How was Scales left exposed? He was the only CB in that area, no? It reminded me a bit of the Aberdeen goal at Celtic, where McGrath played a lovely ball inside Scales with no other CB in sight.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Clumsy challenge but he was up against a Madrid superstar and I think the combination of yellows resulting in a red was harsh.
You're right, games are not decided at halftime but this might have been the exception had we committed first-half hara-kiri. Only the deluded would take this Ireland team into a game without a strategy that saves them from themselves. If that means parking a first-half bus and frustrating the balls off vastly superior opposition (please don't tell me they're not) then go for it. Otherwise it's 4-0 at the break and 7-0 at the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by ifk101
There's nothing to be gained from that. Hopefully we've learned the lessons of the past few years and replaced dreamers with pragmatists. Hallgrimisson looks nothing more than ok at the moment. Last night's solid first half was largely undone when Scales kicked the ball away in an act of gross unprofessionalism. Hallgrimsson should have replaced him at half-time (O'Shea into the centre and Doherty at right-full) to pre-empt what predictably followed.
And HH should not have claimed the players gave up, they didn't. They were overwhelmed when reduced to ten men, losing their shape and discipline. He contributed to that by not taking action following Scales' faux pas.
I share your distress at losing but, if we're being honest there was embarrassment against England and there was luck (x2) against Finland. That's Ireland in real time.
Like most others I thought the first half was spirited and well organised. Ferguson was definitely fouled and how it wasn't even reviewed is beyond me.
Second half was humiliating. I really felt for Collins coming up to the fans with his hands help up to apologise. I met a pal in the airport on Saturday and I said all I really wanted from the game was to escape with our dignity in tact. Oh well...
But what really boiled my pi$$ most yesterday was the overt militarisation of the pre-match build up. I know we have the army band etc but we never have 50 uniformed soldiers stationed around the pitch unfurling flags. There was a maroon beret in the pack just in front of me. I thought at the time it must have been a para beret, but someone pointed out on X that it wasn't. Either way, I found the whole thing tone deaf and quite antagonistic.
It's pure propaganda. This is why people like James McClean won't wear a poppyQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Overall I was very heartened by our support yesterday. I still think there's a great bond between team and fans and a reversal of fortune, however that comes, will bring good days ahead. I saw some criticism in some of my WhatsApp chats of singing The Fields when losing badly, but I thought it was to our credit that we stood up for ourselves when faced with loud renditions of "Ireland getting battered...." by jubilant England fans all around the ground.
I can't really understand why people criticise that to be honest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Would they rather we boo the team or shout abuse at them or stay stony silent?
Scales silly first yellow came back to haunt us ~ Very un-professional from Scales there.
Fair enough with that context but I would much rather we took a leaf from the Girls in Green handbook, or Declan Rice's go to karaoke song, in response to their imperialist BS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Ken Early correctly lamenting the team’s lack of tradecraft.
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...arn-to-whinge/
England v Holland in the Euros semi-final springs to mind. Nobody even considered a penalty to England but Kane going down like he’d had an axe wielded on the foot he used to kick his opponent with sent it to VAR which then looked for any reason to award the penalty. We should have been all over the ref last night, and in Greece, when Ferguson was fouled.
I said at the time yesterday that an England player doesn’t get booked for what Scales did and it’s fair to say Kane won that particular psychological episode even if Molumby’s reaction pleased our crowd.
Full piece here:
“Ireland get battered, everywhere they go! Ireland get battered, everywhere they gooo!” The England fans were loving their song-for-the-day, but they also started leaving in large numbers from around 70 minutes, after their side went 4-0 up. Why risk getting stuck in the crowds at Wembley Park Tube station just to see England run in another goal or two against this shambles?
Ireland began with one of their best first-half performances in years and ended with their worst ever defeat to England. What are we to make of this? What kind of a team collapses so abjectly after playing so well?
“I’m kind of lost for words,” said Heimir Hallgrímsson. “Six minutes of madness. It was a shock, conceding a penalty, conceding a goal, losing a player. But we probably lost our heads at this moment, leading to a second goal and a third goal. And from there you can see, we lost our head, gave up ... it clearly took away all confidence from what we did really well in the first half.”
A moment later, Hallgrimsson was backtracking: “Maybe it’s too harsh to say gave up.” His point was that the rapid sequence of shocks early in the second half shattered Ireland’s confidence and scrambled their minds. “I wrote it down – first goal was 52 minutes. Two minutes later, 2-0, by 58 it’s 3-0.”
His point was that it all happened too quickly for the manager to react. But what about the players? Ireland’s capitulation again exposed this team’s fatal lack of gamecraft. Their brittleness is matched only by their naivety.
Confronted with a suddenly rampant opponent, clever teams find ways to slow the game down. Maybe somebody realises they are injured and needs lengthy treatment. A couple of minutes slide by with nothing happening. The panic subsides, the opponents’ momentum slows, the crowd gets bored. Too often Ireland lurch along in a daze, letting the game happen to them.
Nor was this the first time in the game that Ireland’s innocence had cost them. On 21 minutes a long ball had bounced behind the England defence and Evan Ferguson sprinted after it, closing on Marc Guehi. It looked as though Ferguson might be about to force Guehi off the ball, so the English defender yanked him to the ground by the front of his shirt.
The referee, far behind the play, couldn’t have seen the shirt pull but it was a mystery why VAR did not let him know about it. For some reason, though, Ferguson was the only Irish player who appealed.
This was the second time in consecutive away matches that Ireland should have had a penalty for a clear foul on Ferguson, and also the second time that the team did not protest with the kind of vehement outrage that can pressurise the video referee to intervene. Now that the referee’s decision is no longer final, obnoxious appeals can help to swing decisions your way: look how Manchester City react to anything that looks remotely like a foul on a team-mate in the box. Hallgrímsson started this campaign looking for “*******s”, at this point even committed whingers would do.
Note the contrast with what England’s players did on 43 minutes, when Liam Scales kicked the ball away to prevent them taking a quick free kick. Several were immediately shouting at the referee to book Scales, and he quickly obliged. The true significance of this moment became plain six minutes into the second half, when Scales was – somewhat harshly – sent off for a second yellow.
Until that moment, it had been Ireland’s best performance in a long time. Hallgrímsson had admitted on Saturday that the 5-4-1 game plan for the first match against England in September had been a failure. This time Ireland started in a 4-1-4-1, with Nathan Collins playing as a defensive midfielder.
For 45 minutes it really worked. Not because Collins had a brilliant individual performance – he had only nine touches in that first half, fewer than anyone else in the game, and completed only two passes. But his presence closed off the central spaces from which England had done so much damage in the first half in Dublin, forcing them to pass around the sides in search of gaps.
The Irish wingers, Sammie Szmodics and Festy Ebosele, worked hard to close down opponents and as time passed the English crowd fell silent and the English team started to meander. “The first half, it’s a game like we wanted it to be. We were defending compact, they didn’t find ways to play through us,” Hallgrímsson said afterwards.
Harry Kane, anxious to remind everyone of his worth to the team after being left out of the side in Athens last Thursday, was hardly involved. When he came deep around 20 minutes to get on the ball Molumby slammed into him and knocked the ball away. A little later Kane turned on to a pass and ran, only for Scales to send him flying with a spectacular block tackle. The Irish fans loved that and their delight increased when Kane’s annoyance boiled over and he turned and threw Molumby to the ground.
But Kane was to have the last laugh, creating the penalty situation with a wicked swerving pass to Jude Bellingham and then sending Caoimhin Kelleher the wrong way from the spot. The farcical nature of England’s second goal – a mis-hit clearance by Collins bouncing off Josh Cullen and plopping into the path of Anthony Gordon – added insult to injury. The shell-shocked Irish defenders seemed to forget to defend the near post at the corner from which England got their third, scored by Gallagher from Guehi’s flick on.
The fourth was a poorly defended set-piece, with Ireland not noticing Jarred Bowen lurking unmarked on the edge of the box, the mass of defenders serving only to block Kelleher’s view of the ball. The fifth was a good header by Taylor Harwood-Bellis after Mark McGuinness failed to reach Bellingham’s cross. The win sent England back to League A, where they can pick on people their own size. Ireland can only hope that the lessons of a painful evening stick in their memory.
Can a performance be framed as good if we offer no goal threat? Understand the need to sit in and frustrate, but you have to find a way to score and win the game. And this was the perfect opportunity to do that with an eye on the future WC qualification campaign - we were finishing the NL group in third no matter what the result. Looking at that England team, they played novices at full back and we have a squad with trickery + pace out wide. Could we have offered a counter attacking threat? I think so.
I thought we carried a reasonable counter attacking threat in the first half. That's not to dismiss the second half collapse but for me the tactics were about right given the resources we had at hand. England were getting frustrated and we nearly got in a couple of times on the break. Could really have used Ogbene last night but had to settle for Festy... not that he was poor but Oggy has a good bit more about him.Quote:
Originally Posted by ifk101
Talk about antagonistic, I really cannot abide the English fans booing opposing national anthems. When it's ours it cuts deep but I've seen them do it to every other nation. My abiding memory of English fans and national anthems came not at football match but during the Ricky Hatton fight versus Floyd Mayweather. I was with a group of Americans who really didn't know Hatton. The pre-fight build up warmed them up to Ricky but once the American national anthem was struck up and they started booing it, the Americans turned right off the Englishman. If those fans only realized how many people they ostracize by doing what they do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
FourFourTwo examine England's tactics in the game
Initial emotion was anger and frustration at the ref and VAR. The first penalty on Ferguson was obvious and clear, the second I think was a penalty as well, I know Walker heads the ball but he just cushions it into Szmodics path. Then he clips his heels and takes him down. Scales was stupid for the first yellow card, it was just needless - but I don’t think the ref needs to give a yellow card for the penalty. Genuinely think if he hadn’t given the card, no one would have spoken about it - and I do think the second yellow should have a higher threshold. And if the ref is going to be a stickler, then Bellingham kicks the ball away (off the advertising hoardings and behind the goal) for our goal kick when he’s off the pitch, so Kelleher can’t take it quickly and that’s a second yellow card - would be incredibly incredibly harsh but would be consistent with the way he reffed it.
Don’t think we reacted to the sending off well at all but there was a degree of luck involved in the second goal with both Collins and Cullen getting in each other’s way and the ball somehow bounces onto Gordon’s foot. The next goal was borderline offside based on where you draw the sleeve of the jersey. An extra man in the box defending probably stops all of the subsequent goals after the penalty.
The first half display was limited, excellent defensively, and while people can talk about a lack of shots on target, every attack we had there was a foul not given. The two penalty shouts and Festy just outside the box and someone else on the left wing. Think we were unlucky not to go in a goal up.
The changes we made really annoyed me. As soon as we had a man sent off, it was clear to me that the only way we’d have any joy was if we had genuine pace on a counter attack and that meant Szmodics and Ferguson off and Johnston and Cannon in their place. Also Molumby was on a booking and was afraid to make a tackle after the red - don’t mind if you want to bring on Jake O’Brien and leave Collins in midfield or if you just want to bring on a replacement midfielder but Molumby spent the rest of the game tiptoeing around. The changes came too late and were flawed. It was quickly too late but even still, Troy gave absolutely nothing and the subs made us worse.
Only positive in the second half was Andy Moran, looked very good, willing to carry the ball into dangerous areas and play intelligent passes in tight spaces.
Thinking about it now, this team doesn't need psychologists... it needs a lunatic or two to come in with no rational sense of where we are at in world football and who refuse to accept the situation. Will take a personality or two like that to lift the team out of its 'nice' (to each other as well as the opposition) phase.
Harry Kane does not need to remind anybody of anything. He is an incredible talent as proven in the EPL, Bundesliga and at international level. In this instance, Molumby was an absolute clown, an embarrassment. Falling to the ground clutching his face despite featherweight contact. He's always a liability, now he's a laughing stock.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
Allowing uncontested possession about 10 yards in front your own box for huge parts of the first 45 minutes sowed the seeds for what we reaped,it was like a training exercise of forwards v defenders.
There was no sense of urgency to try and get the ball back.
Support from the Irish there on the night was brilliant.
After the first 10 minutes, I was convinced it would be 4-0 (Walker had two free headers from set-pieces alone and their open play was incisive), but when we managed to get to half-time without conceding I began to reconsider my initial assessment. England seemed to take their foot off the pedal a little bit around 20 minutes or so and our lads had grown in confidence having successfully stymied them.
The pass from Kane to Bellingham in the lead up to the penalty was like something Lionel Messi would produce. Scales should still do better and avoid conceding the penalty, but it happens.
I wouldn't be too harsh on Scales for his first yellow card or, for that matter, Molumby's antics with Kane and Walker. This is precisely what HH means when he says he wants "b*st*rds" in the team. They obviously need to be cuter about it though. Our boys are not yet proficient in the Dark Arts and "managing the game", but that will come.
I think the ceiling for a second yellow should be higher, as ES already said. It was a foul, they happen, but while Scales is getting flak it seems like Ferguson and Collins aren’t, despite pretty costly errors. I think the fact is simply that against teams of England’s calibre mistakes will be ruthlessly punished.
I too thought the first 10 mins were ominous but after that it felt like they were just doing passing drills, not because they weren’t trying but because we gave them no room.
On the plus side, was our performance any worse than Scotland v Germany? They’ve recovered well from a comprehensive 5-1 battering (also with 10 men for a fair bit). I’d be looking to that for encouragement.