proclaiming that your players are not very good and can only play " his system " does'nt feel like a great motivational modus operandus.

Trappatoni did a good job (boring and unispiring football though) in the qualification grops for the euros/world cup but he has had two bad tournaments with Italy and one with Ireland.


The ideal scenario would be to get Trap to get us qualified and then ...........

To be honest though I think that the Trap magic will have worn off and I fear an uninspiring and unsucessful world cup qualifying campaign.

Trappatonis first big test will be if;

He wipes the slate clean with players that for whatever reason have not been part of the Irish setup.

His attitude up to this point suugests that he will go on in the same old way. Hopefully he will not continue with his "The Irish players are not very good and must play in this very limited manner"

I hope the Old Boy is not just intent on proving this theory.

Managers that do not have a belief and confidence in their players rarely get the best out of them !

The new era we are entering and its attendant formations, selections. Some great posts here lads, and a bright spot in an otherwise fairly ropey couple of weeks.

While not wishing to deflect from the need for the Irish game to get its house in order, it also got me to wondering if there will be any 2G or 3G recruits we aren't aware of yet primed to come in? Beyond the usual suspects which have been discussed on here previously. Do I remember mention of Trap meeting with a center forward potential recruit before the tournament who's identity was speculated on but not really established?

Is Naughton at RB better than Foley/Kelly/O'Shea.
Is Tierney worth a run out at LB in a friendly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

Is Naughton at RB better than Foley/Kelly/O'Shea..

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Has Naughton even declared for us??

Management has to be changed before a new team/formation discussion is worthwhile

I still think we have a decent pool of players to choose from and from what I have read here and other places the vast majority of people agree that we need to develop a system to get the best out of them.
I'd be a big fan of the 4-1-2-1-1-1 system but it's difficult for me to say who would be best to play in each position beacuse we don't know the staus with retirements yet.
However plays we will never be defensively sound enough to play any less than 4 at the back and we need once defensive midfielder to help them out.
The 2 would be two wingers of which we have more then enough of :)
Then 1 attacking midfielder that does his bit in MF but doesn't have to play so deep lke both CMF players in traps system. Then a withdrawn striker and more advanced forward.

Something like

------------Given----------
Kelly--O'Shea-Dunne--Wilson(Cunningham)
----------McCarthy---------
McClean----------------McGeady
------------Gibson(Andrews)------------
------------Keane(Walters)--------------
-----------------Long(Cox)----------------

This would be a very flexible system than could quickly become 4-5-1, 4-3-3, or the dreded 4-4-2 :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JGKyne

Has Naughton even declared for us??

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No. Again I think I read or heard he was now receptive to a call up though. I could be wrong. Would we want him, he clearly held out a little, so possibly not. Is he eligible and better than what we have in that spot, possibly.

I am really not looking to open a can of worms on it, it has been discussed to death on here several times over, however, in a New Team & Formations thread there's room for it I think. There is also a big heave publicly for a bit of change and a seeming acceptance of this from Trap also, I am expecting a few recruits and wondered if there would be any surprise under the radar ones.

A nice breakdown of our older players there Sean. I don't see O'Shea, Dunne or Keane retiring but it seems very likely Given and Duff will call it a day (although I think Given could easily keep going as he's still top quality in my eyes).

It will be interesting to see if Trappatoni really does experiment with the formation for the next series of games, but I've always felt that 4-4-2 is a system enforced by the players on Trappatoni (through lack of quality), rather than Trap forcing it on the players. To decide on a new formation, you need to play to the strengths of the players you have. Defence is the real problem — our centre backs are decent but they have no pace at all so are forced to defend quite deep and we have a real shortage of any quality in the full back positions. We'll play with a flat back four no matter what happens further up the pitch. It looks like we have some real quality coming through for central midfield and wide positions and we have pace and physicality up front, but a shortage of goals. Based on that, and apart from 4-4-2, we only really have two options: 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1.

4-2-3-1
I've thrown Clark in at left back even though that's probably not going to be his long term position, mostly because I don't rate Ward and we don't have many other players coming through. Marc Wilson could be an option here too. Two defensive mids, straight forward enough. Maybe David Meyler in there instead of Andrews in the long term.

In attack, I think Long or Cox could occupy one of the wide positions despite them not being a winger. I'm not sure McClean is ready, next season will be a good test to see where he's at. Keane can't play the lone striker, and we have the kind of players that can throw themselves around in Doyle and Walters. My preference would be for Walters currently, but either play could fill that role. I think McGeady is quality and improving all the time and Keane is in the hole, although that's also a position I think Gibson could play. I would definitely have Keane in the team somewhere as he's our best player for me.

Code:

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        Given / Westwood


Kelly    O'Shea    Dunne    Clark


      McCarthy    Andrews


McGeady        Keane    McClean / Long


        Doyle / Walters

---

4-4-1-1
Dropped Coleman into the back four — I think you need an outlet from defence when you play this formation, otherwise you end up defending deep and reverting to long balls. I think you need out and out wingers for this formation too, so McClean would get the nod for me. Dropped Gibson into the midfield to combine a defensive mid with a more attacking mid, and kept Keane in the hole with Walters / Doyle up front. Overall, this formation feels similar to what we play right now and we have attempted it at times with very little success, so I'm not sure it's much a change going this way.

Code:

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        Given / Westwood


Coleman  O'Shea    Dunne    Clark


McGeady  Gibson  Andrews  McClean


              Keane


          Doyle / Walters

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Ah, the aul "Keane has to go" stuff rears its head again. It's been what - a week? The lad dragged us through qualification kicking and screaming (along with Richie Dunne) and now he has to go?

Honest to God like.

One problem we faced is I think is we were predictable due largely to our limitations and the system we played (again due to our limitations).
We did seem to play better when we "had a go" but when we dropped back we were pretty woeful, but I guess the players would say they were forced back. :indecisiveness:
We play narrow when defending (again maybe forced) and when we do win the ball there is no outlet.
We seem to lack confidence, again perhaps understandably so I think we try and get to many men behind the
ball leaving no way out. I think we could defend just as well with less men behind the ball (remember the ball passed through three
defenders?). More is not always better.
Were I manager :D I would have just gone one on one marking, OK we may have got hammered, but we got hammered anyway.
There is also the outside chance we might have brought home the cup.:coffee:

-------------------------Westwood---------------
---------------Kelly-----Dunne----St Ledger-------Clark---------
McGeady------Andrews----Hoolahan-------McCarthy------McClean
---------------------------Long-------------------

I'd like to see something like this. It's similar to Stuttgart's team above, but I don't see the need to jettison Dunne. I think that with our midfield having more of the ball, we'd see our back 4 look a lot better. Dunne to start the campaign at least, although he may not finish it as first choice.

Also, I've kept McGeady in there. He is capable of delivering a good ball into the box (as well as a bad one). I think it's harsh to look only at these Euros - him and Duff we double marked all the time as there was obviously no danger from the centre midfielders for our opposition to worry about. If the wingers get more space, they'll deliver crosses.

Hoolahan in the middle as the player through which possession is maintained, with protecting midfielders on either side of him. Steven Ireland in the role if he comes back.

It was a toss up for Doyle or Long up front - I'd favour Long for his pace when trying to get in behind a defence. With 5 in the midfield, I'd hope we wouldn't just be lumping the ball long to Doyle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serb

Code:

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        Given / Westwood


Coleman  O'Shea    Dunne    Clark


McGeady  Gibson  Andrews  McClean


              Keane


          Doyle / Walters

---

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Not a bad team there and worth a go. Could Walters play Keanes position with Long up front if Robbie retires or would he be willing to be in Irish squads if not guaranteed first team football.


The Wilson/Clark option is also a good one.


Is Trap (Or Moyes) willing to trust Coleman defensively especially with McGeady on that side as well. Could McClean play on the right as he has better defensive qualities than Aiden. Anyway an interesting selection. Lets hope Trap opens his mind to some new possibilities ! ! ! ! !

Clark is not a good left back at any level. He does a job in midfield but anybody looking at him for more than about 5 minutes should be able to figure he is a centre half through and through. Cunningham doesn't have his physical presence but it is at least his natural position.

Yes, in a way it was wishful thinking on my part about Clark. He never fully impressed me at LB but the sample size was quite small to make a definitive judgment.

I think Clark was trying too hard to impress in that friendly game and managed to make the opposite impression. I think/hope Coleman's future is at Right Back, if that were to pass then it would allow for a deal more flexibility in our team.

An overlapping full back with pace...what a dream.

Langan, Carr, Kelly, Finnan, Hughton, Phelan, Irwin, Staunton, Harte (look he did have his good bits). God we were spoilt in the past.

Today: Josh (I'm convinced he's a CB) and Ward.

Would (the maligned in my opinion) Chris Morris get in today's team? Probably not ahead of Kelly I suppose. I like Kelly but Coleman would excite me.