Originally Posted by TerryPhelan
I believed you. I expressed as much when I started the France Prediction thread.
I can't understand how people can expect some glorious 2-0 or 3-0 to be plucked out of the air against a reinforced French side full of world class players, purely on the back of empty notions such as 'home advantage', 'guts' or 'heart'. As last night showed, we are simply not good enough. Duff and Robbie Keane never showed up. Kilbane was atrocious. Our last throw of the dice was to throw on a fringe player at a second division Spanish side and a Norwich city reserve. We failed to produce in the final third, and our tactics, for some inexplicable reason, seemed to be about playing the long ball.
The thing is, none of our performances in the group - up until and including last night - give cause for that kind of optimism. Cyprus have been very difficult for better sides than ours to break down away from home. And why people view Switzerland at home as some kind of foregone conclusion is beyond me. Just because we 'owe' them, doesn't somehow entitle us to a victory.
Last night showed that tactically and otherwise, while we can rally and scrap a bit for a while at this level, we don't pose nearly enough attacking threat to worry good teams. In the last 15-20 minutes we lost our shape and went out without a peep. I don't see how, on the back of our performances to date, people can expect much different from the tricky ties ahead of us.