No one is anywhere near the breaking ball. Its more than just a worry now.
I am not confident for Austria at all.
No one is anywhere near the breaking ball. Its more than just a worry now.
I am not confident for Austria at all.
Think Boyle's header hit the target there right at the end!
Well that was a waste of 5 days. I hate when they don't score. Foot.ie have some serious soul searching to do these next weeks.
Horgan looked good. Badly missing Wes or someone to pick it up between the lines.
Should have used a 7th sub for ranking reasons
Regardless of hoolahan I'm not sure how bar scoring himself. Our front row are not finding scoring positions and not getting headers but we keep hitting crosses in.
The free kick was not that good. We had a wall of small men and the smallest man, hayes, ducked his head. That should never have gone in.
The stadium atmosphere sounded like a swimming pool on a Saturday afternoon.
Westwood didn't have a chance for the goal; Hourihane should have put his head on it instead of ducking out of the way.
Horgan did well when he came on. Boyle looked good on the ball too, bar one bad pass.
Once again though, we didn't seriously trouble their goalkeeper at all. Hennessy wasn't tested either last Friday night. That's worrying.
Shouldn't there have been at least 6 minutes of injury time considering there were 12 substitutions?
What does that mean? Lots of splashing?Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Stating the obvious here, but we're badly in need of a decent striker.
Hourihane ducked his head; not Hayes. Hayes (#20) was standing to the left of the wall.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...psezswfbi8.jpg
The ball went over/between Hourihane (#3) and Hendrick (#13) - neither jumped with the left side of the wall - but I'd blame Hourihane more so for having ducked out of the way when he easily could have put his head to it.
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...psfe034d5b.jpg
Edit: Video of their goal here: https://www.facebook.com/eirSport/vi...2953252426107/
Lots of shouting/screaming kids and echoes.Quote:
Originally Posted by KrisLetang
Hopefully no candy bars floating around.
How many shots on goal total from the two games? Is it only one? That's what peeps are saying in the 42 comments on the player grades. That's ridiculous if so.
McClean had two shots in quick succession late on against Wales; the first was blocked, the ball came back to him and he then volleyed the rebound only for it to take a deflection wide off a Welsh defender, but it was on target. I think those were our only serious efforts on goal on Friday night.
Was Boyle's late header the only effort on goal from us tonight? Not that it really challenged the keeper, mind.
Westwood - 5: Caught flat footed for the goal. Looked ropey throughout
Christie - 6: Few decent moments
Egan - 6: Didn't have a lot to do
Pearce - 6: See Egan
Brady - 7: Obviously the best player on the park
McGeady - 4: Awful and predictably awful.
Hourihane - 6: A few good moments but struggled to impose himself
Hendrick - 6: Didn't look interested
Hayes - 6: Never really noticed him tbh
McClean 7: Gives you the same no matter where he plays. Always a handful but more effective in midfield
Doyle - 5: I'm not sure he's still up to this level anymore
Oh Ok.
It says only 1 tonight in the boxscore.
According to the BBC match reports:
v. Wales
Total shots = 13
On target = 1
v. Iceland
Total shots = 4
On target = 1
Only a simpleton like me would think the answer is to get more shots on goal. And yet....
Hmm, I can't remember 13 at all. It sounds a very high figure given just how poor we seemed to be on the creativity front.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
Here are some extended highlights from the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DCvqfMUFMo
Just rewatching that, Keogh had a tame enough effort (at 2m16s) that bounced wide without threatening Hennessy after he got a foot on the end of a corner. Long also had a volley from just outside the box (at 2m30s), but it was blocked and deflected well wide of the Welsh goal. McClean's two efforts are at 3m20s in the video above. I think I recall McGeady also had a right-footed effort as he came inside from the left wing but it went well over the bar. I really can't think of much else. Are they counting merely getting a head on to the end of a cross (irrespective of where the ball goes) as a shot?
Dire match tonight between two dire sides. Between the Icelandic and Welsh matches we only managed 1 shot on target, that is a brutal record. Horgan, Gleeson, O'Kane and O'Dowda showed that they might have something to offer going forward. Aside from that I don't think any of the new caps did anything of note. Doyle should not play for Ireland again, he had his day and offers nothing anymore. We need to get someone like Scott Hogan on board, no ifs or buts. Another thing is that Jeff Hendrick has been living off of his Euro performances for too long now and IMO should be dropped from here on in. He goes missing in far too many matches. Brady is also wasted at left back and tonight was an opportunity missed to see Cunningham in that position with Brady further forward.
At least Austria weren't impressive tonight either in their draw against Finland with the added bonus that their goalscorer will be suspended for our match in Dublin.
No idea. Thought it seemed really, really high as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
After driving forward through the centre with the ball, O'Dowda had a left-footed effort that seemed to be on target until it deflected wide. Brady also had a shot late on with his left foot that was blocked; it never had a chance of making it near their keeper as there were about four or five Icelandic defenders in Brady's way. I assume Boyle's headed attempt counted as another "shot", although I'm pretty sure it was on target too. Not sure what the fourth "shot" would have been.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
If it's any consolation, the brass band (who were thankfully denied access to the PA system tonight) got booed every time the trumpet started playing, so hopefully the FAI will have taken note and that will be the last of that!
That booing was largely sarcastic. Thought the crowd mostly enjoyed it during a pretty drab game.
As a positive to the game I thought O'Kane was superb when he came on.
It's all that fish they eat.
Haven't read the whole thread yet, are there any guesses on when we last started with only two players in the top division in England?
Even extending it to four players in their respective top divisions would be going back a way
Sometimes simple solutions are the best.Quote:
Originally Posted by KrisLetang
There is an old saying in football, of you don't shoot, you don't score.
highlights (ie icelandic free kick)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-nwAsveQMY
Gretzky says that in his book "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
This time last week even the crustiest relics on here seemed quite full of hope, what an underwhelming two matches.
So it wasn't just me who noticed about Westwood? Thought I was going crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by backstothewall
Although this was just a meaningless contest in the truer sense of the word, the Irish performance was shockingly bad and no excuse for dragging down the Icelanders to defend against that nullifying game in the 2nd half. The blonde kid who scored is on the Bristol City subs bench when they're hard up. This is a makey up team who scraped by Malta 1 nil in a similar friendly conditions after a wc qualifier. I thought the best player on the park was the very impressive Sverrir Ingason, a young center half with Granada.
Though it probably means that the more certifiably deluded of posters here will continue to find excuses for claiming that Iceland are still a small team running their luck (for over 4 years now), playing a simple game against teams who are having an off-day,
and will be found out eventually when they play a real team like Germany/France/Spain :D
I don't think anybody here even remotely suggested anything like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
I think Geysirs hit the Brennivín and whale blubber a bit hard in celebration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Not a very nice thing to say about his girlfriend Stu!
The icelandic defence was pretty solid, mind you ours was too apart from the free kick.
I think we should have had a man on the line for the free kick, we should have done better, it was not a great free kick it was way to easy, one side
of the goal was wide open.
it was over the PA I am afraid. definitely where I was sitting anywayQuote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
Whale blubber, he doesn't drink. I don't know what sort of amnesia he suffers from, which board he thinks he is posting on.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
Iceland are very well organised and very well coached. Kind of says a lot really. They also have been playing and learning to control the ball in tight positions from a young age, technically far sounder than we are.
Look semantics lads, i think some of those shots and mccleans first werent going on target from where i was standing behind the goal for example. We created SFA in 270 minutes if you include Georgia, bar colemans run and some pretty poor defending. It's very worrying, regardless of who plays we still aren't creating anything. Thats the biggest worry, not sure what O'Neill and keane have them doing in training but they need to rectify it before Austria, these 2 games could well be a god-send before the june 12th game.
I'm not disagreeing but it should be noted that Hoolahan played exactly zero of those 270 minutes. It's well established that he's our go to guy when it comes to making us tick in the final third. We really were crying out for him last night when it was obvious that any amount of crosses or long balls wasn't going to work. I think those three games have highlighted how reliant on him we have become, which is a major worry in itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
Some bits from Martin O'Neill's post-match press conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rq2ZdaaQNw
I think it may have been BTTW that had an uncharacteristic hissy fit when some of us had the audacity to opine their preference for Westwood over Randolph at one stage, so I've a feeling, like yourself, there could be some biased motivation at play here.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOneWhoKnocks
I had little interest in seeing Hayes in the squad, let alone the starting XI, but I thought he was clearly one of our better performers. He worked tirelessly and forced his way into the game and even came across a decent amount of possession. It would have been difficult not to notice him I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by backstothewall
Did he even have enough to do to look ropey throughout? He had pretty much no saves to make, no crosses to gather and he got got a lot of distance with his kicking. To really nit pick you could maybe argue that he ran a small risk of taking the extra touch before making his clearances, allowing the forwards to close in on him.Quote:
Originally Posted by backstothewall
As for the goal, if a player ducks then the keeper is not going to see it until it's too late and it was right in the corner. The wall (Hourihane) simply hung him out to dry I think. Even Randolph (who would have saved it apparently) knows exactly how that feels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac_c9k6M62M
I've joined the thread late and haven't had time to read (yet) what everyone has said, but in my opinion, regardless of whether the wall ducked or not I think Westwood should have done better. He wasn't obscured by the wall at all. He clearly saw it early, picked the flight and direction of the ball, reacted by shifting his weight but then just stopped. OK, so maybe experience led him to recognise that by completing the dive he'd have been exposed to a deflection, but I think just assuming a ball hit well at head height won't make it through the wall was a bad assumption. I think he should have completed his dive myself.
I'm not going as far as blaming him but, since micro-scrutiny of everything our keepers do is the norm for this forum, that's my own micro-scrutiny. Wall didn't do it's job, but KW could have done better too.
Otherwise he did fine. Both keepers had so little to do you couldn't make a judgment.
Desperately crying out for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
However I'd be critical of O'Neill for two things:
Brady can't influence play from left-back as well as he can from LM. Ward or Cunningham should have been picked at LB to allow Brady to play LM and to link with Hendrick.
Everyone can see McGeady has been enjoying a more central role at Preston. This is where he should have started in my opinion.
Failing that Brady should have been given license to play further forward.