:shock:Quote:
Originally Posted by barryk
:shock:Quote:
Originally Posted by barryk
He was arguably the best of a bad bunch, but it doesn't say much after that game. Whelan was shocking and I think Given's lack of game time is showing in his positioning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paddy Garcia
Russia very good and we were very poor, the bit of a fightback has some merit but it had little to do with cohesive football.
Jebus as usual write sh'ite - Russians didn't make the slightest protest with the penalty award, a clear clip on Keane tripped him up.
Of the 2 at cm, Whelan was much more culpable, hid too far away from Greene and left him to try and deal with everything in the first half. I suspect he had taken a heavy knock to explain the performance or just should not have started.
It will definitely be interesting to see who Trap starts with against Slovakia. After that, he has to make some changes. The midfield was definitely the worst area. Whelan and Green were anonymous and McGeady should have supported Kilbane better.
Christ almighty. He was touched alright but made a huge deal of going down to ensure the referee bought the penalty. Didn't expect much from the guardians of honest football on here to be fair so I'm not surprisedQuote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Three steps forward two steps back. You just don't know what you will get with this team. Unfortunately you do with Trap. Didn't change things radically or soon enough during the game, and actually seemed bereft of ideas. To be fair tonight was more the players fault than his. Despite what's being said by some we have no white knghts waiting in the wings - I think the difference McCarthy et al would make would be marginal. Oh, and if Keane's blatant dive had stolen us victory we'd have to stay silent forever more about cheats and Henry and Paris.
That sucked. Will be interesting to see how they come out in Slovenia.
If they lose we can start talking about who the next coach should be for '14. Not Tardelli. Sigh.
On the penalty - I thought we were a bit fortunate. Keane was definitely clipped, but I don't think the defender even knew Keane was coming in behind him. No real protests from the defender though.
Other than that, it was just an awful performance. The contrast between the speed and fluidity with which the Russians played the ball out of defence and the plodding way we tried to do the same before eventually lumping it long was pretty bleak.
More than anything, I think it showed us that you are going to find it very hard to win games when your tactics involve giving away so much possession so cheaply. Especially when the other team can pass the ball. And especially especially when your midfield destroyers aren't really functioning.
That said, despite this shocker, we're still very much in the thick of things, and a good perfromance in Zilina to bounce back from tonight would make things feel a lot better.
McGeady was enigmatic as always I think. Showed some very very bright flashes but then also showed why I used to refer to him as "the black hole" because the ball came in and never came back out. Sometimes he tries to do too much but then again today it was permissable as no one else was doing anything. He reminds me of Wile E. Coyote on occasion (did someone else make that comparison before on here? I feel someone did) where his feet are moving a mile minute but hes not going anywhere.
Given - 4
O'Shea - 5
Dunne - 6
St. Ledger - 3.5
Kilbane - 5
Lawrence - 5
Green - 3.5
Whelan - 2.5 ("we've lost that Glenny Whelan" :()
McGeady - 6.5
Doyle - 5
Keane - 5.5
Long - 7 (didn't really do too much wrong)
Gibson - 5
Fahey - X (not really enough time)
Both Given and Keane need to get some games under their belts. Rowlands and Andrews hopefully will get some time against Norway. Hopefully Coleman and Walters will get a game as well though neither would have made a huge difference today I don't think as Kilbane wasn't too bad and I don't know what Walters would've added that Doyle didn't. First obviously is Tuesday though.
I don't think we are giving Advocaat and Russia enough credit they were excellent reminded me of how Advocaat had Zenit playing. He knows these players inside out and stamps his style of football all over them.
Dzagoev in midfield times his runs to perfection getting into the box.
From my minimal football knowledge 4-4-2 against 4-5-1 will only work if the two wide mid-fielders tuck in when you do not have the ball. Then it's up to the full backs to put in a shift and track the runs.
We did tuck in but the long ball crap with small midfielders doesn't seem to work against a packed midfield.
IMO it's up to the players on the pitch to get on the ball if they are only playing one up front we should have had loads of time on the ball at the back to try get the Russian mid-field to push up. Full backs have a massive part to play in todays game and even though O'Shea plays for Man Utd I think his distribution is crap he doesnt put in enough crosses or get up the line well enough.
Green is not up to it. Kilbane is past it. St Ledger needs to play at a higher level if he wants to defend against this type of attack. Not the static Italian like one but the fast paced interchanging one.
Why Seamus Coleman ain't starting is beyond me for me he has been the best Irish player in England even if he doesn't start every game.
I still hold to the belief that McGeady is not a proper winger. To get the full use of his abilities, I feel he should be played in a free role. Trapattoni has already alluded to this, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see him deployed here during this campaign.
That sort of statement kind of sums up the talent at our disposal.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaiscíoch
I suggest you watch that incident again. The defender knew Keane was there when he clipped him. He looked over at Keane who had surprised him by darting in front, then after noticing Keane - he clipped him. What the féck is so fortunate about the Ref giving us a penalty. It was a penalty.Quote:
Originally Posted by osarusan
He tried to con the ref twice. I don't think he should be the Captain I hate the constant arm waving. Surely given the defensive set up we should have Richard Dunne as captain....Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
Agreed. Keane is always at it at both international and club level, he's not fit to be captainQuote:
Originally Posted by gaiscíoch
Yes talent we have at out disposal that gets over looked in favour of...... Paul Green????Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
On the penalty... I was watching a fuzzy image on a poor stream but I saw no contact. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt if he was clipped. On the bigger picture it's hard to see where we go from here. We#re still in it, even for top spot. But Trap seems unlilely to make even minor adjustments in mid-campaign. What I find frustrating is he didn't really respond to the situation the way he did in Bari, with a tactical rethink.
On Paul Green, I am in complete agreement with you. He is clearly inadequate at this level.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaiscíoch
One possible positive out of this debacle is that they cannot play as bad against Slovenia.
Have the FAI arranged another friendly?Quote:
Originally Posted by gastric
In which case how the fudge can we expect to beat Russia with players like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
I could swear at one stage Dunne said "the midfield is F##cking S##T" T O'Shea during one of the set pieces.
The sooner Andrews gets back the better he is more of a lose than we know...
If we come out against Slovenia we really will be in trouble.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crosby87
Fly, you are one persceptive bugger! Smart***
Not hard to be regarded as pearsheptive when surrounded by such mediocrity.
Even with our full complement of players we can't expect to beat Russia, so it's a false premise to begin with. A team whose central midfield is chosen from Whelan, Andrews, Gibson, Green, McCarthy, 'Reid', Fahey etc... is always going to be comparatively weak.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaiscíoch
Where you thinking of Sean Connery when you wrote that?Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Andrews would have made ****e all difference. The only player who I can think of that would have done better is McCarthy. At least he would have brought more attacking flair. It's all well and good to say we use holding midfielders but when those two are doing feck all, we're better off having anyone in there. They were crap defensively and diabolical going forward.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
The Russians were very tidy and their passing was very crisp and precise.
That said, when we decided to just lump balls in on top of them in the 2nd half their defence and dodgy, punch-happy keeper were shown up.
Dunno how the Russian lad missed in the last couple of minutes from straight in front of goal.
A 3 goal win would not have flattered them.
Russia were good but like a lot of the former USSR teams, they panicked under pressure. Their defence was actually quite dodgy but we did not have the tactics nor the knowhow to test it for long periods.
I was always worried about playing Russia and them having a good day, that's what happend tonight, if Dzagoev was Spanish the media would be having a field day about him. He seems impossible to mark and was popping up everywhere.
That said i was shocked at how pedestrian we were tonight, the Russians closed us down the whole time, they were full of running and punished us whenever we gave the ball away. We did the complete opposite, gave them so much time on the ball, and you cant afford to do that against such attacking talent. I was sorry we didn't test Akinfeev more as (as I had suspected) he looked inept at dealing with long shots and has a real reluctance to catch the ball. Conceeding the first goal so early meant they could hit us on the break which they are exceptional at doing.
It's probably the sternest test we've had since perhaps Germany back in 2006-7 (I think this Russia team is a level above France, the friendlies vs Brazil and Argentina, and possibly Italy). I wonder how much preparation the coaching staff made for this game. Did noone flag Dzagoev as a danger, why did noone put pressure on Zyrianov ? Why did we play so many central (long) balls when Keane and Doyle were never going to have the build to out-jump Berezuitski and Ignashevic more than 30% of the time.
That said all is not lost, Russia may well slip up against Armenia or in Slovakia... if we get them on an off day we might scrape a point in Moscow - they are a very emotional side, some days hopeless other days world beaters, and pace and shooting from distance might let us sneak a goal in Moscow.
If we dont take anything from Zilina on Tuesday we'll be in a pretty bad way, but a win there and we'll be back in contention. Even a draw would keep us in the mix.
To be fair Dunne is no saint (and I am knocking him for it either), he is not beyond pulling the odd shirt, it's all part of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by jebus
slovakia's results earlier means this isn't a disaster. A win on tuesday will still have us in a great position.
True but there badly needs to be changes to the team.Quote:
Originally Posted by boovidge
We've lost to Russia, a nation much bigger than ours and a with a better football team player for player. Let's not get carried away. people on here are actually calling for Robbie being stripped of the captaincy ffs, what would that really achieve? Who could we really replace other than duff for mcgeady and andrews for Green? Putting in McCarthy (even though i think he should be in the squad) isn't going to make us world beaters. Let's see what happens against Slovakia and assess from there.
While we might wish for changes, I would love to see McCarthy play, the reality is Trap is stubborn and will make little or no change. The Slovakians will be peeved at their performance tonight, but I suspect our performance will be good enough to at least get us a draw.
Will it be the same starting lineup barring injury?
He seemed to indicate in the post match interview there would be changes. I just dont want to see Green and Slovakia should be Kilbane's last game. Time to get a new option in the Norway friendly.
This was a good post in retrospect.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommy_c12000
exactly... get back in your box...he's been goodQuote:
Originally Posted by bullit
dundalk fan huh
It has to be said that the doomsayers have been vindicated to a large extent tonight. I was willing to defer to Trap's greater wisdom on Paul Green, but he just looked out of his depth tonight (although he was put in the unfortunate position of having to do Whelan's job as well - I really hope he was carrying an injury and wasn't just as lost as he looked).
I don't think it's entirely down to Trap's tactics - the players simply didn't do jobs they've shown themselves capable of - but it does raise a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the system when are playing against superior sides. It would be one thing if we were playing 11 men behind the ball, Switzerland-style football, but despite generally playing without the ball we do seem to be set up to score goals.
I don't subscribe to the view that it's impossible to play 4-4-2 against 4-5-1, but for a side that already struggles to impose itself in midfield, it does seem like we need an extra body in there, whether it's by shunting Doyle out to the wing or having Keane play deeper permanently. Personally, I wouldn't mind trying Gibson in an advanced role ahead of Andrews/Green and Whelan.
I think our players' lack of game time was really telling, probably moreso than in previous years. Dunne looked lethargic and Whelan was almost non-existant, although after a rock opening few minutes, Robbie looked really sharp (which begs the question why he's been so poor for Spurs). I am conflicted over Whelan: after tonight, I think it might be a good thing that he could miss Tuesday, but I'm fearful of a midfield in which Green is the most experienced player.