Republic of Ireland V Latvia - Friday, November 15th 2013 - Friendly

Squad Watch
Forde
Kelly/Coleman Clark O'Shea Ward
Pilkington McCarthy Reid McGeady
Keane Long/Walters

David Forde	Started
Rob Elliot	Substitute	Unused
Keiren Westwood	Substitute	Unused
Stephen Kelly	Started
Ciaran Clark	Started	Clean Sheet
Stephen Ward	Started	Clean Sheet
Seamus Coleman	Started	Clean Sheet
John O’Shea	Started
Marc Wilson	Substitute
Joey O’Brien	Substitute	Unused
Alex Pearce	Substitute	Unused
Sean St Ledger	Not in Squad
James McCarthy	Started
Andy Reid	Started
Anthony Pilkington	Started
Aiden McGeady	Started	Sub(87 min)
Glenn Whelan	Substitute
Stephen Quinn	Substitute	10 min
Wes Hoolahan	Substitute	Unused
Paul Green	Substitute	Unused
James McClean	Not in Squad
Robbie Brady	Not in Squad
Shane Long	Started	Goal Sub(79 min)
Robbie Keane	Started
Jon Walters	Started
Kevin Doyle	Substitute	30 min
Anthony Stokes	Substitute	19 min

Clark & Brady out

Anyone know if Keane was watching the Stoke game today? two Irish players got on the score sheet first Walters and then 'Mr will he? won't he?' Stephen Ireland maybe he's finding a bit of form again.

Ah F*cking hell........just read that Nadia Forde has been lined up to massacre our national anthem again before the Latvia Game......blody infuriatng

Is delaney still trying to get the leg over

God loves a tryer...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SwanVsDalton

Roy Keane made Villa Park his first official scouting duty, checking out Ciaran Clark.

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Is that Wim Jansen sitting next to him?

Hmm... Don Givens alert! :O

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EAFC_rdfl

Is that Wim Jansen sitting next to him?

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Yes, I think it is. The man who took Henrik Larsson to Celtic. Larsson didn't impress me in the 1994 World Cup even though they did really well. I thought that to carry off such a silly haircut you'd need to be seriously good and I thought he was ordinary at best . When he gave the ball away costing Celtic a goal on his debut away to Hibs (I think) I emailed my mate and said "I told you Larsson is rubbish". That's why I'm not a scout and Wim is.

Thats desperate Stutts, Larsson was a standout at WC94 but so too was Brolin ;)

I though Dahlin and Kennet Andersson were the other standouts, Larsson a filler-in. I was amazed at how good he went on to become.

Anyway, Latvia game is on SS4 on Friday. Ive set the telly to record that and also the Sweden v Portugal game.

I'll be able to record some of it if there's a rte highlights version, if not i'll catch the You Tube version.

I trust that Ireland will at least match the stats from our last game with putting together at least 600 passes and 63% possession that King's team managed against Kazakhstan :)
It will be interesting to compare the attitude of the panel, with the pre and post game analysis of the game against Kaz to the game against Latvia.
We just might be able to discern the difference that being called a 'comedy show' makes to Giles' supposedly "objective analysis".

Pilkington a doubt for the game,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geysir

Thats desperate Stutts, Larsson was a standout at WC94 but so too was Brolin ;)

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Tut tut Stutts, Larsson was brilliant in that tournament, in total it was a brilliant Swedish team from def to attack

oh god - its looking like a long term thing

http://www.independent.ie/woman/cele...-29747181.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

Yes, I think it is. The man who took Henrik Larsson to Celtic. Larsson didn't impress me in the 1994 World Cup even though they did really well. I thought that to carry off such a silly haircut you'd need to be seriously good and I thought he was ordinary at best . When he gave the ball away costing Celtic a goal on his debut away to Hibs (I think) I emailed my mate and said "I told you Larsson is rubbish". That's why I'm not a scout and Wim is.

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Also the man who put a halt to the other mob getting 10 in a row, forever grateful :D
Aye Larsson did take time to flourish, in fact I think it took til after the horror leg break before he really took off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I though Dahlin and Kennet Andersson were the other standouts, Larsson a filler-in. I was amazed at how good he went on to become.

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Dahlin is the one that stands out for me too, had a great tournament.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by back of the net

oh god - its looking like a long term thing

http://www.independent.ie/woman/cele...-29747181.html

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I hate having any singer for anthems in any sport. Its a million times better to just have the music and let the crowd sing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Razors left peg

I hate having any singer for anthems in any sport. Its a million times better to just have the music and let the crowd sing

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Agree 100% - the anthem is the supporters and the teams moment.

Having a singer do it just takes away the passion and atmosphere. For me , Ive always viewed the anthem as sort of connection btwn the team and the fans.


Nadia absolutely murdered the anthem against sweden - i got lost trying to keep with her while singing it as did most of the fans ...i think.

What made it worse , it was such a huge game - its games like the sweden game when a passionate anthem is most needed.

Her version got panned on the internet - which leaves me all the more confused as to why john Delaney asked her back for more as surely the FAI were aware of that.

I know this is really out there, even as conspiracy theories go, but bear with me.

My parents still buy the Sunday Independent, so I flick through it when I'm at home. There's a disproportionally large amount of coverage across the various supplements (business/people/sport/whatever) that make up the paper itself dedicated to minor celebrities in Ireland, mostly including Irish models - Rosanna Davison, Georgia Salpa, Nadia Forde, etc - and it's all fairly positive. I'd struggle to recall a negative piece on any one of them, even interviews with people associated with them rarely (if ever) will have a negative mention of them. Obviously this is because, eventually, they will need to interview one of the models, or use them in a photoshoot, and they, or the agency that represents them, would refuse if the paper had ever published a disparaging story on them. Bearing that in mind, could Delaney (or whoever is responsible) asking her to sing again, even after the negative public reaction to her first rendition of the anthem, be a way to curry favour with the paper, or at the very least keep the negative stories to a minimum?