Republic of Ireland V Russia - Friday, 8th October 2010 - Euro 2012 Qualifier

[ShamrockIreland]

how exactly would you define Darron Gibson or Keith Fahey?

Substitutes

[paul_oshea]

how exactly would you define Darron Gibson or Keith Fahey?

He sees fahey as a right winger, fahey himself sees himself as a CM, where he played at pats. His defensive game may not be good enough to play there, but on last fridays game neither was whelan or green and he offers more going forward. Gibson i honestly beleive is there more on who he plays with than anything else and Trap picks him based on that. But again they are substitutes, gibson offers more going forward than either, and we definitely held onto the ball more when he came on. Again if the players that are picked are picked for a particular reason and they aren't doing that, or are not capable, then for overall balance it makes more sense to pick the player than can actually do something different.

[Stuttgart88]

They have been substitutes in the past. That doesn't mean they'll be substitutes tomorrow.

Let's just assume we pick the same back 4 as usual.

Any 6 from Lawrence, McGeady, Fahey, Gibson, Whelan, Long and Keane, regardless of how they are lined up (451, or 442), should have enough footballing ability to move the ball around with purpose and be organised enough without the ball to be competitive in Slovakia.

[liamoo11]

lets hope to god we get gibson starting.The man has bags of ability and this is an excellent chance to go out and have a major impact on a game by simply passing the ball something Green struggles with

[paul_oshea]

yes but when you do clueless things like including Paul Green in a competitive game against Russia when he has already shown he is not even close to this level then you can probably see why these sort of comments come up.

early onset of dementia john83? Our senile even.

[paul_oshea]

Dunne was defintely harshly penalised for their first goal, and two of their goals were deflections. So, if Trap really was a lucky manager we might have got away with it. No complaints though, Russia were totally and utterly dominant. I siad it here loads of times before - I love watching eastern Europeans play football. They find angles that don't exist in our game and they take positions that we never take, not to mention total and utter comfort on the ball. I'd say the term "channel" doesn't exist most footballing languages. I actually prefer eastern European style than Latin style football.

Agreed in the SS i was speaking with a guy with a camera, there vision and awareness is unreal, on 3 occassion i cant remember if it was zerkhov or whoever but he was going forward and he was looking to the left, yet he picked a pass to a player 20 or 25 yards to his right. He knew automatically where the player was without even looking. They were finding spaces where we couldn't even see on the sidelines. What was really telling was their accuracy with long balls, they were hitting passes considerable distance and completely by passing the midfield, but their accuracy and ball control on the receiver was sublime. Its easy see why whelan and green got nowhere near their midfield.

[Wolfie]

I suggested I'd reserve judgement on Green until after the Russia game. It barely warrants the mention that Green struggled but Whelans disappearing act and astute Russian tactics compounded his task.

I defended Green and hoped he'd find his feet but unfortunately I think its more a case of limited ability - he's not much more to give.

Searching for positives - I'm hoping such a poor performance will result in a determined and much better display by the team against Slovakia.

[Stuttgart88]

Searching for positives - I'm hoping such a poor performance will result in a determined and much better display by the team against Slovakia.

Anyone remember when Celtic were outplayed by Blackburn in Glasgow (1-1) before winning easily at Ewood in the 2003 UEFA Cup? Henrik Larsson was asked by BBC afterwards what the secret of the turnaround was. His answer was brilliant - "we were sh1t in the first game".

[Dodge]

Yep, but Slovakia were beaten in Armenia so they'll be even more fired up

[Stuttgart88]

Both teams will be licking their wounds. Maybe we'll be fired up.

Both could remain rubbish.

One could remain rubbish, one could improve.

Both could improve.

[tetsujin1979]

Anyone remember when Celtic were outplayed by Blackburn in Glasgow (1-1) before winning easily at Ewood in the 2003 UEFA Cup? Henrik Larsson was asked by BBC afterwards what the secret of the turnaround was. His answer was brilliant - "we were sh1t in the first game".

Same happened against Liverpool. After being outplayed at Celtic Park, they turned the tie around at Anfield, with John Hartson scoring one of my favourite goals ever.
Remember how Anelka was the standout player at Croke Park, and then anonymous in Paris 5 days later?

Both teams will be licking their wounds. Maybe we'll be fired up.

Both could remain rubbish.

One could remain rubbish, one could improve.

Both could improve.

n_P_k = n! / (n - k)!
or something like that

[paul_oshea]

Both teams will be licking their wounds. Maybe we'll be fired up.

Both could remain rubbish.

One could remain rubbish, one could improve.

Both could improve.

THe unkown unknowns....

[tetsujin1979]

THe unkown unknowns....

the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence

[Sullivinho]

I suggested I'd reserve judgement on Green until after the Russia game. It barely warrants the mention that Green struggled but Whelans disappearing act and astute Russian tactics compounded his task.

I defended Green and hoped he'd find his feet but unfortunately I think its more a case of limited ability - he's not much more to give.

Pretty much sums up my feelings on Green too.

Sure, he was cast adrift by Whelan but there were other deficiences that can't be blamed on that. At one point he went to control a ball on the edge of their box and laid it off nicely for their right back. I felt awkward watching him tbh. A shame really, he looked like a decent addition after those first few friendlies.

[twoenz]

Im just back from dublin after staying up for the weekend so havent read any opinions on the match here or even in the papers. Was too disgusted all weekend and still am really. I just want to say that I think Paul Green is probably the worst player Ive seen play for us in an Qualifer. Ive defended Trap to the hilt on this site in the past but if Green continues to start for us it will be a disgrace. There is no excuse to continue with him in there. He has zero footballing ability or positioning sense. I would choose any of our midfielder from the u21s to replace him, dont care who it would be they would be a vast improvement

I'm not sure Green's the worst player ever to play for us, he's just amazingly unlucky. He's like an eager but extremely mangy terrier that keeps running into glass doors and has his tongue lolling out.

He''s always harrying and is willing to put a shift in and doesn't get deterred when the ball again goes to the opposition, but every time he touches it it ends up going to the other team.

I thought Friday night was just one of those nights to be honest. We came up against a Russia team that played out of their skin. The fact that they had a good spine from one team showed, the movement in the middle of the field was impressive, although because ours is so static it's hard to judge them.

Shay Given should have dealt with the first goal, which brings me to a point: when was the last time Shay had a good game for us? He was a passenger for the whole last campaign. He wasn't called on that often, but didn't make any great saves at the same time. Kilbane was intent of giving anyone in a redcurrant shirt the freedom of South Dublin, but he wasn't helped by the wingers sucking the whole team into the middle.

It could have been much different if we'd scored before Russia got theirs though.

I thought the atmosphere was excellent, with the stadium really coming into its own for the first time.

[SwanVsDalton]

Shay Given should have dealt with the first goal, which brings me to a point: when was the last time Shay had a good game for us? He was a passenger for the whole last campaign. He wasn't called on that often, but didn't make any great saves at the same time.

Not sure where you're getting that. I can't be specific but Shay made crucial saves in most of our games last year - particularly Montenegro away, Georgia away, Italy home and France home as I recall. He may not have made six or seven brilliant saves in one game, but then we were never seriously under the cosh for 90 last campaign either. Friday was below par but he's largely been his consistent, unflappable self up til then.

[Charlie Darwin]

Given made one great save where he was unsighted in the first half. Can't really blame him for the first - it came at his too fast to catch and he deflected it away from the goal, which is all he could really do. He's set the bar so high for himself that people seem to be shocked when he doesn't perform heroics.

[tetsujin1979]

It can be hard to mark a keeper's performance, if a keeper only has to make one save and keeps a clean sheet, does that mean he had a bad game? By the same token if he makes a load of saves and still loses 6-0, he can still have had an excellent game. Logan recently lost heavily playing for Leicester against Portsmouth, and was still praised for his performance.

What I remember from the last campaign was that Shay performed well when called upon to make saves, and I would expect no less from any keeper.

[brine3]

"Shay Given should have dealt with the first goal, which brings me to a point: when was the last time Shay had a good game for us?"

Which brings me to a point: When was the last time he had a bad game?

He's the first name down on the team sheet, no argument.

As somebody pointed out, we're so used to having a world class goalkeeper that we've started taking it for granted. Just like Man City, the ungrateful langers.

[Fixer82]

At one point in the Russia game the camera cut to Dunne after we had conceded a corner and he is clearly mouthing the words 'f**k me man'.

The fact that he consistently tried to play the ball out of defence on the deck suggests to me that he's sick and tired of Trap's long ball system