only middle class ******* would have tennis balls on hand for a protest. Then they throw them on when Ireland have a free ? Class warfare I tells you. I haven't posted on this forum in years and may have misjudged the mood .....also i'm drinking snakebite at the moment.
The headline on tomorrow's FAI propaganda office news release:
Love all.
Irish fans show appreciation for EVP John Delaney in tennis ball tribute.
(And there was a game of some sort as well.)
My only issue is that we seem utterly resigned to Mick being a one term manager.. I think if he got 2/3 terms, with Kenny also getting 2/3 with the u21s, then we'd have a serious squad in 10 years time.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
But look, we are where we are..
Tonight was the first time enjoying watching a game in years to be frank. We could have conceded a few, but we could also have scored 3/4.. that'll come in time.
Remember, we have the likes of Obafemi to come back too..
Drink away lad, drink awayQuote:
Originally Posted by Jamjar
Regarding play offs..Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Ireland may not get into the top 2 in the group.. but practically all the Nations League group A teams will, as will the majority of the group B teams.. so we'll kind of fall into the Group A or B play off by default
Probably a mix of (a) being easy to get into the ground and (b) unlikely to do any real damage if they hit anyone (which they did)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamjar
I presume the timing was pre-arranged, and it was to an extent coincidental that we had a free kick at the same time?
While the performance was good, bar the wastefulness in the final third, I could have done with a little less of Ronnie Whelan's fawning. He called Ireland "magnificent" three times, as we were 1-0 up against a team ranked 45 places below us.
Without getting into the hairpulling detail of how it works, here's why: I looked at the groups and if qualification was based on current positions (and we assume Switzerland and Denmark are ahead of us), then eight out of twelve teams would qualify from each of Leagues A and B, neatly leaving four in each League to participate in the respective playoffs. In general, as long as sixteen teams from League A and B qualify through the groups, we will be involved in the play-offs (fifteen if Norn Iron don't, as we finished ahead of them in the Nations League rankings)Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Wasn't there the shot blocked down in the first half when the shooter (can't remember who) might have played someone in instead after Hendrick won it back really well, the offside disallowed one when Coleman (?) was just behind the finisher and not offside, and Stevens pulled a shot wide in the second half which he should have been on target from, those off the top of my head. Granted, we weren't opening them up at will or working their keeper lots, but still, we looked a totally different outfit I thought, and an enjoyable one to watch again, finally.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
What was most pleasing for me tonight was the nail in the coffin of many of our previous two managers self preserving and absolutely false narratives about how we play, and what we can be.
You can argue it was only Georgia, an expected home win, but equally they passed the ball something like four times to our one in the last campaign in one game against them, and we were told not to expect better because of the limitations on the player pool available to our A list manager.
Also MONs high handed dismissive treatment of a question re our lack of set piece routines being down to limited contact time with the players (OTB interview from memory) has been debunked for the lazy arrogant lie that it was, when you see already tonight evidence of pre planned set piece moves including Duffy in the wall for our winner which Mick has managed to bring about in little more than a week.
We may come up short against the two group favourites, its true they do have bigger profile & better club players, and more likely match winners, no getting away from that but it looks like even if we do, it will be while playing in a way that doesn't make me angry at / embarrassed of, how we go about things. After the last decade, and the underage sides absolutely fantastic set of results in this window, that will do me for now.
Was very enjoyable to watch.
Probably harsh to pick out this one thing but I never want to see O'Brien get picked again. On the 87th minute Mclean had the ball moving forward, o'Brien was ahead of him and Steven's to the left. O'Brien kept jogging in a straight line and nearly got in the way. The ball went out left to Stevens and I was waiting for o'Brien to make a sprint into space, but he kept jogging at same pace and when the cross came in he was nowhere near.
I would have expected better forward play from an u15 player, it was awful.
I was right in front of that. It was particularly poor. What made it all the more obvious was that Stevens pass was to the exact area that you'd blatantly want a forward to run into, yet there was no sign of O'Brien.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Completely agree with all of that, for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
Yeah, there was the offside goal alright. The other two chances you mention are kinda "should have done better/something different", which does sum up a bit our problems in front of goal. The chances that stand out for me are the point-blank save from Randolph late in the first half, the 25-yarder just wide in injury time, and Keogh's (I think) block from the shot from the edge - all Georgian chances from play.
I thought it was appropriate that McGoldrick was - entirely deservingly - man of the match, but clearly left his shooting boots behind. He nearly cleared the stadium roof with that second half effort (which he created for himself brilliantly)
Let's not let that get in the way of the positives of course. The performance was much better. We didn't sit back after going ahead. There wasn't any managerial excuses afterwards; no pretence that things had always gone to plan (I liked the comment about McClean's daft cross in injury time when he should have gone into the corner - "Don't ****ing do that again") There's hopefully further improvement to come ahead of June.
But I think some are getting carried away with talk of beating Denmark - who scored more in five minutes away to the top seeds than we've done in 180 minutes against the bottom seeds - and being 8 points clear after three games. I think at the moment, we're still the same poor team we were last year, but at least playing with a plan and a bit of confidence. Probably best we keep things in perspective for now.
That’s taking things out of context, for whatever reason Switzerland just went to sleep defensively for the last 10 minutes and Denmark got 2 real jammy goals and basic two on one that again happened from terrible defense, this wasn’t Denmark opening them up at will like for example the Swiss did to them. Denmark I believe are unbeaten in 3 years (not counting the Slovakia game for obvious reasons) but the last two games they probably should have lost but for a 90th minute equalizer (drew 2-2 with Kosovo during the week). Overall this Danish team really isn’t that great and if anything we are at risk of putting them on a pedostole, we have seen in our matches against them that they are an average enough side that imo have been creaking since the WC and tbh they could have probably done with losing one of those two matches recently in order to give them a kick up the ass. A draw would be a good result but we have a chance to put ourselves in an amazing position and to put a real dent in their qualification hopes and I really hope we don’t pass up on the opportunity.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I reckon there was an order for him not to get caught too high and to stay in front of the Georgian defence to prevent them from playing out of the back late in the game. I only say that based on MMcC's comment about McClean at the end where he castigated him for crossing the ball into the box.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olé Olé
I don't think it's too incomparable. Switzerland asleep are still better than Gibraltar for example. Maybe not as good as Georgia.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cathalsmart
But my point was really that the last two matches have confirmed what we've known for a while now - we've serious problems up front. There's only so long we can paper over that (assuming players coming through won't impact this campaign)
Don't want to take away too much from the improvement last night because it was the first half-decent performance in I don't know how long, but I think there's an element of confidence creeping in which 1-0 wins against Gibraltar away and Georgia at home doesn't quite justify
so what? we will take our confidence from anywhere. one cant overstate how far a bit of confidence and feel good factor can bring to a team like ours.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
its a good start to the campaign from a team / manager that had to go straight into qualifiers with very little time to prepare. very good foundations for more difficult games to come
And how long has the Danish manager had with his team? According to Danish media it took them around 6 months before they were starting to find their feet when they drew in a friendly with Germany. Before that they had lost two of four qualifiers and things weren’t looking so rosy, comparing all that with Micks first game in charge is apples and oranges, you have set the bar too high for this team if you think they can just click after only a week or so together.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It was just one of those nights where nothing went in, at this point it’s baby steps, we probably created more opportunities last night than all of last year combined so now we can start focusing on being more clinical.
It wasn't the first time the Swiss have blown a 3 goal lead in a qualifier at home.
We don't have to beat Denmark in order to finish ahead of them, but the point they salvaged last night makes that task a bit more difficult.
We don’t have to but consider omg we could have a 8 point lead over Denmark with only 4 games to go is a dream scenario.