Republic of Ireland V Poland - Sunday, 29th March 2015 - Euro 2016 Qualifier

It's not often someone would say this on here, but I almost entirely agree with TOWK on that one. Paul Green is flying in the Championship this year and is every bit deserving of a place as anyone else.

There's a handful of players in that squad with less than 10 competitive appearances in all competitions with their clubs since August.

There's no need for 5 goalkeepers. Provisional squad or not.

A handful of injured players in the squad is nonsense.

I don't agree that League One players should be called up. If you're going down that route, then call up Keith Fahey, Colin Healy, Chris Forrester and a few League of Ireland players.

Damien Delaney missing out is a bit of a strange one alright, but in fairness, he'll be 34 in a couple of months.

Positive to see Harry Arter involved though after a good season with Bournemouth.

It seems MON has just decided he's going to name a GAA style panel for every qualifier - I don't agree, I think it's a barmy on paper. But maybe he's decided to avoid any Trap style confusion by telling a huge amount of players that they're in the mix.

I still don't agree.

As for injuries, that'll thin things out. And lack of playing time or not, it's hardly surprising Ward and Quinn are in there given they've been a big part of qualifying so far.

The selection isn't too exciting but I think it's a bit far fetched to expect a raft of inclusions for reasons such as getting a move to a Championship club, and then discounting guys that have been solid performers at that level for years. In an emergency, MON probably wants to fall back on guys who have the experience to come in at the drop of a hat, and not have to place some random punt on kids (or others) that have showed a bit of promise in the lower leagues. He's already incorporated Christie and McGoldrick into his plans and now he's shown that Harry Arter is on the radar. I don't have a major problem with him waiting for the others to prove something substantial at club level before earning their call up. That's not to say one or two more shoudn't have been called up. The Delaney thing is a pointless discussion at this stage, everybody knows he should be in and, it seems, only Martin knows why he's not.

"Jack Grealish was an unsurprising absentee from the sheet given the uncertainty that surrounds his future and Tim Sherwood's suggestion that the player might be leaning towards England.

When it was put to O'Neill that it looked as though there have been no fresh developments, he replied: "It would be pretty safe to say that.""

When did Sherwood say this?

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

When did Sherwood say this?

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A few days ago, but we aren't allowed to talk about it ;)

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

It's not often someone would say this on here, but I almost entirely agree with TOWK on that one. Paul Green is flying in the Championship this year and is every bit deserving of a place as anyone else.

There's a handful of players in that squad with less than 10 competitive appearances in all competitions with their clubs since August.

There's no need for 5 goalkeepers. Provisional squad or not.

A handful of injured players in the squad is nonsense.

I don't agree that League One players should be called up. If you're going down that route, then call up Keith Fahey, Colin Healy, Chris Forrester and a few League of Ireland players.

Damien Delaney missing out is a bit of a strange one alright, but in fairness, he'll be 34 in a couple of months.

Positive to see Harry Arter involved though after a good season with Bournemouth.

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Some good points made, are we progressing under MON?

Sadly I don't see it myself!

Good to see Arter involved. Nothing too surprising otherwise.

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Originally Posted by paul_oshea

When it was put to O'Neill that it looked as though there have been no fresh developments, he replied: "It would be pretty safe to say that."

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Not wishing to open a debate - simply seeking clarification - but did O'Neill say that as in it would be pretty safe to say there have been no fresh developments (i.e. Sherwood was getting ahead of himself) or as in it would be pretty safe to say that Sherwood suggested correctly? Surely the journalist was being a bit mischievous there in name-checking said player considering there's no certainty he'd be in our squad otherwise.

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Originally Posted by the doc

Some good points made, are we progressing under MON?

Sadly I don't see it myself!

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There'll be no progress until St. Ledger is selected, no doubt.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

full squad announced: http://www.fai.ie/ireland/news/o%E2%...or-poland-game
apparently nobody at the FAI has figured out HTML tables either

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Has Forde really only got 12 caps?

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Originally Posted by Fixer82

Has Forde really only got 12 caps?

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Yes, it is true.

Scratch that. Just looked through, stats are way off. Says Alex Pearce has no goals when I distinctly remember him scoring V Oman in Craven Cottage. To say i am shocked and horrified is an understatement!!! :think:

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Originally Posted by TheOneWhoKnocks

Yes, it is true.

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According to Wikipedia he has 23 caps

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Originally Posted by Fixer82

According to Wikipedia he has 23 caps

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That's the last time i trust the FAI website.

Was thinking 12 was suspiciously low.

Just watching Everton game. McCarthy didn't look too sharp for Kiev's goal.
Am I the only one that thinks, while a good player, Macca is a wee bit overrated?

Yeah, he was asleep for that one.

Lovely, reactive finish by Gusev though.

I haven't really seen the goal properly but was it definitely his fault? It kind of looked to me like McCarthy was covering the near post but moved towards Gusev when he saw he was free and approaching the ball, obviously it was too late at that stage as Gusev got their first and finished brilliantly. Was he McCarthy's man to begin with? Like I say, I'd need to see it again.

He was Barry's(?) man. McCarthy's duty was to cover the front post.

Yeah looks like he was Barry's man. Maybe McCarthy should have stayed on the post but definitely couldn't accuse him of being asleep... too awake if anything!

Poland squad for Ireland match:

KEEPERS: Boruc (Bournemouth), Fabianski (Swansea), Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal)

DEFENDERS: Cionek (Modena), Glik (Torino), Janicki, Wojtkowiak, Wawrzyniak (L Gdansk), Komorowski (Terek Grozny), Olkowski (Cologne), Szukala (Al-Ittihad).

MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS: Gajos (Jagiellonia Bialystok), Jodlowiec, Zyro (Legia Warsaw), Krychowiak (Sevilla), Lewandowski (Bayern Munich), Linetty (Lech Poznan), Mila (L Gdansk), Milik (Ajax), Peszko (Cologne), Rybus (Terek Grozny), Teodorczyk (D Kiev).


From the Polish team that played Scotland, 2 of their starting 4 defenders will be absent ie. Pisczcek (injured), Jedrzejczyk (injured) ie. their right & left backs. Grosicki of Rennes who started in midfield v Scotland is out with injury. Also some Polish website says Milik isn't match fit as he is just back from a hamstring injury & Rybus isn't match fit with the Russian league only returning from the Winter break last week. Fabianski is tipped to start in goals due to Szczesny's lack of game time. Everything is in our favour. We won't get a better opportunity.

http://eurosport.onet.pl/pilka-nozna...wskiego/j8d63g

Kuba Blaszczykowski out of Ireland game.

I found this interesting.

"- Every coach has the right to his vision, and I hope that the result will defend Nawałka. In my opinion for this decision does not stand still, health and sports. It has long been said that Lewandowski from Błaszczykowskim do not like each other, and it seems to me that the coach wanted to avoid corruption of the atmosphere in the locker room and the destruction of a hierarchy in the team. But Robert took over the band just after Cuba, and the latter certainly was not happy with the fact that it was deprived of the master function - assessed".

A training game against as yet unknown opponents is likely to be arranged for midweek.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/socc...s-make-5325779

O'Neill has a few curious things to say about other subjects too..

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Originally Posted by TheOneWhoKnocks

A training game against as yet unknown opponents is likely to be arranged for midweek.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/socc...s-make-5325779

O'Neill has a few curious things to say about other subjects too..

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Think MON is clutching at straws here, Mr Trapattoni got a lot out of the current players who played under him.

Yet MON hasn't produced such results, is he a spent force?

Think we should let the Sunderland fans answer that one.

If we don't beat Poland or Scotland at home then we don't deserve to play in Euro 2016. It's as simple as that. We can moan about having such a difficult group (God knows I have) but at the end of the day if Slovakia are the only team of any caliber that you have managed to beat in a competitive situation over the course of 15 years then you are just taking up oxygen at a tournament.

Watching this team the last while, I just don't get the impression we have a team that believes they can win against good teams. Part of that is down to Trapattoni's tactics and put downs of the ability of his own players draining confidence. In fairness, before him, we lost points we should have taken under Kerr because of his negativity and stupid substitutions.

Ironically, some of the more stellar performances and results over the years have come under Staunton (Germany (Q), Slovakia (Q), Czech Republic (Q), Wales (Q), Sweden, Denmark).

I think people exaggerate how good Trapattoni was and how bad Staunton was. People go on about Cyprus but Kazakhstan was every bit as bad as that and Trapattoni wasn't working with a patchwork of players. He was working with a settled group of players.

Also, Trapattoni had the element of luck that Staunton didn't have numerous times against Czechs and Slovakia; and there was no shame in the goal we conceded to Germany.

Going on a tangent here but I think Staunton is worthy of a bit of revision.

Jonathan Douglas only said in The Sunday Times last week that he should have been given another campaign. I'm not saying I agree with it BTW.

"waiting" for what? Godot?

“But if someone is hanging around waiting, I’m not overly enamoured with that sort of thing and therefore I’m not chasing it.”

Ah, Staunton was a disaster, and whatever about how good or bad Trapattoni was, he managed a change in attitude that meant we were no longer almost guaranteed to drop points against inferior teams, and generally it was enough to get us there and thereabouts. O'Neill so far has been unimpressive for me and I can't imagine his legendary inspirational qualities will be quite so effective as long as he continues to talk down his player pool.

I agree re the Staunton comment but for a defender to set us up the way he did was terrible.

He played some of the best attacking football we have played in 20 years but we were diabolically exposed like Elton John's back end in defence and on the counter. Unfortunately it doesn't seem we can play both games or weren't able to at least.

It will be interesting to see if one ill can be one of those managers who turns half decent players into a very solid performing and efficient unit so far bar USA and Germany I haven't seen that. Germany could have been seen to be a lost cause so defending all out and getting a point wasn't expected but understandable USA was a friendly
the Scotland game was the biggest test to date and the type of one we should win except we didn't and were very poor.

Some other countries have found those managers not sure we have.

I agree with both of the last two posts except I think its a stretch to say Scotlsnd away was a should win game. I'd say it was more of a could win game. Let's see.

The early signs for me are that O'Neill's thinking is out of date, unlike Strachan for example, but I have to agree with Roy Keane when he says in a tight game like Glasgow the home side tends to come out on top and O'Neill when he says the 4 home games are the critical ones. These home games are the first proper test and it's still too early in his tenure to rule out his ability to win this type of game regularly. I wouldn't bet on it but it's certainly within the realms of possibility.

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I agree with both of the last two posts except I think its a stretch to say Scotlsnd away was a should win game. I'd say it was more of a could win game. Let's see.

The early signs for me are that O'Neill's thinking is out of date, unlike Strachan for example, but I have to agree with Roy Keane when he says in a tight game like Glasgow the home side tends to come out on top and O'Neill when he says the 4 home games are the critical ones. These home games are the first proper test and it's still too early in his tenure to rule out his ability to win this type of game regularly. I wouldn't bet on it but it's certainly within the realms of possibility.

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i would go along with this. much too early to judge o'neill/keane. initial signs have not been too promising but a win in the next game changes everything. i hope we play with a bit of purpose and intent and actually try to win the game, rather than avoid losing it.

I suppose whether the Scotland game was 'should win' or 'could win' isn't really important. The important thing is that he set us up in a way which gave us the least possible chance of winning. An unlucky 1-0 defeat after approaching the game the right way would have been acceptable, a deserved 1-0 defeat having offered no threat and making Charlie Mulgrew look like Andrea Pirlo wasn't. Anyway, hopefully he approaches the home games in a better fashion, some comments indicate he might.

Poland are saying Blaszczykowski is out due to injury, still not ready to come back, but rumor is Lewandowski is asking he be kept out due to the fact he hates him. This could affect the dressing room as you fine chaps well know.

Echo.

Whilst discussing pre-Poland training match plans, Martin O'Neill said the onus is on us to go out and attack and seemed to suggest that he's prepared to take a different tactical approach from previous games: http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-31062894.html

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Originally Posted by Martin O'Neill

"We might bring a junior side in. The onus is on us to try and attack Poland in this game.

"We can't sit out and hope for the best and if our best options are to look at tactically something a wee bit different, it's not something we want to throw at players half an hour before we go into game.

"We'd like to have done some sort of practice with it. We could either play amongst ourselves, 11 v 11, that might be it, or else we might get somebody in to play against - even some sort of junior team."

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On injured players, he said:

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Originally Posted by Martin O'Neill

"I spoke to Aiden McGeady six or seven days ago. He felt he was pretty good, that it was just a matter of time. He had been running. He's pretty hopeful.

"Robbie Brady desperately, desperately wants to play. It is a calf injury, I don't know about time but he said, 'Don't rule me out please' and 'give me every opportunity' which I fully intend to do.

"Stephen Ward should be okay. Shane Long is back again now."

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Adopting a different tactical approach!

Why didn't Trap think of that??? :confused:

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Originally Posted by TrapAPony

Poland squad for Ireland match:

KEEPERS: Boruc (Bournemouth), Fabianski (Swansea), Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal)

DEFENDERS: Cionek (Modena), Glik (Torino), Janicki, Wojtkowiak, Wawrzyniak (L Gdansk), Komorowski (Terek Grozny), Olkowski (Cologne), Szukala (Al-Ittihad).

MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS: Gajos (Jagiellonia Bialystok), Jodlowiec, Zyro (Legia Warsaw), Krychowiak (Sevilla), Lewandowski (Bayern Munich), Linetty (Lech Poznan), Mila (L Gdansk), Milik (Ajax), Peszko (Cologne), Rybus (Terek Grozny), Teodorczyk (D Kiev).


From the Polish team that played Scotland, 2 of their starting 4 defenders will be absent ie. Pisczcek (injured), Jedrzejczyk (injured) ie. their right & left backs. Grosicki of Rennes who started in midfield v Scotland is out with injury. Also some Polish website says Milik isn't match fit as he is just back from a hamstring injury & Rybus isn't match fit with the Russian league only returning from the Winter break last week. Fabianski is tipped to start in goals due to Szczesny's lack of game time. Everything is in our favour. We won't get a better opportunity.

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Good post mate.
Poland are without quite a few of their regulars. In addition to the two full backs and Grosicki - Right midfielder who are all injured, they are also missing Maczynski - Defensive midfielder who has played 3 games.

I reckon this will be the Poland team and 4-2-3-1 formation;


Fabianski
(Swansea)

Olkowski Szukala Glik Wawrzyniak
(Cologne) (Al-Ittihad) (Torino) (Legia Gdansk)

Krychowiak Jodlowiec
(Sevilla) (Legia Warsaw)

Rybus Milik Mila
(Terek Grozny) (Ajax) (Legia Gdansk)

Lewandowski
(Bayern Munich)

Do you think somewhere in rural Poland someone on a fan forum is writing that of our usual back four Ward hasn't played for a few months?

The Poles in urban Ireland are probably filling them in.

(C+P) Krychowiak in the middle of the park was linked with Arsenal during the January transfer window and garnered excellent reviews up till then for Seville. Not sure about his form since.

What's the verdict on Lewandowski at Bayern? 13 in 23 in the league isn't a bad return but his supply line is pretty immense and I heard stories linking him with summer moves. Probably overstatements arising from a couple of mediocre performances. A very, very potent striker that could create/score from nowhere (v Real Madrid in CL that time- sensational). Although, we didn't cope too badly with him in that friendly last year.

Their 3 strikers all have strong international records and Fabianski has actually been very good for Swansea this season but it's not exactly stellar names in defence and midfield. Although, I said that about the Scotland side we faced but that performance is pretty indicative of an Irish side going away from home and failing to get a foothold in the game. We have home advantage this time which will, hopefully, raise our control and influence in the game early on.

Neither Poland or Scotland are particularly good - much like ourselves unfortunately. With the Poles, they do have some really top players, while Scotland are well drilled.

I wouldn't be happy with less than 4 points. I'm hopeful because we're bound to win a big game eventually!!

I gather from this that Delaney has chosen to exclude himself from international duty, therefore he has not been in previous squads, therefore clearing up the mystery.

'Damien Delaney has not even made the extended list and while the manager says he and the Crystal Palace defender have had “a good conversation” after which the Corkman said he would make himself available if required, it seems that, at 33, the player prefers to concentrate on extending his club career as long as he does not feature more prominently in O’Neill’s plans. So his international career might well, in effect, be over.'

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

(C+P) Krychowiak in the middle of the park was linked with Arsenal during the January transfer window and garnered excellent reviews up till then for Seville. Not sure about his form since.

What's the verdict on Lewandowski at Bayern? 13 in 23 in the league isn't a bad return but his supply line is pretty immense and I heard stories linking him with summer moves. Probably overstatements arising from a couple of mediocre performances. A very, very potent striker that could create/score from nowhere (v Real Madrid in CL that time- sensational). Although, we didn't cope too badly with him in that friendly last year.

Their 3 strikers all have strong international records and Fabianski has actually been very good for Swansea this season but it's not exactly stellar names in defence and midfield. Although, I said that about the Scotland side we faced but that performance is pretty indicative of an Irish side going away from home and failing to get a foothold in the game. We have home advantage this time which will, hopefully, raise our control and influence in the game early on.

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There's a few polish playing tonight in the europa; Krychowiak for Sevilla, Glik for torino and Milik for ajax. cynically hoping for injuries here.
Everton could field 4 irish lads in kiev now that Mc geady is back in the squad. Apparently the pitch is crap as the players had to train on the surrounding running track. Hope mc carthy doesn't do a hammy on the bumpy surface!
should be an interesting night ahead.

Anything to be optimistic about in this?
Personally dreading this fixture...