The Turkey game? RTE player (RTE2). Has worked fine for me before from abroad whenever I’ve been abroad for 21s games in terms of geo restrictions or whatever
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Weird - in my experience I get blocked from senior internationals but u21 games are fine without a VPN. I was probably in Germany, so maybe there’d be some difference between EU vs non-EU or maybe because I was possibly using a device with app via the irish App Store?
Yeah says Goodrham wants to concentrate on club football for the time being and has had some personal stuff come up. Think someone mentioned his partner recently had a baby.
First professional footballer to have a personal life outside football. Lucky he's the only one with one or we'd never get any teams out on the pitch.
He hasn't played any international football at all, so plenty of time for him to decide down the line who he wants to play for internationally - if he's good enough of course.
Two games in our group today
Italy kicking off against San Marino in a few minutes: https://www.uefa.com/under21/match/2...vs-san-marino/
Latvia drawing with Norway after 40 minutes: https://www.uefa.com/under21/match/2...via-vs-norway/
Could do with a draw, or a win for Latvia in that game
Norway get the job done.
https://extra.ie/2024/09/05/sport/so...odrham-ireland
If this is what we are reduced to...
Was thinking about the team for today.
I’d go 4-3-3 but Crawford is very likely to go 5-3-2. You’d think with Lawal, Grehan and Adaramola injured (Adaramola would allow Roughan to play in the centre), we’d be less likely…
I’d go
Keeley
Curtis
O’Riordan (Murphy maybe? Not sure)
Garcia MacNulty
Roughan
Hodge
Adeeko (Phillips might be up for the battle)
Moran
Vata
Armstrong
Emakhu
-
No idea what the his back 5 would be. I’d guess it’s
Curtis
O’Riordan
Garcia McNulty
Murphy
Roughan
Could also play Abankwah at RCB or Roughan at LCB and Furlong at LB (no point on calling it LWB under Jim). Do you throw Adegboyega in for his debut? Bit of a risk but he’s done that with Grehan…
Hodge will play and then it’s a choice between Phillips physicality and aggression and determination, Adeeko’s mobility and creativity and Healy’s industry and passing.
Moran will surely play, which probably means Vata won’t.
Armstrong and Emakhu up top also seems obvious in that system and it’s worked well in the past.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/2...and-under-21s/
Just bought a house and his missus is pregnant so he doesn't want a call up. I would write this lad off.
Anyone recommend a website that might be showing the game.
Have a strong feeling RTE news will be blocked for any of us overseas.
Team playing well, need to improve delivery from set pieces
Moran not on the ball enough. We are doing ok, Armstrongs decision making needs to improve
Such a Crawford sub. Dominating the second half and he takes off Emakhu for Adeeko and immediately we lose momentum. Can’t understand it…
I’d take off Healy and Moran now and bring on Vata and someone else, Kenny, Umeh or O’Mahony
Don’t think that’s offside by the rules. Both Turkey players make an intentional attempt to play the ball.
Great goal - You’d love to have Phillips on the bench now to replace a knackered Healy.
Make a change Jim. Waste some time
Massive result. Need to finish the job on Tuesday
Great result. We were excellent in 2nd half, totally dominated until we scored and then we sat back a bit too much. Türkiye hit the post close to the end but we more than deserved that win
That's a great result. I'd have been happy with a draw over there before kickoff, it would have been a point Norway didn't get. Now we have three. Should get the win at home to Latvia now and that will put us in a really decent position ahead of the last two games.
Not sure what result would be best for us in the Norway v Italy game, best if Italy win and we just focus on second place?
It really was a very good performance. Superb control of the game for most of the second half. Substitute was a bit of a backward step but maybe justified seeing as the lead goal came after. Looked a bit shaky after the goal and Turkey were just throwing everything at them but felt like the result was deserved. Great chance to go and win the group now. Best performance I’ve seen from Abankwah in a good few games.
Crazy group, no? 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss - when really we threw away at least three points from winning both those games, 2-1 up against Norway with 20 left to lose 3-2 with the daft Emakhu sub. And a harsh penalty against them.
Then conceding a 96th minute equaliser against Italy when you’ve still got subs to make to kill time if you want to.
It’s hard to be critical of Jim when you win the game and he can rightly say they’re on course to be top after 8 games - but today could have been a carbon copy of the Italy game. They were knocking on the door once we scored and all through extra time and it seemed obvious to me, just take off Moran and bring on Umeh or Vata - will kill a minute and the fresh legs will provide relief, like when Moran ended up going to the corner flag, fresh legs win you a corner from that position. If you want to replace Healy with Adegboyega as well just to add an extra centre half to deal with all the long balls in those last few mins, then do it.
I really think that not having Phillips on the bench instead of Furlong or O’Neill or whoever was a real mistake. Healy and Hodge were tiring, especially Healy - and there were no midfielders on the bench. He also would have helped us recover the ball a bit better - we were just defending for our lives in those last 10 mins including injury time.
Thought the first half was poor. They were the better team, dominating possession with the number 10 dictating although we restricted them to shots from distance - equally did we even have a shot, bar maybe that Armstrong header? Defenders and keeper were all very good. But really we were just hoping that the physical attributes of Armstrong and Emakhu would get us something on the break.
Second half we were much better. Hodge in particular started to take control. We looked sure to score. Thought taking off Emakhu for a midfielder set us back for about 10 mins. In the end, the wing backs had to do a lot of heavy lifting in an attacking sense - the dodgy offside goal was Roughan driving past two players, and ultimately scoring and the goal was Curtis making a really good run to get into that space and Hodge finding him.
You could argue that’s validation of Crawford’s tactics and the 5 at the back. You could also argue, it’s not optimal that Curtis and Roughan who aren’t the most attacking of defenders end up having to be your attacking outlet.
Anyway… On to Tuesday! Not sure if doing Tallaght and Lansdowne is really feasible
I also thought Garcia Macnulty had an excellent game - he looked like he could read the game and very calm in possession.
On of the few times I’ve watched an Irish team play out from the back and look genuinely comfortable every time. Credit to the defenders and the keeper on that. All three at the back had good moments, using the ball well and stepping into midfield at times. It was good to see.
I've been trying to do the maths on this and considering our H2H with Norway there's a strong argument that it suits us more for Italy to win. A draw is probably the worst result. Part of my logic is that we have two critical games in October and if Norway pick up points on Tuesday then it's all to play for. Needing a win away against Italy does not bode too well with out history of handling pressure badly.
If Italy lose to Norway and we beat Norway then Italy can't catch us in the final game. Which could and should be enough for one of the three automatic qualification spots as best runner up. That's without even playing Italy.
All we should be focusing on is winning our remaining home games and not worried about who can do us a favor.
It will be, but because Italy play Norway before we do there's inevitably going to be an interest in that game and whether the result suits us or not. An Italy win is probably best in terms of us coming top 2 and getting a playoff (or an outside chance of an auto Q for second place). If we're looking at winning the group a Norway win is probably better, but it seriously increases the risk that we end up in third. A draw is probably the worst possible result - keeps Norway in touch and Italy at arm's length.
1-0 up after 15 minutes. Sinclair Armstrong with a tap in after his initial shot was saved, and O'Neill's follow up fell to him
Dominated for the first ten minutes