Republic of Ireland V Lithuania - Tuesday, 29th March 2022 - Friendly

As said above, plenty learnt, just not too much positive!

Hourihane is clearly a very elegant footballer but I find he’s an utterly ineffective one. He just has no lasting influence in a game. His dead balls were poor which is more often than not the case with him. But the contrast between him and Cullen is remarkable. Cullen’s bravery to receive the ball in almost “hospital pass” situations is key to playing out from deep and drawing an opposition press. Hourihane is slower, always wants to receive the ball in space and by then the opposition is set behind the ball.

Browne wasn’t great either and the partnership was poor. It seems he’s at his best arriving late, attacking space but he rarely got to do that.

I’ve been a bit doubtful that Manning can cut it at this level and thought he looked shaky in his few mins against Belgium. But I thought he looked really good last night, one awful switch pass to Doc (which led to a corner) excepted! He also looked good in the back 3.

Keane didn’t impress much.

Ogbene and Robinson were good in parts.

We have some great young defenders.

Hendrick and McClean added some urgency. Doc showed leadership by example. In the absence of a central midfielder conducting things Doc’s willingness to get forward raised the whole tempo I think.

Knight made a big difference. Parrot grew into the game and looked a threat even before his goal.

Great to get a win in the end. Change the midfield and we’re grand. Cullen emerging as a “key man risk” in my opinion.

We just don’t score bland goals anymore do we?

Not sure about Manning. His debut against Bulgaria still colours my opinion of him. But he’s a left-footed, Championship regular which has merit.

Hourihane’s saving grace(s) are those sweeping balls he can make with his left foot and his dead balls deliveries. Absent last night.

Keane couldn’t make the ball stick, struggled to make clean connections when on the ball, and just gave a lost air about him when he’s probably in the form of his career. Mentioned earlier in the thread, but looked a L1 player playing international football. Do we continue to persist with him or move on to exploring other options? I think the latter.

Gavin Cummiskey on Hourihane:

This management have long supported Hourihane, despite a slide into obscurity at Aston Villa, but the 31-year-old’s corner deliveries – the main source of Irish chances in the first half – lacked any threat, never mind accuracy.

So much of the play went through Hourihane for next to no return. He did find the net on 53 minutes, but Robinson was clearly offside and blocking Lithuania goalkeeper Dziugas Bartkus’s view, and in fairness it was his angled ball into the box that fell for Parrott’s winner.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...jail-1.4839627

(GC must have missed that he's at Sheff U these days)

He’s still on Aston Villa’s books, so that’s probably what he means with the obscurity comment as he’s not going to get another look in at Villa.

On a positive note, not that long ago when we needed either Brady or Hourihane on the pitch for their dead-ball deliveries – just to have the possibility of scoring a goal.

Despite the struggles last night and this is still very much a work-in-progress, it does feel like we have hit our bottom and we’ve turned a corner on a progressively worse momentum we’ve had for the last 20 odd years.

We've had so many years in the last decade, where even friendly games against weak opposition saw us struggle to keep the ball and create anything. This felt different, there's no escaping it was a relatively disappointing result, but in the end a completely deserved win was secured. We had about 70% possession and it always felt like just a matter of time before we scored and there was never a sense of dread that Lithuania would nick a goal (unlike earlier in the Kenny regime when it felt like we were never going to score and it was almost inevitable the opposition would nick something). There was a lack or creativity, no question, but you even see some of the great teams struggle to break down a low block against weaker opposition, it even happens to Liverpool with Salah and Mané from time to time. We don't have the luxury of that level of player unfortunately. I'm glad the result came in the end, because it would have been a shame to kill the bit of momentum that seems to be building. You could see it meant a lot more than an average friendly win to most of the players.

Hopefully Idah can regain fitness and Obafemi and Connolly can keep up their form and force themselves into the squad. There's at least some depth now in the attacking options and we're seeing goals from Ogbene, Robinson and Parrott. I'd like to see Keane again, I know it didn't go well for him, but he's highly thought of and if he maintains his club form and maybe moves up a level, he's got a lot of attributes that would make him a useful option. Outside of Idah he's the only forward we have that could be considered a big unit, even if his style of play is very different.

There's still a lot of work to do, but there's a really solid core to the team now, with great options at centre back and reasonable options at wing back and in the attacking positions. The scary one is the sudden reliance on Cullen and a rejuvenated Hendrick. They fit this formation and style particularly well and the options look very light weight in comparison at the moment.

Couple of things I noticed last night:

There was one point where we committed a lot of men forward, lost the ball, and Lithuania counter-attacked. In 2020, we would have been far too open, and probably left with a three-on-three. Last night, we got back into our defensive shape very quickly and efficiently, and snuffed out the attack.

Likewise, playing out from the back. It's a lot less shaky now. Everyone seems to know where to position themselves, and the off the ball movement is always 'two passes ahead' in order to beat the press. A lot of work has obviously been done on the training pitch to get these things right.

Hourihane is an issue. Tempo is hugely important when you're playing a possession-based game, and he just slows everything down. I think someone here, back in the Glenn Whelan days, compared the #6 role in football to the scrum-half role in rugby; when your main man is taking an age to get the ball under control and then slowly shovelling on the most obvious pass, it affects the entire team - it allows the opposition to set their defence, and makes us easy to defend against. Cullen is a breath of fresh air in this regard, but we need to be a bit ruthless with Hourihane, and find/nurture a replacement. I wouldn't be averse to getting Coventry or Kilkenny into the setup as soon as the U21s' Euro campaign is over.

Browne provides a decent goal threat, but he's just not very good at the basics of being a midfielder.

Delighted for Parrott.

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Originally Posted by Supreme feet

Hourihane is an issue. Tempo is hugely important when you're playing a possession-based game, and he just slows everything down. I think someone here, back in the Glenn Whelan days, compared the #6 role in football to the scrum-half role in rugby; when your main man is taking an age to get the ball under control and then slowly shovelling on the most obvious pass, it affects the entire team - it allows the opposition to set their defence, and makes us easy to defend against. Cullen is a breath of fresh air in this regard, but we need to be a bit ruthless with Hourihane, and find/nurture a replacement. I wouldn't be averse to getting Coventry or Kilkenny into the setup as soon as the U21s' Euro campaign is over.

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I think you've nailed the Hourihane issue, I'd take it a step further in that he plays the obvious pass and then sees it as job done and steps away. The difference with Cullen is he'll move and look for it back quickly and he'll move again and he'll switch the play so much quicker, he'll also take on a more risky pass into the feet of an attacking player, even under pressure. Hourihane just doesn't do that nearly enough in comparison.

One other notable thing was the crossing, there was a lot of hopefully balls crossed in for the sake of putting the ball in the box. That's great sometimes, but we rarely looked like making anything of it. The few times we worked it to the end line the same cross into the 6 yard / penalty spot was tried every time. Yes it's a good option sometimes and it nearly paid off, but there was a need to maybe compose and pull it back to the edge of the penalty area a few times and whether that was down to Browne and Hourihane not making that run and creating the option, or our players just not getting the heads up I'm not sure. It's something they'll hopefully look at and work on in training.

A late winner always papers over the cracks, but I think its important to focus on the positives. It was a squad development exercise and these days there aren't many non competitive games to rotate. More than 70% possession and while that doesnt win games how often have we been able to say that we kept the ball that much even against so called inferior opposition. Kenny's Dundalk sides always played to the final whistle and scored a lot of late goals so I hope last nights late winner is evidence of that habit - keep the ball against side that sit in, move them about, tire them and chances will happen. There is quite a lot of criticism on social media due to the opposition but people seem to have forgotten that in the past with some of the great Irish teams we found it difficult to break down very defensive 'minnows', drawing with Lichtenstein under Charlton springs to mind when we were ranked in the top ten and i think it was Lichtenstein's first ever point.

https://www.skysports.com/football/r...a/stats/462782

Match stats from Sky Sports give us 78.2% possession, and an 88.5% pass completion rate. Can't find a number of passes listed anywhere for this one, but those figures alone are something we've never seen from an Ireland side previously. Even when playing the likes of Gibraltar in the past, we've never dominated a game as much, while keeping the opponents largely pinned in their own half.

With 18 shots, 10 corners, and all of the decent possession through the game, we really should have been scoring more. But it's continued improvement in key areas.

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

https://www.skysports.com/football/r...a/stats/462782

Match stats from Sky Sports give us 78.2% possession, and an 88.5% pass completion rate. Can't find a number of passes listed anywhere for this one, but those figures alone are something we've never seen from an Ireland side previously. Even when playing the likes of Gibraltar in the past, we've never dominated a game as much, while keeping the opponents largely pinned in their own half.

With 18 shots, 10 corners, and all of the decent possession through the game, we really should have been scoring more. But it's continued improvement in key areas.

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noticed that myself. however, many of our goal attempts were from outside the box and headers from positions we were never likely to score from.
far far too many of our crosses were from the wrong place, ie far too deep.
its obvious we needed a bit more guille around the box and try to get in behind them more. more patience on the crosses was required.
however, it was a much changed Ireland team and they had 11 behind the ball with zero interest in attacking. We have always struggled in such circumstances before.
Parrott is the big positive.... i strongly expect him to be a big player for us within 2 years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

https://www.skysports.com/football/r...a/stats/462782

Match stats from Sky Sports give us 78.2% possession, and an 88.5% pass completion rate. Can't find a number of passes listed anywhere for this one, but those figures alone are something we've never seen from an Ireland side previously. Even when playing the likes of Gibraltar in the past, we've never dominated a game as much, while keeping the opponents largely pinned in their own half.

With 18 shots, 10 corners, and all of the decent possession through the game, we really should have been scoring more. But it's continued improvement in key areas.

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I had 561 completed from 627 attempted, or 89.4%
Usually there's some difference across different sites, but 89% is probably about right. That's nine passes completed for every one pass that failed

I feel some of the criticism of Hourihane is over the top.

I didn't think he had that bad a game, but even if he did, that's all it was. One bad game doesn't mean we necessarily need to find a replacement for him or anything like that. It just means he wasn't at his best yesterday.

Has he had many good games for us though? Aside from scoring the free kick in the tennis ball game at the Aviva, what else has he done to merit repeated selection?

I wouldn't mind a one off bad game, but it feels like most of his 30 odd caps have been bad games to be honest. I suppose they're all just one off bad games if they're only each looked at individually!

slight change of topic but thought it curious given some criticism of some players.

It's my understanding that LOI fans rank the league somewhere between League 1 and Championship ie 3rd tier ish
Given it was a friendly, and given Kenny's history and positive attitude towards the LOI how was it that the only player who got a call up was the keeper and that was due to injuries etc.

How many players for these 2 games were from the 3rd tier, 4-5? Who would be able to give Will Keane a run for his money given the criticism here? Have the LOI lads not built any form/fitness yet? Are we hoping in the june window, someone could make the cut?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by backstothewall

I feel some of the criticism of Hourihane is over the top.

I didn't think he had that bad a game, but even if he did, that's all it was. One bad game doesn't mean we necessarily need to find a replacement for him or anything like that. It just means he wasn't at his best yesterday.

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I don't know. I think the criticism is couched in some similar performances and has to be taken in the context of how his performance impacted the team. Receiving the ball and standing there stagnantly before looking up and around and sweeping it out to the most obvious player doesn't help the team. That is why Cullen has become integral. He changes direction, he plays with urgency, he receives the ball in tight spaces, he turns in those tight spaces. I'm not saying he's the best player in the world, Cullen, but when he only have 2 midfield players then we need a lot more from them in terms of progressing the ball. Hendrick also demonstrated the contrast when he came in.

Hourihane might be fine for a 4-3-3 or a 3-5-2 but I don't think we can get away with playing him in a 3-4-3.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sparky12345678

slight change of topic but thought it curious given some criticism of some players.

It's my understanding that LOI fans rank the league somewhere between League 1 and Championship ie 3rd tier ish
Given it was a friendly, and given Kenny's history and positive attitude towards the LOI how was it that the only player who got a call up was the keeper and that was due to injuries etc.

How many players for these 2 games were from the 3rd tier, 4-5? Who would be able to give Will Keane a run for his money given the criticism here? Have the LOI lads not built any form/fitness yet? Are we hoping in the june window, someone could make the cut?

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Are you sure about this? I don't think that fans think that or the league is of that standard but I'm open to being corrected. To give a crude and simple answer, Georgie Kelly is still adjusting to life at Rotherham having been top scorer with Bohs last night. Keane is scoring lots at that level.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sparky12345678

slight change of topic but thought it curious given some criticism of some players.

It's my understanding that LOI fans rank the league somewhere between League 1 and Championship ie 3rd tier ish
Given it was a friendly, and given Kenny's history and positive attitude towards the LOI how was it that the only player who got a call up was the keeper and that was due to injuries etc.

How many players for these 2 games were from the 3rd tier, 4-5? Who would be able to give Will Keane a run for his money given the criticism here? Have the LOI lads not built any form/fitness yet? Are we hoping in the june window, someone could make the cut?

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Some League of Ireland fans might rank it between League 1 and the Championship but I don't think anyone else does.

The League of Ireland Premier is positioned moreso between League 2 and the National League if we're comparing to the English leagues. Hence the lack of call ups. In the same way that we very occasionally might call up a League 2 player if needed, there may be the same justification for the calling up of a League of Ireland player from time to time. In this case Talbot was called in, but he was more there as a training keeper than anything. With Talbot being in there, I'd suggest the league was over-represented, if anything.

I don’t think there’s very many that rate the LOI at that level,I don’t anyway but maybe there is others that do and they’re entitled to their opinion on that.

I also can’t think of any current LOI player that would be pushing for a call up to the National team either,it’s a very rare occurrence for a reason .

Maybe in time Jack Byrne might perform well in Europe and catch Kennys eye but I wouldn’t expect it tbh…..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sparky12345678

slight change of topic but thought it curious given some criticism of some players.

It's my understanding that LOI fans rank the league somewhere between League 1 and Championship ie 3rd tier ish ?

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I can’t believe there is anyone that ranks the LOI at that level, or even close.

I would say most LOI fans feel we have a few more players probably capable of playing at that level than others may realise but that would be about it.

It is miles off League 1 and not even in the same stratosphere as any part of the Championship.

Quick edit to say that I would agree with the above that there are no LOI players currently warranting significant consideration for the national squad.

The LOI is a mixed bag - some players could play at a good level in England given the chance, others wouldn't even play League football. It's hard to say where the league as a whole stands. A LOI top 3 team vs L1 top 10 would be interesting. I'd say L1.