just about recovered from my Dublin trip and thought I'd check on foot.ie to see what the regulars thought of the game and I'm surprised at the amount of criticism. 3 points is 3 points and we're sitting pretty right now. A lot of moaners around me in the lower Cusack stand about Whelan and Gibson but what do you expect from two international novices? Gibson was the better player of the two on the night and yes Whelan doesn't pass forward but they got their tackles in and shielded the back 4. The days of us having somebody like Roy Keane bossing the midfield are long gone. The Trap likes his system of having 6 'defensive' players and there is nothing the media, fans and pundits can say to change his mind. He's had a system that has worked wherever he has gone and he's not going to change now. I feel a bit sorry for Reidy but it looks like his international career is on hold.
The one thing that does annoy me about our brilliant manager is his reluctance to use the bench. It's as if he's worried that if he makes one modification to the personnel the whole thing will fall apart. Fresh legs could have stemmed the tide in the 2nd half - using Andy Reid might have meant we kept hold of the ball a bit more, Hunt could have ran round like a rabid dog and forced Cyprus into errors etc etc. Oh well 4 points clear of Bulgaria after 3 games is not too bad of a start. The loss of S Reid is a huge blow but hopefully the Poland game will identify a new midfield star (Andrews?) or it could be used to develop the Gibson/Whelan partnership.
