UEFA Euro 2024 Qualifying Group B

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Originally Posted by CSAD

It is 6 easy points. The mistake you are making is comparing Armenia with Gibraltar as if they are similar challenges, one was in League B and the other is still in League D.

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Gibraltar are in League C (pending the relegation playoffs)

I'd compare it more with that Andorra game where we struggled badly for an hour and went 1-0 down before they tired. Something similar isn't out of the question here. It. should be an easy six points and I don't think we'll do as badly against them as under Mick, but I think we're not out of the woods yet in terms of bad performances and it's worth being cautious of them.

Stutts' summary is a good one, although I don't think the performance level we showed against Portugal/Serbia last time would lead to similar results this time. I think they're free hits though so long as we don't lose 4-0 or something.

Greece is the key game and they're slightly higher rated than us. I think Kenny can't afford to come fourth in this

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I actually think this is a great draw for Kenny from his personal point of view.

1. We’ve been better against good teams and worse against teams where we’re expected to own the ball and break down stubborn defences
2. There’s really only one team here where failing to beat would be a career-ending disaster
3. We don’t start with Gibraltar away!
4. There might not be a runaway winner
5. It’s a great test of progress, will draw big crowds to Dublin and will be a brilliant coming of age experience for the squad
6. The group offers a real chance to outperform expectations – which offers Kenny a chance to extend his stay
7. There’s still a good likelihood of a NL payoff – though not much room for things to go against us (Sweden & Romania might upset the apple cart)

I’m excited by it. Some great matches in prospect.

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The other positive is Kenny has had so much bad luck in the draw that surely he?s used it all up and couldn?t possibly have more bad things go his way (ie Romania and Sweden qualifying automatically) right?

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Gibraltar are in League C (pending the relegation playoffs)

I'd compare it more with that Andorra game where we struggled badly for an hour and went 1-0 down before they tired. Something similar isn't out of the question here. It. should be an easy six points and I don't think we'll do as badly against them as under Mick, but I think we're not out of the woods yet in terms of bad performances and it's worth being cautious of them.

Stutts' summary is a good one, although I don't think the performance level we showed against Portugal/Serbia last time would lead to similar results this time. I think they're free hits though so long as we don't lose 4-0 or something.

Greece is the key game and they're slightly higher rated than us. I think Kenny can't afford to come fourth in this

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Andorra in a end of season Friendly and Gibraltar in a qualifier aren?t exactly comparable. A lot could come down to how we do in Greece just before. There isn?t an accurate comparison as the worst team we?ve played in qualifying is still a lot better than Gibraltar.

I think Portugal away would be good enough, that for me is still the bench mark performance for this team to hit and with that performance we?d give ourselves shot against either Netherlands or France. I definitely think it would be good enough to give us a shot against the Dutch at least.

Any team from the continent will be rated slightly ahead of us, that?s just the way Europe thinks it seems, same with Scotland, Wales, NIreland sadly. At the end of the day we are ranked higher, seeded higher and have been a higher division than Greece for 3 NL?s so there is no excuse to finish lower and to do so would be a sign of regression.

The good news is Gus Poyet is already implying we play British style football so it?s clear he hasn?t done any research on us which bodes well for round 2!

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Originally Posted by CSAD

The other positive is Kenny has had so much bad luck in the draw that surely he?s used it all up and couldn?t possibly have more bad things go his way (ie Romania and Sweden qualifying automatically) right?

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Of course. And as a Rovers, Arsenal and Celtic fan I can only see the world in a positive light today myself.

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Originally Posted by CSAD

Andorra in a end of season Friendly and Gibraltar in a qualifier aren?t exactly comparable.

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I hope it's not and I think it probably isn't alright

But we were god-awful in that game, and showed the same attacking deficiencies in other games, so I'll still bank on the six points when we have them.

Portugal away was a backs-to-the-wall desperate hanging on match where, though we did the job brilliantly well for the most part, I would not like to see us try it again. On another day that penalty goes in, the header off the post goes in, we lose 5-0

28% possession, 6 shots v 29, 3 corners v 14 is not a performance I think we should be setting as a benchmark

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I hope it's not and I think it probably isn't alright

But we were god-awful in that game, and showed the same attacking deficiencies in other games, so I'll still bank on the six points when we have them.

Portugal away was a backs-to-the-wall desperate hanging on match where, though we did the job brilliantly well for the most part, I would not like to see us try it again. On another day that penalty goes in, the header off the post goes in, we lose 5-0

28% possession, 6 shots v 29, 3 corners v 14 is not a performance I think we should be setting as a benchmark

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I don?t think it plus at that point we went into that game rock bottom confidence wise having just lost to Luxembourg in our previous match. Things aren?t as bad now and because of the importance of the match I can?t see us screwing up like we did that day.

Any game against France will be backs to the wall, what needs to happen is us posing a threat on the counter which we did in Faro despite what the stats say. And on another day if anyone other than Ronaldo was in those positions we probably scrap the win and if not at least a point.

It?s more about the approach though, we still were trying to get forward and make something happen but of course for the last 20
Mins or so Portugal were really pushing for an equalizer and it showed the stats.

I?d be more hoping for a Germany 2015 style of performance if I had to pick any kind of performance and to be fair no one in a month of Sundays saw us pulling that rabbit out of a hat back then but we managed it!

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

I hope it's not and I think it probably isn't alright

But we were god-awful in that game, and showed the same attacking deficiencies in other games, so I'll still bank on the six points when we have them.

Portugal away was a backs-to-the-wall desperate hanging on match where, though we did the job brilliantly well for the most part, I would not like to see us try it again. On another day that penalty goes in, the header off the post goes in, we lose 5-0

28% possession, 6 shots v 29, 3 corners v 14 is not a performance I think we should be setting as a benchmark

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On another day Parrott scores in Scotland and we win 2-1. Football is full of ifs and buts.

Things aren't as bad now but the two Armenia games showed the same lack of creativity. Gibraltar will defend deep and feel they may have a chance of frustrating us

The last 20 minutes of the Portugal game didn't skew the stats so much that they warped them out of relevance. We may have tried to get forward but we weren't very good at it. And that was a Portugal team who specialise in under-performing

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

On another day Parrott scores in Scotland and we win 2-1. Football is full of ifs and buts.

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Well yes, but we don't have another day against Scotland coming up?

But we do have another day against a top side coming up. Past performance is no guarantee of future success, so I don't agree with CSAD that we can use the Portugal performance as a benchmark.

How Ireland could still qualify for the Euros even if they finish bottom of their group:

https://www.the42.ie/how-ireland-cou...89216-Oct2022/

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

. And that was a Portugal team who specialise in under-performing

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Ah yes the Portuguese - who won the Euro's in 2016, and the Nations league in 2019 - perennial underachievers. Its a wonder we didn't beat them home and away

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

How Ireland could still qualify for the Euros even if they finish bottom of their group:

https://www.the42.ie/how-ireland-cou...89216-Oct2022/

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You'd think the 42 would at least give me a credit when they basically said what I wrote in the post yesterday :)

Kenny supporters like to hold up the fact that we have finished according to our seeding in the three full campaigns we've so far had under him as manager as some sort of small victory: 'what do you expect? We finished according to par.'

As well as giving lie to the idea that we are, as they claim, making real and tangible 'progress', this ignores how far we've been behind teams above us in the final standings as well as how badly we've fared in games with teams we've ultimately finished ahead of, whilst also failing to recognise the role Kenny played in creating this low glass ceiling - our third pot status being a consequence of the poor results he's achieved thus far. Yet with this draw, once again, we hear about poor old Kenny's 'bad luck'.

Well, finishing according to our seeding this time involves finishing above Greece, which is by no means a given. So let's see...

All things being equal, everyone will beat Gibraltar home and away, rendering results against them completely irrelevant, and ourselves France, Netherlands and Greece are all capable of getting points off each other. Greece already being assured of a play-off spot is an interesting element to the dynamic as well.

So, looking at it positively, this could be tight group. And, if we're competitive in every single match, who knows what might happen? We shouldn't write our chances off before a ball has been kicked, by any means.

Am I right in saying that we can afford 2 nations ranked below us qualifying but not 3?

Yes I think so. I (re)started this discussion in the Nations League thread.

Imagine if Slovakia was he spot 5 tema. This is an horror show. The walking dead of football. Mark my words Kenny will lose At home and in Salonika too!!

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Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid

Ah yes the Portuguese - who won the Euro's in 2016, and the Nations league in 2019 - perennial underachievers. Its a wonder we didn't beat them home and away

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2016 is a long time ago. Since then they've been decidedly underwhelming at the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020 and needed the playoffs to reach Qatar. There's been plenty of comments too that they're far from the sum of their parts, and I think their manager was coming under a fair bit of pressure for it in the lead up to that Faro game

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Originally Posted by Trequartista20

Kenny supporters like to hold up the fact that we have finished according to our seeding in the three full campaigns we've so far had under him as manager as some sort of small victory: 'what do you expect? We finished according to par.'

As well as giving lie to the idea that we are, as they claim, making real and tangible 'progress', this ignores how far we've been behind teams above us in the final standings as well as how badly we've fared in games with teams we've ultimately finished ahead of, whilst also failing to recognise the role Kenny played in creating this low glass ceiling - our third pot status being a consequence of the poor results he's achieved thus far. Yet with this draw, once again, we hear about poor old Kenny's 'bad luck'.

Well, finishing according to our seeding this time involves finishing above Greece, which is by no means a given. So let's see...

All things being equal, everyone will beat Gibraltar home and away, rendering results against them completely irrelevant, and ourselves France, Netherlands and Greece are all capable of getting points off each other. Greece already being assured of a play-off spot is an interesting element to the dynamic as well.

So, looking at it positively, this could be tight group. And, if we're competitive in every single match, who knows what might happen? We shouldn't write our chances off before a ball has been kicked, by any means.

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We literally drew the hardest team we could have got in each pot which we probably had a 1 in 10 chance of doing?how is that anything other than bad luck?

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Originally Posted by CSAD

We literally drew the hardest team we could have got in each pot which we probably had a 1 in 10 chance of doing?how is that anything other than bad luck?

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Because we are in pot 3 because of kenny and his poor results
You create your luck in life

It was an awful draw.

There were 5 teams you wanted to avoid in Pot 1: Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Portugal. In Pool 2, there were 2 teams: France, England. And if you did get France or England, you'd hope you'd get a team like Hungary or Switzerland or Poland. So we basically had a 10% chance of getting a rough draw and with France being stronger than England and the Netherlands stronger than average good Pot 1 side. Getting the second best and the best team in both pots is basically a 2% outcome, getting Spain and France being the 1% outcome, but the 6th percentile outcome for Ukraine is pretty bad too (Italy and England).

That's ignoring the 4th seed. Greece were probably the best 4th seed and them and Turkey were the only have decent sides in that pot. Once again though, if you're purely talking about qualification, then when you've got two excellent teams, the quality of the 4th seed is pretty immaterial - like there's no scenario where it's us and Greece qualifying. And Greece are more likely to take points off France than the Faroe Islands would be. Obviously the chance of us coming 4th is much higher than it would be if we had the Faroes in our group, which will affect our future seedings and so on.

What you'd hope is that one of France and Netherlands beat the other home and away, and we pick up draws against them all, even 3 draws and a loss would be enough if it were against the better side. Then we beat Gibraltar and Greece home and away. That's how you'd map the path. It starts with not losing to France in March.