Andorra v Repuiblic of Ireland - Friday, 7th October 2011 - Euro 2012 Qualifier

Well we have actually beat Armenia away from home so that's a positive.

Here are the teams from that game.

Armenia: Berezovsky, Hovsepyan, Arzumanyan, Karlen Mkrtchyan, Arakelian, Grigorian, Artur Edigaryan, Malakyan, Pachajyan, Movsisyan, Mkhitaryan. Subs: Kasparov, Hambardzumyan, Pizelli, Goharyan, Manoyan, Manucharyan, Mkoyan.

Rep of Ireland: Given, O'Shea, St. Ledger, Dunne, Kilbane, Lawrence, Whelan, Green, McGeady, Keane, Doyle. Subs: Westwood, Fahey, Kelly, Gibson, Cunningham, Keogh, Sheridan.

Armenia have moved up a staggering 52 places in the FIFA rankings since then to 44th

Christ but it was a terrible game. Keane needs to be given a rest alright. The likes of Best and Long need to be given a run at this stage. Least Best can stay in the Premier League and score goals.

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Originally Posted by tricky_colour

Well we have actually beat Armenia away from home so that's a positive.

Here are the teams from that game.

Armenia: Berezovsky, Hovsepyan, Arzumanyan, Karlen Mkrtchyan, Arakelian, Grigorian, Artur Edigaryan, Malakyan, Pachajyan, Movsisyan, Mkhitaryan. Subs: Kasparov, Hambardzumyan, Pizelli, Goharyan, Manoyan, Manucharyan, Mkoyan.

Rep of Ireland: Given, O'Shea, St. Ledger, Dunne, Kilbane, Lawrence, Whelan, Green, McGeady, Keane, Doyle. Subs: Westwood, Fahey, Kelly, Gibson, Cunningham, Keogh, Sheridan.

Armenia have moved up a staggering 52 places in the FIFA rankings since then to 44th

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Pretty much we have the same team that played in the last campaign & play-off, with Lawrence and Killer replaced by (old stager) McGeady and Ward the only newcomer. We had 2nd place wrapped up by this stage in the last campaign.
We need to wrap the deal on Tuesday and if so, then we will have achieved what we had thought we were capable of. Our game has not progressed since Paris, at times we look like a team that has been found out and other times we do show real resolve under pressure. We are not a beaten docket yet but there is some amount of genuine apprehension.
Better to go into this game knowing full well what the opposition is about than the way Slovakia did - walk in blind & confident into an ambush. The way Slovakia reacted to the result in Dublin you would have thought they already had Armenia beaten.

After Armenia's recent results I don't think anyone could be confident of beating them.
However with Trap I think we have the right man to grind out a result.
Anyone who is overconfident needs to watch their 4-0 drubbing of Slovakia which is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AQEqn94hkk
They are certainly dangerous opposition.

The lowest ever crowd to watch an Ireland game? 500 allegedly. Of which at least half half were visiting fans.

And a bit of a disgrace so many empty seats...which could at least have been filled by Irish fans given the locals were clearly disinterested in this circus.

Extremely mediocre after the second goal;the second half was poor.

No way can't see us not conceding v.Armenia;their current form must make them favourites? Our creative play barely deserves even the play-offs.
Sorry, Trap & co.

Most fans would have taken the position we are in now before the group started ie a home draw against Armenia to get into the play-offs. Armenia are improving but not enough to beat us at home. Dunne is back which is a big plus. We allowed them very few chances in Armenia and I expect the same situation on Tuesday night. We are in a good situation. We will be seeded in the play-offs if we make it. And we are due a decent draw again.

We didn't play well, but the victory was, if anything, more comfortable than the scoreline suggested. Russia must have really gone to sleep if they only managed 2-0 in Andorra - any technical team capable of quick passing and good link-up play would have won by more than six last night.

We don't fit that description by a long way, but on the few occasions after the goals that we got it down and passed it, we created opportunities. This was all too infrequent, as we either went to the default option of playing it long, or we cheaply gave away possession, with Whelan, Andrews and McGeady particularly guilty in this regard. The lack of basic skills was all-too-evident, with our players often needing one touch, or one second, too many before trying to find a team-mate, at which point they were already crowded out.

Andorra were guilty of persistent fouling too, which probably owed to the over-finicky referee (Platini and UEFA's campaign to rid the game of tackling is going as planned) as well as Andorra's desire to break up the flow of the game and get themselves re-organised. With no set-piece specialist on the field until Fahey came on, Ireland's floated free-kicks were often over-hit or aimless, with O'Dea and St. Ledger not really competing in their box.

Given did the basics in usual exemplary fashion, but his distribution was sluggish and predictable, and failed to get Ireland on the front foot. This may be down to instruction, however. The full-backs were not tested defensively, but didn't offer much in attack, though Ward made a few promising runs forward. His dive was unnecessary. O'Dea looked clumsy at times, and St. Ledger allowed Andorra in for their only chance; perhaps his lack of first-team football is catching up with him. Whelan and Andrews looked for a lot of work, but the passing was sloppy and too often backwards to Given. However, Fahey was little better when he came on; his first meaningful involvement being to pass the ball straight into touch. There seems to be no easy answer to the central midfield problem.

McGeady, despite forcing the own-goal, had a really poor game. Many of Ireland's more promising moves ended with him giving possession away. He does provide an outlet, and sees an awful lot of the ball in games, but tends to run up blind alleys instead of playing it simply and keeping possession. Duff contributed little, one good run aside. Keane linked well with McGeady and Ward on the left at times, but missed two open goals. It's worrying to see Duff and Keane so ineffective in a game like this, and the knee-jerk conclusion is that their time is running out at this level. Doyle took his goal well and seemed comfortable in possession. Hunt and Long provided their usual energetic cameos.

There was a good energy and urgency about Ireland in the opening six minutes, which led to the goal and Keane somehow hitting the bar with no keeper present. Once the second went in, Ireland loosened their grip completely. There was an obvious eye on injures and suspensions for Tuesday night, and with Andorra never likely to threaten, the latter hour had the air of a training game, and we were never likely to learn anything meaningful from it. Tuesday is a different beast entirely, and a 90-minute performance will be needed. The positives? Three points, no injuries, a few players got to run off some rustiness, and the fact that we weren't subjected to any nervousness or doubt, like in Serrevalle or Torshavn.

Roll on Tuesday.

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Christ but it was a terrible game.

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It really was. But only for the last 70 minutes. In the first 20, we made Andorra look like the part-timers they are and generally tore into them. We went 2-0 up and immediately stopped playing. Why?! This has happened before (the home game against Andorra for example, or the away game in Macedonia - in fact, every time we go 2-0 up). I don't see how giving Andorra maybe as much as 50% of possession is going to defend our lead better than just destroying them. And how do the players suddenly, like the flick of a switch, suddenly start being utterly unable to pass the ball? And how was McGeady man of the match?! One thing we utterly failed to do after the 20-minute mark was open Andorra up, so how was an attacking player man of the match? (I'd have given it to Given on our side actually - he was very solid with what limited efforts he had to deal with, which earns him a 6 in my book - better than anyone else).

Just utterly, utterly baffling. And highly frustrating. And painful, embarrassing stuff to watch.

Very worried about Armenia on Tuesday. And in a way, I'd have to say that at present, they deserve to go through more than we do. The only hope is that they'll come all guns blazing and we'll have to respond and play like we've done against Italy and France before. Otherwise, we're in for a long evening.

I reckon Ireland players are part of a large betting scam. They all sold a 3 goal spread, made sure they were 2 up and then did their utmost to keep the ball away from either goal for the rest of the game.

Andorra have been beaten once by more than 2 goals at home and that was a 3rd goal scored from a last minute penalty.
I wasn't embarrassed by easily winning a game 2 nil, just bored by the spectacle.

Does anyone know the official ruling on our second goal? It was given in the stadium as McGeady's but was quite clearly an own goal. Not sure who the authority on this is in international football (no dubious goals committee) and I just want to know for my own records.

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Originally Posted by theworm2345

Does anyone know the official ruling on our second goal? It was given in the stadium as McGeady's but was quite clearly an own goal. Not sure who the authority on this is in international football (no dubious goals committee) and I just want to know for my own records.

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UEFA.com have it down as McGeady's, for what that's worth. I agree with you though, definite OG. Aiden was actually the third last player to touch the ball, could hardly even claim an assist. :D

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Originally Posted by geysir

Andorra have been beaten once by more than 2 goals at home and that was a 3rd goal scored from a last minute penalty.

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Irrelevant. We were 2-0 up and cruising at will after 20 minutes - what the hell changed?

Actually, your point isn't entirely irrelevant. Had we gone on to win 3-0 or 4-0 like it looked we could, your point would indicate a very good performance from us. And that's the frustrating bit - we can play very well at times, but when we get a lead, we start playing like amateurs. It just feels like there's so much potential being suppressed.

The margin wasn't the embarrassment; our performance was.

That game was all about getting a result. Our first 20 minutes were excellent and we went 2-0 up. The rest of the game was diabolical but it was all about the first 20. I would read absolutely nothing in to the last 70 minutes. Get the result. Avoid injury and cards (Ward wtf were you doing?). If we played well, people would say it was only Andorra. What we now want is 90+ minutes of the start we made against Andorra on Tuesday.

It will be sweaty palms time no doubt. I get nervous thinking about it already. Going in to the last 10 minutes with the scores level. The ball being given away ad nauseum. God! McGeady trips over the ball. The Armenians break away. A swift passing move, they are in our box. Dunne clatters in to their centre forward. Frantic appeals for a peno. All eyes on the ref who.......

I heard them talking on the Ian Dempsey show this morning about getting seeded for the play offs. Do people never learn about getting ahead of ourselves? Look at the rugger people talking about finals before they had beaten Wales.

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Originally Posted by OwlsFan

That game was all about getting a result. Our first 20 minutes were excellent and we went 2-0 up. The rest of the game was diabolical but it was all about the first 20.

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I agree it was all about getting a result, but you look at the two games against Macedonia where the same thing happened - 2-0 up early doors, stop playing, let Macedonia right back into it (conceding a goal in Lansdowne, giving away the penalty in Skopje). Why do we keep tempting fate like this? Why not continue playing football?

I know they say you make your luck, but I think we've been very, very lucky this campaign. Are we due a change of luck tomorrow night?

I made the point before Slovakia and Russia last month (which has been weakened since both those games) that we have a great habit of scoring early (many examples), and generally when we need to (Italy away, Paris, Aremenia away, Cyprus away). Most of our lethargic, disconnected play has been when we are ahead and set out not to concede. Andorra away was a perfect example - sure we nearly scored twice after 2 minutes.

As OF said, it was job done in Andorra.

However, I think our defensive record paints an overly optimistic picture of our capabilities. The clean sheets include a missed penalty, a freakishly good CB performance by Dunne, a very narrow miss by Kenny Miller and a few other squeaky bum moments - like a lot of free kicks conceded within 25 yards.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Irrelevant. We were 2-0 up and cruising at will after 20 minutes - what the hell changed?

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What the hell changed after 20 mins?
We went 2 up and were cruising at will.

I'll take 2 early goals and 70 minutes of lethargic football tomorrow please.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I know they say you make your luck, but I think we've been very, very lucky this campaign. Are we due a change of luck tomorrow night?

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We've been more sh*te than lucky. And even if we have been so, there's plenty of times when we've received no luck at all...

One stat consistant in the games Andorra play at home is their success rate in conning the ref.
Against us they got 17 frees
v Russia 21 frees
v Slovakia 20 frees