Explosive comments from Stephen Kelly

[tommy_c12000]

Piece in Irish Examiner by Miguel Delaney about all the players Trapattoni fell out with over his tenure: Stephen Ireland, Andy Reid, Steven Reid, James McCarthy, Marc Wilson, Kevin Foley, Darron Gibson, James McClean, Shane Long, Stephen Kelly. Now we just need Trap to fall out with one more player (preferably a goalkeeper) and we could have a serious team on our hands. This is how I would line them up:

.......ANother(inevitable)

S Reid....Kelly....Wilson....Foley

Ireland..McCarthy..Gibson..McClean
...................A Reid

...................Long

Strong team on paper. Not ideal having Foley on the left but think Wilson is required in the centre given our paucity for options here. The 3-man midfield with Reid playing in an advanced role supporting Long certainly looks solid. Ireland has a tendency to get lost out on the wing but he can have a licence to tuck inside whenever he pleases. McClean will certainly give us the width on the other flank. Only problem is our goalkeeper . . . . this position continues to be worrisome . . . .

[Sullivinho]

Dean Kiely's your man, tommy.

[Park_Lane]

Piece in Irish Examiner by Miguel Delaney about all the players Trapattoni fell out with over his tenure: Stephen Ireland, Andy Reid, Steven Reid, James McCarthy, Marc Wilson, Kevin Foley, Darron Gibson, James McClean, Shane Long, Stephen Kelly. Now we just need Trap to fall out with one more player (preferably a goalkeeper) and we could have a serious team on our hands. This is how I would line them up:

.......ANother(inevitable)

S Reid....Kelly....Wilson....Foley

Ireland..McCarthy..Gibson..McClean
...................A Reid

...................Long

Strong team on paper. Not ideal having Foley on the left but think Wilson is required in the centre given our paucity for options here. The 3-man midfield with Reid playing in an advanced role supporting Long certainly looks solid. Ireland has a tendency to get lost out on the wing but he can have a licence to tuck inside whenever he pleases. McClean will certainly give us the width on the other flank. Only problem is our goalkeeper . . . . this position continues to be worrisome . . . .

Dean Kiely could of done a job a few years ago...

[NeverFeltBetter]

You don't need a newspaper to understand that Trap's has a truly awful record when it comes to this kind of stuff. People like Gibson pretty much brought it on themselves, but Kelly, Foley?

[ArdeeBhoy]

In, erm, Trap's 'defence' didn't Steven Reid retire from international football, due to injury issues?
That's his stock answer, every time the subject comes up when he features as a radio pundit...


Plus Long and McClean are in the current squad, so how do they 'count' in this respect?

[Spudulika]

In, erm, Trap's 'defence' didn't Steven Reid retire from international football, due to injury issues?
That's his stock answer, every time the subject comes up when he features as a radio pundit...


Plus Long and McClean are in the current squad, so how do they 'count' in this respect?

It doesn't count AB, it is all about selling papers and feeding the beast. It will be extremely hard to get a manager of any decent worth when the current one goes as they'd need to have some screws loose to take on the Irish job, even at the salary.

[paul_oshea]

The meejahideen.

[p2011]

Again, let's leave the media out of it. A media campaign is no reason to dismiss criticism of Trap, that's lazy thinking.
And anyway, acompetent manager should be able to handle/ignore the media and not feed it/react to it like Trap has been doing for years.
People on here always refer to his pedigree /results but forget his last jobs in Stuttgart and Salzburg weren't exactly successful.

[IsMiseSean]

People on here always refer to his pedigree /results but forget his last jobs in Stuttgart and Salzburg weren't exactly successful.

Did he not win the league with Salzburg?

[BonnieShels]

And Benfica 2 years before that.

[p2011]

It seems to be a regular occurence here that if you post and make two or three points, somebody will hop on half of the most minor of those points and try to pick it apart, ignoring what the main gist of the discussion is. I was making the point that "it's all a media campaign" might be true, but it is still no excuse for not critically examining what effect Trap is having at the moment.

Yes, of course he one a league at Salzburg. Anyone can google that. He was brought to an artificial moneybags club to get them far in Europe and didn't do that. He also won one league in two years, which wasn't good enough with the $$$ on offer, and the Austrian league is hardly strong. His time at Salzburg was thus not a great success, and his job before that in Stuttgart was a disaster.

[BonnieShels]

It seems to be a regular occurence here that if you post and make two or three points, somebody will hop on half of the most minor of those points and try to pick it apart, ignoring what the main gist of the discussion is. I was making the point that "it's all a media campaign" might be true, but it is still no excuse for not critically examining what effect Trap is having at the moment.

Yes, of course he one a league at Salzburg. Anyone can google that. He was brought to an artificial moneybags club to get them far in Europe and didn't do that. He also won one league in two years, which wasn't good enough with the $$$ on offer, and the Austrian league is hardly strong. His time at Salzburg was thus not a great success, and his job before that in Stuttgart was a disaster.

At the same time his successors haven't been up to much with Salzburg either. Dudelange anyone?
I think you can only judge a league's difficulty in the context of that league.

Fwiw I'm with you re Trap. I think he should go now. The last few months with the fallings out and the bizarre selections (Conor Sammon)

He steadied the ship after Staunton and got us to the Euros, and while that wasn't a complete success at least he got us to a tournament for the first time in a decade.

We have some good players capable of playing some good football. We need to use them properly or we will languish where we are for the forseeable.

[IsMiseSean]

Yes, of course he one a league at Salzburg. Anyone can google that. He was brought to an artificial moneybags club to get them far in Europe and didn't do that. He also won one league in two years, which wasn't good enough with the $$$ on offer, and the Austrian league is hardly strong. His time at Salzburg was thus not a great success, and his job before that in Stuttgart was a disaster.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but you can't call Trap's reign at Salzburg 'unsuccessful' when he won a league title.
I think Trap is having a negative affect on the team and constant falling out with players isn't ideal but I'm prepared to back him until I see what happens next month.

[DannyInvincible]

It seems to be a regular occurence here that if you post and make two or three points, somebody will hop on half of the most minor of those points and try to pick it apart, ignoring what the main gist of the discussion is. I was making the point that "it's all a media campaign" might be true, but it is still no excuse for not critically examining what effect Trap is having at the moment.

It's a discussion board. Points - be they minor or fundamental to the general gist - are evaluated and re-evaluated, which is all part of any thorough critical examination in an effort to get a bit closer to the truth of the matter. Strong arguments will be able to withstand "petty" criticisms and shouldn't have to rely on exaggerations and inaccuracies.

[Closed Account 2]

I think that campaign was Israel's high water mark, they were unbeaten v France and v Switzerland if I remember correctly. Switzerland were very very solid back then and regularly qualified. And France went on to the World up final that campaign.

I think Kerr's WC2006 group was significantly harder than Trap's two full campaigns. I don't see how anyone could doubt that, particularly the Euro2012 group. Comparing the teams' FIFA rankings at the times would give an objective measure,if someone looked it up.

Kerr's group (draw seedings in brackets):
1st France (Pot 1)
2nd Swiss (Pot 3)
3rd Israel (Pot 4)
4th Ireland (Pot 2)
5th Cyprus (Pot 5)
6th Faeroes (Pot 6)

Out of all the teams in seeding pots 1 & 2 only Belgium did as badly as us (they were also a second seed finishing 4th, behind Serbia, Spain and Bosnia). Again both ourselves and Belgium ended up as 4th seeds in the subsequent draw for Euro 2008.

Traps group (seeding pot at draw in brackets):
1st Russia (1st)
2nd Ireland (3rd)
3rd Armenia (5th)
4th Slovakia (2nd)
5th Macedonia (4th)
6th Andorra (6th)

We were the lowest seeded team to qualifiy for the tournament (Poland and Ukraine excluded since their seedings were skewed through lack of matches and also they didnt technicially qualify either). All 1st seeds qualified, but some 2nd seeds didnt (Swiss, Serbia, Slovakia - all of whom were at the previous WC, Turkey and Romania) and additionally all third seeds who were ranked above us didnt make it (Israel, Finland, Bulgaria, Norway).

It's one thing to slate Trap for bad tactis, negative football and falling out with players, but I don't think you can really fault him in terms of qualification record for 2010 and 2012. In each case he took a 3rd pot team into finishing second which is progess unlike Kerr. Dont forget when the draw was made for the WC 2010 qualifiers we had even slipped below the north in terms of seeding rank. In his two qualification campaigns we only lost twice (home France, home Russia) in 24 games (WC 10+2, Euro 10+2). Contrast that to the previous two campaigns we'd lost 4 times (Kerr: home France, Stan: away Germany, Czechs, Cyprus) in 22 (Kerr 10 Stan 12) against teams that were generally lower seeds than us.

[osarusan]

It's a discussion board. Points - be they minor or fundamental to the general gist - are evaluated and re-evaluated, which is all part of any thorough critical examination in an effort to get a bit closer to the truth of the matter. Strong arguments will be able to withstand "petty" criticisms and shouldn't have to rely on exaggerations and inaccuracies.

It's a discussion board, not a peer-reviewed journal.

Plenty of posters have no interest in getting to the truth on some issues. The notion that anything negative about Trap is part of a media 'agenda' is just one example.

[Bungle]

Kerr's group (draw seedings in brackets):
1st France (Pot 1)
2nd Swiss (Pot 3)
3rd Israel (Pot 4)
4th Ireland (Pot 2)
5th Cyprus (Pot 5)
6th Faeroes (Pot 6)

Out of all the teams in seeding pots 1 & 2 only Belgium did as badly as us (they were also a second seed finishing 4th, behind Serbia, Spain and Bosnia). Again both ourselves and Belgium ended up as 4th seeds in the subsequent draw for Euro 2008.

Traps group (seeding pot at draw in brackets):
1st Russia (1st)
2nd Ireland (3rd)
3rd Armenia (5th)
4th Slovakia (2nd)
5th Macedonia (4th)
6th Andorra (6th)

We were the lowest seeded team to qualifiy for the tournament (Poland and Ukraine excluded since their seedings were skewed through lack of matches and also they didnt technicially qualify either). All 1st seeds qualified, but some 2nd seeds didnt (Swiss, Serbia, Slovakia - all of whom were at the previous WC, Turkey and Romania) and additionally all third seeds who were ranked above us didnt make it (Israel, Finland, Bulgaria, Norway).

It's one thing to slate Trap for bad tactis, negative football and falling out with players, but I don't think you can really fault him in terms of qualification record for 2010 and 2012. In each case he took a 3rd pot team into finishing second which is progess unlike Kerr. Dont forget when the draw was made for the WC 2010 qualifiers we had even slipped below the north in terms of seeding rank. In his two qualification campaigns we only lost twice (home France, home Russia) in 24 games (WC 10+2, Euro 10+2). Contrast that to the previous two campaigns we'd lost 4 times (Kerr: home France, Stan: away Germany, Czechs, Cyprus) in 22 (Kerr 10 Stan 12) against teams that were generally lower seeds than us.

I think it is easy to look back at Brian Kerr's reign with rose tinted glasses, especially since the Euros. On paper, I would agree that Trap has done a far superior job and one qualification and one very cruel miss (WC 2010) point to that. Trap from 2008-2011 definitely did a better job on the whole results wise imo, which is what counts.

However, I don't agree that you could compare the groups that Kerr had for 2006 with what Trap had for Euro 2012. France with Henry and Zidane coming out of retirement were a better side than Russia. Switzerland 2006 were stronger than Slovakia. Israel had a very decent team at the time and were better than Armenia. I reckon Kerr would get us out of the Euro 2012 group. In fairness to Brian, he was unlucky in that it was such a tight group. We should've beaten the Israelis twice and outplayed the French away. He was very unlucky to lose his job after this campaign.

[tetsujin1979]

I think it is easy to look back at Brian Kerr's reign with rose tinted glasses, especially since the Euros. On paper, I would agree that Trap has done a far superior job and one qualification and one very cruel miss (WC 2010) point to that. Trap from 2008-2011 definitely did a better job on the whole results wise imo, which is what counts.

However, I don't agree that you could compare the groups that Kerr had for 2006 with what Trap had for Euro 2012. France with Henry and Zidane coming out of retirement were a better side than Russia. Switzerland 2006 were stronger than Slovakia. Israel had a very decent team at the time and were better than Armenia. I reckon Kerr would get us out of the Euro 2012 group. In fairness to Brian, he was unlucky in that it was such a tight group. We should've beaten the Israelis twice and outplayed the French away. He was very unlucky to lose his job after this campaign.

Kerr had a far better selection of players, in my opinion. Duff and Robbie Keane in their prime, Roy Keane back in the side. Choice of Finnan or Carr for right full. Given at full fitness for the entire qualifiers. We should have beaten Israel twice after going ahead twice, but we didn't. Trapattoni won every game against lower ranked opposition in the European Championship qualifiers. Whatever else you can say about him (and I know plenty will) I think we're better set up under him to win banana-skin games.

As for being unlucky to lose his job, go back and watch the last two games against Cyprus, where we were a penalty save away from drawing, and the final 0-0 against the Swiss. Needing a win, against a team happy to play for a draw, he took off Keane and Morrison and brought on Doherty and Connolly. I'll never understand that. Why persist with 4-4-2, which clearly wasn't working, when a draw was as good as a loss?

[BonnieShels]

There was more to the results in that group that saw Brian losing his job. I think he shoudl have gotten one more campaign. Though 8 years out I think thinking of that Swiss game, still hurts.

[paul_oshea]

i think the question to ask is this:would trap have done better than kerr in thay group?

would kerr have qualified for euro 2012?