A Pessimistic outlook for the National Team - long post beware

[Stuttgart88]

I think the fact that a good portion of our team is in the Championship isn't that big a deal. What standard of football are the Bulgarian or Georgian squads playing?

International football outside the top 10 or 12 sides in the world is pretty much that standard anyway.

I think a lot of what Kevin says is true but despite the length of the post it doesn't say much beyond what we've known for ages: if we had a good midfield we'd actually be a good team. With the midfield we have it'll always be hit & miss.

[irishfan86]

I don't think things are as glum as you profess.

Keane is a quality striker that should probably have been 3rd choice at Liverpool behind Gerrard and Torres. Liverpool score most of their goals in the last 30 minutes, and he was rarely allowed to participate in that part of the game. No footballing fan can honestly believe that Ngog and Kuyt are better options than Keane as cover. Yes he had a few bad misses, but I honestly think he was mistreated and misused by Benitez- contrast Keane's treatment to how Berbatov was looked after by Ferguson. Berbatov was given the chance to settle in, and wasn't dropped despite a less than wonderful start to the campaign. Ferguson's excellent man management versus Benitez's borderline handicapped handling of Keane is why the Reds will never win an English title under Rafa's leadership.

Doyle is the leading goalscorer in the Championship- Yeah he's having a real stinker of a season man!

This is Duff's first season in about two years where he has been consistently healthy. He isn't the player he was in the 2002 World Cup, but he is still our best winger and has performed well in this qualifying campaign, and is performing at a good level for a struggling Newcastle side.

McGeady has had a poor season in contrast to his player of the season year last year, but is still capable of moments of magic. He can be frustrating at times, but once he settles in the team I think he can become one of our most crucial players.

Whelan has fought his way into the Stoke starting XI and been part of a number of fantastic team performances over the past few weeks. He is not as good going forward as some of the elite box-to-box midfielders, but he is playing a defensive role with us and in that role he has excelled with his club team in the last while.

Andrews has managed to keep his place, despite a change in manager. He has been part of a Blackburn side that has been undefeated in 8 matches after having a horrible start to the year.

Gibson is probably a player more for the future than now, and I'm not too sure how confident I am in him playing for us in the big games. I think he can do a job against Georgia, but I'd be very worried against the likes of Italy.

Kilbane will be a first choice left back at Premiership level now, which isn't something we've had for a while.

O'Shea is getting first team football at a top Premier League club. Yes, this is because of injury, but we cannot ignore the fact that he has been part of a back four that has not conceded in over 10 matches.

Dunne is having a bad year, and his recent sending off was a moment of idiocy I find hard to comprehend. Despite this, I know he has the quality to bounce back. I feel with De Jong now in the City midfield, Dunne may not be as exposed and may perform better in the second half of the season.

At right back I'm not really sure what's going on.

I don't want McShane there, and Finnan is probably not going to be match fit by the time the Georgia match comes around.

Yet, nobody else has really established themselves as a better option. I realize Foley is playing wonderfully at Wolves, and I would probably pick him ahead of McShane, but I'd be worried about throwing in a player like that into a qualifier without some recent involvement in the team (Poland would have been the ideal blooding ground).

The key thing for me is that we seem to have a genuine group mentality for the first time since the WC2002 campaign. We have a system, a vision, and a goal.

I don't agree with everything Trap has done, but at least it seems to have a logic and direction.

Now let's get behind the lads, and GIVE IT A LASH TRAP, NEVER NEVER SAY NO

[theworm2345]

He's

a)not Irish
b) sh1t
c) a scumbag. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-on-woman.html

Next

.

I'm a fan of King's but I agree there wouldn't be "positive Jamaican vibes" off him.

There was that incident, a fight with Dean Windass not long before that, and as I recall he was banned by the JFF for two years and didn't represent Jamaica for those two years.

Clint's part Jamaican so he can bring those vibes

[Razors left peg]

I don't think things are as glum as you profess.

Keane is a quality striker that should probably have been 3rd choice at Liverpool behind Gerrard and Torres. Liverpool score most of their goals in the last 30 minutes, and he was rarely allowed to participate in that part of the game. No footballing fan can honestly believe that Ngog and Kuyt are better options than Keane as cover. Yes he had a few bad misses, but I honestly think he was mistreated and misused by Benitez- contrast Keane's treatment to how Berbatov was looked after by Ferguson. Berbatov was given the chance to settle in, and wasn't dropped despite a less than wonderful start to the campaign. Ferguson's excellent man management versus Benitez's borderline handicapped handling of Keane is why the Reds will never win an English title under Rafa's leadership.

Doyle is the leading goalscorer in the Championship- Yeah he's having a real stinker of a season man!

This is Duff's first season in about two years where he has been consistently healthy. He isn't the player he was in the 2002 World Cup, but he is still our best winger and has performed well in this qualifying campaign, and is performing at a good level for a struggling Newcastle side.

McGeady has had a poor season in contrast to his player of the season year last year, but is still capable of moments of magic. He can be frustrating at times, but once he settles in the team I think he can become one of our most crucial players.

Whelan has fought his way into the Stoke starting XI and been part of a number of fantastic team performances over the past few weeks. He is not as good going forward as some of the elite box-to-box midfielders, but he is playing a defensive role with us and in that role he has excelled with his club team in the last while.

Andrews has managed to keep his place, despite a change in manager. He has been part of a Blackburn side that has been undefeated in 8 matches after having a horrible start to the year.

Gibson is probably a player more for the future than now, and I'm not too sure how confident I am in him playing for us in the big games. I think he can do a job against Georgia, but I'd be very worried against the likes of Italy.

Kilbane will be a first choice left back at Premiership level now, which isn't something we've had for a while.

O'Shea is getting first team football at a top Premier League club. Yes, this is because of injury, but we cannot ignore the fact that he has been part of a back four that has not conceded in over 10 matches.

Dunne is having a bad year, and his recent sending off was a moment of idiocy I find hard to comprehend. Despite this, I know he has the quality to bounce back. I feel with De Jong now in the City midfield, Dunne may not be as exposed and may perform better in the second half of the season.

At right back I'm not really sure what's going on.

I don't want McShane there, and Finnan is probably not going to be match fit by the time the Georgia match comes around.

Yet, nobody else has really established themselves as a better option. I realize Foley is playing wonderfully at Wolves, and I would probably pick him ahead of McShane, but I'd be worried about throwing in a player like that into a qualifier without some recent involvement in the team (Poland would have been the ideal blooding ground).

The key thing for me is that we seem to have a genuine group mentality for the first time since the WC2002 campaign. We have a system, a vision, and a goal.

I don't agree with everything Trap has done, but at least it seems to have a logic and direction.

Now let's get behind the lads, and GIVE IT A LASH TRAP, NEVER NEVER SAY NO

Excellent post, very well said

[eirebhoy]

At the moment we have a good back bone of a team with Given, Dunne, O'Shea(yes, him), Stephen Reid(when fit), Keane and Duff. But what about in 4-5 years time when they're all retired? There isn't a lot coming through at the highest level i.e. Prem. Yes, we have some good prospects at Championship level but we don't really know how they will pan out or if they can make it to Premiership level.

Still though McCann, Scannell, Garvan, S.Quinn, O'Toole, Foley and McCarthy are all U21 players that have been linked with moves to the premiership in recent months. We're never going to have loads of players coming through at premiership level at once. Keane and Reid themselves came through at a lower level.

[Razors left peg]

Still though McCann, Scannell, Garvan, S.Quinn, O'Toole, Foley and McCarthy are all U21 players that have been linked with moves to the premiership in recent months. We're never going to have loads of players coming through at premiership level at once. Keane and Reid themselves came through at a lower level.

If there are 1 or 2 lads breaking through every year thats enough

[elroy]

I think elroy's referring to the planned expansion of the European Championships to 24 teams from 2016. Whether or not that means teams like Ireland (and Wales?) will qualify regularly is questionable though.

Correct, cant speak for Wales but from an Irish point of view, we wouldve qualified for the vast majority of the recent Euro Championships with the exception of probably Euro 2008.

[SkStu]

I've be saying for years around here that we think that soccer doesn't exist outside of England. Instead of letting English clubs develop all our players, perhaps we should be looking to Europe and leagues like Holland and France where they place more of an emphasis on developing young players. Or God forbid, that we actually develop something ourselves in our own country.

nail on head - until then we can have no real issues with irregular qualification and bad qualification group standings/results.

on a more positive note, i think that Kev's post is very applicable right now but most of his comments are on the form, as opposed to the ability, of our pool of players which means that the outlook could be quite different within a month or two. In the short term and bearing in mind my first sentence, this campaign is actually going quite well, even if Trappatoni is a lazy sod.

[Wolfie]

Georgia are playing a worse standard, but then Georgia are pretty crap.

They may well be - but we were all glad to hear the final whistle when we played them in Germany.

I'd assume nothing against these lads. They could push us very close and may well still resent having had to play us in Germany at all.

If we happen to concede a goal against anyone - we're woefully set up to rescue a game at the moment.

[geysir]

Pessimism for the Dutch would be 'we won't get further than the q/f with this team/coach/squad'.
Pessimism is connected to expectations.

The first question here is, what are our expectations.
Mine are a 2nd place and win a play off. Those expectations are a bit higher than what standard the team are currently managing.
But we are playing better as a team and the team can play better.
There have been plusses since Trap took over.
Players are much better prepared and confident to do whatever he expects according to the game plan
We are in a good position now to move on.

[Stuttgart88]

Exactly Geysir. It's like when everyone used to bemoan not having world class players. What do you need world class players for when it can be unainimously agreed that qualification would be a result?

Some really good posts above - it ain't so bleak.

[Cymro]

Correct, cant speak for Wales but from an Irish point of view, we wouldve qualified for the vast majority of the recent Euro Championships with the exception of probably Euro 2008.

I think you would have done it in Euro 2008, based on the fact you finished third, and there were 7 groups. So the 16 qualifiers of 2008 would have been joined in this hypothetical scenario by the 7 third-placed teams and the best fourth placed team.

However, in future when this gets implemented, they'll probably make more groups of lesser numbers of teams to avoid the scenario of four teams qualifying from one group. It'll probably be something like ten groups of five, with the winners and runners-up to be joined by the hosts and two play-off winners. So I wouldn't be taking qualification for granted. A typical group would likely contain at least one top team along the lines of England/France/Netherlands/Germany/Italy/Portugal/Spain etc. and one decent team such as one of Scandinavian countries, or Switzerland/Greece/Turkey/Ukraine or the like.

In my view this would not represent a significantly easier qualification route than the present system. Of course, this is all speculation. I have no idea what FIFA/UEFA have planned for 2016 onwards, or even whether the expansion is actuially confirmed as going ahead yet.

edit: just for fun, here's what the 2016 groups might plausibly look like based on current FIFA Zonal rankings

A
Spain
Scotland
Finland
Austria
Moldova
B
Germany
Czech Republic
Belgium
Belarus
Georgia
C
Netherlands
Sweden
Northern Ireland
Iceland
Armenia
D
Italy
Poland
Republic of Ireland
Albania
Montenegro
E
Croatia
Ukraine
Lithuania
Norway
Estonia
F
England
Switzerland
Slovakia
Latvia
Luxembourg
G
Russia
Bulgaria
Hungary
Wales
Kazakhstan
H
Turkey
Greece
Serbia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Azerbaijan
San Marino
I
France
Israel
FYR Macedonia
Slovenia
Malta
Andorra
J
Portugal
Romania
Denmark
Cyprus
Liechtenstein
Faroe Islands

Bearing in mind you have to finish top two to qualify (allowing for a couple of play-off spots, depending on the number of hosts), I don't think it's much different to what we have now. The main difference is that runners-up will qualify automatically rather than face a play-off, but I still assert that finishing second in any of those groups would be a pretty decent challenge.

[elroy]

I think you would have done it in Euro 2008, based on the fact you finished third, and there were 7 groups. So the 16 qualifiers of 2008 would have been joined in this hypothetical scenario by the 7 third-placed teams and the best fourth placed team.

However, in future when this gets implemented, they'll probably make more groups of lesser numbers of teams to avoid the scenario of four teams qualifying from one group. It'll probably be something like ten groups of five, with the winners and runners-up to be joined by the hosts and two play-off winners. So I wouldn't be taking qualification for granted. A typical group would likely contain at least one top team along the lines of England/France/Netherlands/Germany/Italy/Portugal/Spain etc. and one decent team such as one of Scandinavian countries, or Switzerland/Greece/Turkey/Ukraine or the like.

In my view this would not represent a significantly easier qualification route than the present system. Of course, this is all speculation. I have no idea what FIFA/UEFA have planned for 2016 onwards, or even whether the expansion is actuially confirmed as going ahead yet.

edit: just for fun, here's what the 2016 groups might plausibly look like based on current FIFA Zonal rankings

A
Spain
Scotland
Finland
Austria
Moldova
B
Germany
Czech Republic
Belgium
Belarus
Georgia
C
Netherlands
Sweden
Northern Ireland
Iceland
Armenia
D
Italy
Poland
Republic of Ireland
Albania
Montenegro
E
Croatia
Ukraine
Lithuania
Norway
Estonia
F
England
Switzerland
Slovakia
Latvia
Luxembourg
G
Russia
Bulgaria
Hungary
Wales
Kazakhstan
H
Turkey
Greece
Serbia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Azerbaijan
San Marino
I
France
Israel
FYR Macedonia
Slovenia
Malta
Andorra
J
Portugal
Romania
Denmark
Cyprus
Liechtenstein
Faroe Islands

Bearing in mind you have to finish top two to qualify (allowing for a couple of play-off spots, depending on the number of hosts), I don't think it's much different to what we have now. The main difference is that runners-up will qualify automatically rather than face a play-off, but I still assert that finishing second in any of those groups would be a pretty decent challenge.

Fecking hell, you gave us a tough group there Cymro to say the least. Bit kinder to yourself i see. Hope they never put you in charge of the draw.

[jbyrne]

Here is the team that played Iran away 2001 and most of these played in WC2002
Republic of Ireland: Given, Finnan, Breen, Staunton, Harte, McAteer, Kinsella, Holland, Kilbane, Robbie Keane, Connolly.

Given, Finnan, Kilbane, Dunne and O'Shea surely better than WC2002 defense. The present midfield and forward line for me is about the same quality as 2002's

the real difference between now and WC02 is the lack of a real target man up front. when quinn retired we were without a target man for the 1st time possibly since stapletons career started. for example quinns time on the pitch during the finals was very very limited yet he set up robbies goal v germany and won the pen against spain. i believe we will always struggle until we get someone of quinns target man ability back in the sqaud. this may seem to be a very basic view and may upset those who want us to play fantastic attacking football but the affect that our target men had over 15 yrs cannot be under estimated

[boovidge]

Clint's part Jamaican so he can bring those vibes

I'd prefer Scannell

[donalmcdonagh]

the real difference between now and WC02 is the lack of a real target man up front. when quinn retired we were without a target man for the 1st time possibly since stapletons career started. for example quinns time on the pitch during the finals was very very limited yet he set up robbies goal v germany and won the pen against spain. i believe we will always struggle until we get someone of quinns target man ability back in the sqaud. this may seem to be a very basic view and may upset those who want us to play fantastic attacking football but the affect that our target men had over 15 yrs cannot be under estimated

Doyle wins about 90% of his headers, he is unbelievably strong in the air....I don think we suffer in that dept too much. Also, Mick McC's side didnt rely on a target man..we played a simple passing game. I would argue that a midfield presence is what we have lacked. And since WC02 we havent had a manager who could match a system to our strengths and thus we havent succeded. I think maybe the next few years coul dbe a high point for this group of players...our senior pro's are playing good football and most are in their prime, this coupled with the talented youth we have hopefully will give us a good blend.

[donalmcdonagh]

the real difference between now and WC02 is the lack of a real target man up front. when quinn retired we were without a target man for the 1st time possibly since stapletons career started. for example quinns time on the pitch during the finals was very very limited yet he set up robbies goal v germany and won the pen against spain. i believe we will always struggle until we get someone of quinns target man ability back in the sqaud. this may seem to be a very basic view and may upset those who want us to play fantastic attacking football but the affect that our target men had over 15 yrs cannot be under estimated

the real difference between now and WC02 is the lack of a real target man up front. when quinn retired we were without a target man for the 1st time possibly since stapletons career started. for example quinns time on the pitch during the finals was very very limited yet he set up robbies goal v germany and won the pen against spain. i believe we will always struggle until we get someone of quinns target man ability back in the sqaud. this may seem to be a very basic view and may upset those who want us to play fantastic attacking football but the affect that our target men had over 15 yrs cannot be under estimated

Doyle wins about 90% of his headers, he is unbelievably strong in the air....I don think we suffer in that dept too much. Also, Mick McC's side didnt rely on a target man..we played a simple passing game. I would argue that a midfield presence is what we have lacked. And since WC02 we havent had a manager who could match a system to our strengths and thus we havent succeded. I think maybe the next few years could be a high point for this group of players...our senior pro's are playing good football and most are in their prime, this coupled with the talented youth we have hopefully will give us a good blend.

[DeLorean]

A
Spain
Scotland
Finland
Austria
Moldova
B
Germany
Czech Republic
Belgium
Belarus
Georgia
C
Netherlands
Sweden
Northern Ireland
Iceland
Armenia
D
Italy
Poland
Republic of Ireland
Albania
Montenegro
E
Croatia
Ukraine
Lithuania
Norway
Estonia
F
England
Switzerland
Slovakia
Latvia
Luxembourg
G
Russia
Bulgaria
Hungary
Wales
Kazakhstan
H
Turkey
Greece
Serbia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Azerbaijan
San Marino
I
France
Israel
FYR Macedonia
Slovenia
Malta
Andorra
J
Portugal
Romania
Denmark
Cyprus
Liechtenstein
Faroe Islands

Very interesting post. I think the trick will be to get into that group of 2nd seeds and that should make life a lot easier for ourselves. Qualifying for SA should do that I'd imagine.

[jbyrne]

Doyle wins about 90% of his headers, he is unbelievably strong in the air....I don think we suffer in that dept too much. Also, Mick McC's side didnt rely on a target man..we played a simple passing game.

i dont doubt doyles ability in the air but hes not an out and out target man. have a look at our WC02 qualifying and you'll see how often quinn was used as an outlet. robbies goal v germany was a classic target man assisted goal by quinn (for example)

[Cymro]

BarelyLegal - Some of the third and fourth seeds are decent too, though. Teams like Norway, Slovenia, Austria etc. from the fourth pot and Finland and Serbia from the third pot (among others) would all be giving some headaches.

And elroy - yeah, I did the draw randomly, but nonetheless that is a bitch of a group that Ireland got.