Ireland V Sweden(A) 22 March & Austria(H) - 26 March 2013 - World Cup 2014 Qualifiers

[brine3]

by the look of all those empty seats out there, there isn't much of a "public" to speak of anymore

[jbyrne]

by the look of all those empty seats out there, there isn't much of a "public" to speak of anymore

still probably one of the bigger attendances on the night i would imagine

[Kingdom]

I actually thought Trap got it right for most of the match. Sammon was fine. Yes he's limited, but he did his job reasonably well. Trap lost it in the last 15-20 minutes.

Not picking on you, but what was his job exactly in your eyes?

[Duggie]

im still sick after last night and im raging we didnt hold on. we needed fresh legs in the last half hour. i would have brought doyle on for sammon, green on for whelan and prob hoolahan for walters. that would have given us some life when we needed it. lads in fairness sammon isnt good enough. he tried hard last night and did a lot of closing down but he offered nothing in attack. gutted for shane long, he was unreal last night. james mcclean is the last 2 games has really come good and looks the player we thought he was. i cant say anymore, will take me days to get over this...

[paul_oshea]

I actually couldn't sleep properly last night thinking about this.

I don't want to apportion too much blame on the players for the last goal, they were shagged, but what was Forde doing so far off his line, and whoever should have come on out on Alaba got the deflection that brought it up and under, without this it wouldn't have got over and under Forde. But thats only little details.

I'm not buying this thing about Long being brought off was right. Long is a grown man he is not a young fella, he carrys the burden if he gets sent off, Trap is the manager its his job to make the correct decisions, bringing Long off was not the correct the decision, you weigh up the impact, Trap takes the blame completely for this one.

The difference between yesterday and Friday was we had keane playing a deep lying striker, coming back to link up play. IN the second half we were crying out for this, as our midfield tired and we couldn't get any numbers in midfield. The midfield were badly exposed and needed more help they tired very quickly, something I wasn't sure why exactly for players playing every week they tired very quickly, but Trap never made the changes.

I said at half time that Alaba could do something, I said at 70 mins to my mates, Trap has gotten away with this holding out against mediocre opposition and letting them attack us without any outlet and that he wont get away with it any longer, on 90 mins I said Austria will get 1 more chance. And they did. I really think they were awful they didn't do that much and we panicked everytime they got near our final third.

I thought he should have made a change on 90. Slow things down. Pack the midfield.

What was he doing bringing green on ans pushing walters up front? IT should have been sammon off green into midfield stick walters up on his own.


Austrias defence is ridiculously bad, Alaba and their number 7 are there only decent players. We should have beaten these 3 or 4-1 to be honest, and i put the blame firmly on Trap for this. I can't see them beating sweden but thats what we need, I don't see them as good enough to do enough to get 2nd. But I can see Sweden beating them in Austria.

[DannyInvincible]

We know what they're like

Seasoned qualifiers, you mean?... How do we compare?

I have and I will.

Could you expand on that? Are you saying the Austrian equaliser was undeserved or implying it came as a surprise/out of the blue? Alaba's goal was on the cards for the last 20 minutes. They had 60 per cent of the overall possession. At one point towards the end of the game, a stat-bar popped up to inform us they were enjoying a ten-minute spell of 87 per cent of possession in their favour. We were clearly on the ropes. Throughout the game, they had 11 attempts on goal compared to our 6. And yet we were robbed, just because their goal came late? That doesn't add up. It doesn't matter when their goal was scored. They all count. Our inability to see out the game due to poor tactical decisions handed them their equaliser. To claim we've been victim to a theft of some sort is a gross distortion of the truth.

Germany let slip a 4 goal lead in this campaign in injury time. Hasn't hurt them too much though.

... Because they've managed to win all five of their other fixtures. Unlike us.

We have the same points as the playoff spot, with half the campaign to go.

Not quite. Sweden have a game in hand.

We don't need miracles, we just have to finish a point ahead of them with half of our remaining home games against the minnows.

Even if we do manage to somehow finish second, we'll have to ensure that we're not the ninth-worst second-placed team of all the nine groups.

still probably one of the bigger attendances on the night i would imagine

Attendance was 50,000, according to the BBC. Is that correct? Was there an official attendance given? I noticed a lot of empty seats around the corners and in the upper tiers when the teams came out, although the ground did fill up a bit by kick-off.

[pineapple stu]

Crowd was 36100, I saw somewhere.

Dunno why people are arguing with mypost. Should be obvious by now he doesn't do logic.

Didn't see the game - was at a removal, which kind of puts things in perspective - but the comment has previously been made that Trap is getting the best out of a limited group of players, so he is the best for the job. But then you look at how well we played in Sweden, and then how badly we played against Kazakhstan, Germany and - it seems - Austria, and you have to wonder if that really is the case. I don't think we've anything to fear from a new manager.

Though regardless, we all know the FAI haven't the money to sack him.

[DeLorean]

Ah lads I'm still not right after it. A cruel way to drop the points even if we were outplayed for most of the second half. That first half performance and even the defending in second half would make a man proud though! The substitutions and lack thereof really didn't help our cause but you couldn't fault the tactics otherwise. We put so much in to that first half we really should have been bringing on fresh legs around the hour mark. McCarthy faded big time in the second half and I'd have replaced him with Green. Sammon was completely out on his feet and Hoolahan was a no-brainer at that stage, as we were finding it so difficult to retain the ball. Long was still flying at the time he was taken off. Thankfully James McClean kept his best performances of the season for us, absolutely outstanding on the night along with Walters, Long and McCarthy in the first half. Clark's error was a carbon copy of his blunder for Villa against City a couple of weeks ago, with the same result. Slightly worrying that he didn't learn from his mistake but he recovered pretty well both nights.

I couldn't help but feel gutted for Trap as well when he started spouting Italian accidentally to that moron Tony O'Donoghue, he was in no mental state to do an interview really.

Obviously it was a very damaging night for our qualification prospects but it was an encouraging night for the future. We still have plenty to look forward to over the next few months, trips to Wales and Wembley followed by three points against the Faroes. McCarthy and Long probably picked a good game to use up their suspensions. With Sweden going to Vienna on the same night maybe, just maybe we'll be back in contention with a cup final against Sweden at the Aviva to follow.

[DannyInvincible]

I couldn't help but feel gutted for Trap as well when he started spouting Italian accidentally to that moron Tony O'Donoghue, he was in no mental state to do an interview really.

Here's the post-game interview: http://www.rte.ie/sport/player/813/378548/

He actually began the interview in German with, "Wenn wir das Spiel gespielt...", which translates as, "When we played the game...". RTÉ had just shown footage of him conversing with the Austrian coaches/staff in the tunnel after the game, presumably in German. That probably explains the confusion. I did feel sympathy for Trap during the interview. He looked increasingly forlorn and exasperated as Tony stirred.

[shakermaker1982]

I won't bite at the Trap apologist posters today. If you try and defend that shambolic second half.......

[barney]

I'd have defended Trap up to now. He's done a good job for my money but last night, while not a disastrous performance, showed me he has to go.

He could have won us that game. It made no sense to maintain a 4-4-2 formation and stick Paul Green on the wing. It really didn't. The midfield should have been packed, we were getting murdered in there. That's not me being wise after the event, that's what anyone could see whilst watching the game. It was a daft decision. Personally, I couldn't understand Long coming off. He was a better outlet than Sammon. The ball was sticking to him more often. Ok, he might have been sent off but he probably wouldn't have been in my view.

Also, not brining Hoolahan on was brainless. I wasn't surprised but we needed someone to get a foot on the ball and Whelan and McCarthy were struggling. Not making a final sub to run down the clock was also stupid.

They were all really, really poor decisions. Any one of those 4 in isolation (except maybe the Long/Sammon one) would have won us the game in my view. All four were basic common sense decisions so not to have made any of them smacks of a man who probably should call it a day.

The man has left a great legacy in football. His achievements are exceptional. He's done well with us, I'll remember him fondly if he goes. He deserves better than the treatment he got from Tony O'Donoghue who seems to think that he's Jeremy Paxman or someone. It saddens me that such a great football man's job is at the mercy of a clown like John Delaney while he has to take that rubbish from a non-entity like O'Donoghue. All that said, he seems incapable of making basic decisions correctly and has clearly had a lot of communication issues with this squad and for those reasons, I think his time has come.

[paul_oshea]

Can someone explain this worst runner up thing. I'm still too wound up to work it out, and I'm always looking for punishment so I will somehow try and convince myself that we still have a chance.

We would have a chance if we were capable of beating a decent team away from home, or a team of similar quality to us away.

I will say this though. If Austria beat sweden at home, we still have a chance of coming second. Whether thats good enough to get a play-off I dont know yet But I don't actually think Austria are good enough to do that, really. They are technically poor, and extremely weak at the back. Ibrahimovic will have a field day with these clowns.

[SwanVsDalton]

Even in the second half, we started well and only through lack of experience did we cede the initiative. I don't think this team would have done the same with 3-4 more matches under their belts, and Trap needs to take responsibility for introducing these players too late. Still, we are more or less rock solid defensively and are finally starting to show the ability to play possession football, but it is probably 2 years too late because almost all of these players have been around that long.

Agree with this, although it's not an apologist stance. He should carry the can for poor substitute decisions and not recognising the team he had out there couldn't carry the weight. An extra measure of composure and experience and we'd be feeling differently today (although still bemoaning a team who invites the opposition on).

Also agree Keane would've made a difference tonight, either playing deep as on Friday or using his experience or popping up with a goal.

And, as impressed as I was with Long (he was desperately unlucky with that backheel), he had two fantastic opportunities to cross in the second half when we broke at pace. Both times he was in acres of space, in the 18 yard box and at the byline and both times he fluffed it. Not just on Long but if we were a bit more clinical and we'd have been home and hosed by the last ten.

Disagree on the Sammon stuff though - forgot to quote it but while he got his head on a few things, I think he's no better than Walters as a target man and a step below in his general game. He did ok in spells but didn't win a header of note in the last half hour. Defender got on top of completely and a tiredness took over. When play came to his feet he was poor.

[Bungle]

I'd have defended Trap up to now. He's done a good job for my money but last night, while not a disastrous performance, showed me he has to go.

He could have won us that game. It made no sense to maintain a 4-4-2 formation and stick Paul Green on the wing. It really didn't. The midfield should have been packed, we were getting murdered in there. That's not me being wise after the event, that's what anyone could see whilst watching the game. It was a daft decision. Personally, I couldn't understand Long coming off. He was a better outlet than Sammon. The ball was sticking to him more often. Ok, he might have been sent off but he probably wouldn't have been in my view.

Also, not brining Hoolahan on was brainless. I wasn't surprised but we needed someone to get a foot on the ball and Whelan and McCarthy were struggling. Not making a final sub to run down the clock was also stupid.

They were all really, really poor decisions. Any one of those 4 in isolation (except maybe the Long/Sammon one) would have won us the game in my view. All four were basic common sense decisions so not to have made any of them smacks of a man who probably should call it a day.

The man has left a great legacy in football. His achievements are exceptional. He's done well with us, I'll remember him fondly if he goes. He deserves better than the treatment he got from Tony O'Donoghue who seems to think that he's Jeremy Paxman or someone. It saddens me that such a great football man's job is at the mercy of a clown like John Delaney while he has to take that rubbish from a non-entity like O'Donoghue. All that said, he seems incapable of making basic decisions correctly and has clearly had a lot of communication issues with this squad and for those reasons, I think his time has come.

Trapwas a great player and an even greater manager, of that there is no doubt.

However, he has treated this job as the ultimate retirement gig, pocketing millions from his villa in Norther Italy and barely going to any matches, until we get drubbed 6-1 at home by Germany. His communication with the players is nothing short of a disgrace and he makes Don Givens seem like the Dalai Lama, Padre Pio and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. When you think of some of our very good performers last night - Coleman, Wilson, McCarthy, McClean - all four young hungry lads that have good futures in the game, especially McCarthy and Coleman. All of them, especially Coleman, Wilson and McCarthy should be seasoned internationals by now and have had the experience of playing at Euro 2012 under their belt.

Sammon is a good lad who gives 100%, as is Green, Keogh and McShane. If you don't have anything better, then you play guys like them. To be fair to Trap, Green was excellent in Sweden, but it is such as concern that he was prepared to drop McCarthy in the first place to facilitate him. All of the players above are in the team and squad ahead of far better players - Hoolahan and Joey O'Brien spring to mind immediately (I will give Trap the benefit with Gibson because he is a total arsehole from what I can see who wants to play for Ireland on his own terms.).

We talk about great footballing people, but you live and die by the sword. I'm sure that alot of the Man U, Arsenal, Everton fans on here weren't too upset when it went belly up for Kenny at Liverpool. Now there was a great player, great manager in his first stint there and a man who has tirelessly given everything for the club and the city through some of its darkest hours. He worked his backside off for Liverpool, but his signings were very poor and he deserved to get sacked. I just want to point out that I am not a Liverpool fan, but I was saddened as a football lover, that it ended so badly for him. However, he and Wenger deserve so much sympathy because they are proper football men who gave 100% for their clubs. Trap was in the past somebody who gave 100% and you can see the loyalty he inspires in his old soldiers like Chippy, but I think you would want to be incredibly naive to think he has given 100% for us and has the same loyalty from our lads.

[DannyInvincible]

Can someone explain this worst runner up thing. I'm still too wound up to work it out, and I'm always looking for punishment so I will somehow try and convince myself that we still have a chance.

We would have a chance if we were capable of beating a decent team away from home, or a team of similar quality to us away.

I will say this though. If Austria beat sweden at home, we still have a chance of coming second. Whether thats good enough to get a play-off I dont know yet But I don't actually think Austria are good enough to do that, really. They are technically poor, and extremely weak at the back. Ibrahimovic will have a field day with these clowns.

The eight best runners-up (determined by records against the first, third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in their groups, to ensure balance between different groups as Group I has only five teams) will be drawn into two-legged play-offs. There has been no indication that the play-off draw will be seeded as of yet, but as we know from the World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012 play-offs, that can, and probably will, change. We'd have little hope of being seeded in such an eventuality, just looking at the likely second-placed finishers.

The ranking of second-placed teams for the play-offs is explained/shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FI...d-placed_teams

[tetsujin1979]

Can someone explain this worst runner up thing. I'm still too wound up to work it out, and I'm always looking for punishment so I will somehow try and convince myself that we still have a chance.

Pretty simple really, the worst second place team doesn't get into the play offs
Current standings on the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FI...d-placed_teams

[barney]

Trapwas a great player and an even greater manager, of that there is no doubt.

However, he has treated this job as the ultimate retirement gig, pocketing millions from his villa in Norther Italy and barely going to any matches, until we get drubbed 6-1 at home by Germany. His communication with the players is nothing short of a disgrace and he makes Don Givens seem like the Dalai Lama, Padre Pio and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. When you think of some of our very good performers last night - Coleman, Wilson, McCarthy, McClean - all four young hungry lads that have good futures in the game, especially McCarthy and Coleman. All of them, especially Coleman, Wilson and McCarthy should be seasoned internationals by now and have had the experience of playing at Euro 2012 under their belt.

Sammon is a good lad who gives 100%, as is Green, Keogh and McShane. If you don't have anything better, then you play guys like them. To be fair to Trap, Green was excellent in Sweden, but it is such as concern that he was prepared to drop McCarthy in the first place to facilitate him. All of the players above are in the team and squad ahead of far better players - Hoolahan and Joey O'Brien spring to mind immediately (I will give Trap the benefit with Gibson because he is a total arsehole from what I can see who wants to play for Ireland on his own terms.).

We talk about great footballing people, but you live and die by the sword. I'm sure that alot of the Man U, Arsenal, Everton fans on here weren't too upset when it went belly up for Kenny at Liverpool. Now there was a great player, great manager in his first stint there and a man who has tirelessly given everything for the club and the city through some of its darkest hours. He worked his backside off for Liverpool, but his signings were very poor and he deserved to get sacked. I just want to point out that I am not a Liverpool fan, but I was saddened as a football lover, that it ended so badly for him. However, he and Wenger deserve so much sympathy because they are proper football men who gave 100% for their clubs. Trap was in the past somebody who gave 100% and you can see the loyalty he inspires in his old soldiers like Chippy, but I think you would want to be incredibly naive to think he has given 100% for us and has the same loyalty from our lads.

No, I don't believe he has 100% loyalty from our lads. I believe that when he goes, we will get a lot of players coming out and saying how little the enjoyed it under him. That in itself isn't a bad thing, he isn't paid to be popular but the communication problems have been terrible and indicative of very real issues.

In terms of the players you mentioned, I agree to an extent. I would say though that, whether I agree or disagree, Trap seems to think that you get nothing easy and you have to earn your place in the squad/team and not walk into it. Presumably he feels that approach builds loyalty and team spirit even if the players he is leaving out are better than the ones he is putting in. Maybe he's onto something, in today's world everyone wants everything now and no-one has any patience and as a result, a long-term view is never taken on anything. Remember when Andy Reid was our saviour and Trap wouldn't pick him? Turned out Reid was never as good as some people thought. Ditto Stephen Ireland. Not saying I agree completely with Trap's approach but it might not be completely bereft of sense. Perhaps the approach is why people like Brady respect him so much.

For me, his results aren't terrible enough to warrant the sack. He isn't doing an atrocious job. We are performing in or around where I'd expect from this group of players results wise. However, there are some very worrying signs for my money (communication problems being the biggest) and these are the reason I'd look for someone else.

[Noelys Guitar]

The biggest mistake the management made last night was their handling of the three minutes of injury time. ANY substitution would have used up to one of those minutes. Instructions could have been passed directly to the players. That was a big mistake. It would also have broken up some of the momentum of Austria's play. Would Doyle have done a better job than Sammon (who gave everything)? Probably. I would have left Long on (fell into the player when he got a booking. It was never a losing his temper situation). Drought Doyle on for Sammon. Green for McCarthy. And Hoolahan for Walters. But Trapatonni has to also take credit for the attitude and commitment shown by the players in the last two games. Pilkington, Hoolahan and a hopefully resurgent Doyle will improve this team again.

[Kingdom]

This is it. I haven't felt so low in a while. As I said after the Swedish match I'm sick of drawing when we should win and going out and getting gutsy draws. We can play when we're allowed.

Sammon was useful as the Austrians hadn't a clue how to handle him and Long was magnificent in taking on the knockdowns when they came.

McClean had is best game in an Irish shirt. McCarthy's ability to spot some of the passes he made was something to behold at times.

But once we had them on the ropes we tired and Plan A wasn't gonna work when we were tired. Wessi or Doyle needed to come on at that stage. I had no issue with Green coming on or even Long going off but how the formation went at that stage was unacceptable.

For some people to write off that goal as bad luck or a bad deflection is a cop-out. When you allow a player the space that Alaba had to take a shot through a crowded box you end up with something like that. We had done everything right and again an Irish team failed to kill off an inferior opponent. So what that they can pass the pall, so could the Armenians but we were better than them tonight and changing our tactics from 60' onwards would have won that game handily.

I wanted to wait to see tonight out before making my judgement and we need a change at the top. NOW!
The only thing that Alaba's goal did was make me feel ill it hasn't affected my judgement on Trap.

That last 30' was why Trap should go. Not the equaliser. A pox.

I'd have defended Trap up to now. He's done a good job for my money but last night, while not a disastrous performance, showed me he has to go.

He could have won us that game. It made no sense to maintain a 4-4-2 formation and stick Paul Green on the wing. It really didn't. The midfield should have been packed, we were getting murdered in there. That's not me being wise after the event, that's what anyone could see whilst watching the game. It was a daft decision. Personally, I couldn't understand Long coming off. He was a better outlet than Sammon. The ball was sticking to him more often. Ok, he might have been sent off but he probably wouldn't have been in my view.

Also, not brining Hoolahan on was brainless. I wasn't surprised but we needed someone to get a foot on the ball and Whelan and McCarthy were struggling. Not making a final sub to run down the clock was also stupid.

They were all really, really poor decisions. Any one of those 4 in isolation (except maybe the Long/Sammon one) would have won us the game in my view. All four were basic common sense decisions so not to have made any of them smacks of a man who probably should call it a day.

The man has left a great legacy in football. His achievements are exceptional. He's done well with us, I'll remember him fondly if he goes. He deserves better than the treatment he got from Tony O'Donoghue who seems to think that he's Jeremy Paxman or someone. It saddens me that such a great football man's job is at the mercy of a clown like John Delaney while he has to take that rubbish from a non-entity like O'Donoghue. All that said, he seems incapable of making basic decisions correctly and has clearly had a lot of communication issues with this squad and for those reasons, I think his time has come.

I think these are two beautiful posts, and show that you can be critical of something without dropping to the gutter in the process.

I was very surprised Weimann didn't start - I thought he would really hurt us between the lines. And sure enough when he was brought in, he immediately found himself in about 15 yards of space and it started the ball rolling for the wave of attacks.

What is really disappointing about the situation we find ourselves in, is that it is entirely of our own making. We started like a train against Sweden, aggressive, pressing high and playing football, and to be honest it probably had a befuddling effect on Sweden and they never really got into a rhythm. So why then couldn't we do the same last night?
Austria have done well underage over the past few years, improving incrementally, and we wouldn't have held any fear for them. It was said that they were inexperienced and would crumble under a bit of pressure. This showed to be true. They play nice football, but are weak at full back. But they can knock the ball around. This also showed last night, when we gave the impetus to them they got their confidence back, and lets give them the credit they deserve - they pummelled us for 25 mins and fully merited the equaliser.

Personally, I'd be happy to see the manager relieved of his duties immediately. We're in a weak position. First of all at this moment in time, our group will not have a play-off place. That's embarassing. Second of all, Sweden have the experience of ecking out results to secure qualification. Remember they beat a 100% record Dutch side in the final game to qualify automatically last time out. I think they'll have enough for Austria home and away, and knowing that we'd have to attack them in Lansdowne, I feel they'll be comfortable enough in Dublin in our current guise. I'd fancy them to get a point at home to der Mannschaft in the last game if they need it.
The crucial reason I'd sever ties with the manager now though is this: Our next assignment is a friendly against England. That is a free pass; we then have georgia before our next qualifier in June to the Faroes. That is a banker. We also have friendlies against Wales, and the possibility of a small tour in the USA. I really feel that is a good series of games to bed a new guy in, with the remaining competitive qualifiers to come to set out a stall and a method to our play to ensure we qualify for Euro 2016. That now has to be the ultimate goal in the short-term.

I state again that I believe individually we're better than we've been showing, and that we're better collectively than we've been showing. For gad's sake, the North with their ****-poor pool of players have had bigger scalps than us in the more recent past.
I refuse to accept that there isn't managers willing and available that could do better than we have at present for significantly less money.

The requisites for a new manager are:
To be able to communicate effectively in English to the players - to hell with the media.
To be able to demonstrate tactical acumen before and during games. i.e. to change formation when necessary, or to develop a formation/modus operandi to get the most from our players - eg Marcelo Bielsa and Chile.
To have relative success on his cv. We don't need the Jose Mourinho's, but I've no issue with the relative unknowns, so long as there is something to show.

Stop employing old British has-beens to find our next manager.

[Crosby87]

I'll tell you what, Tilda Swinton was at it again at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday. Give me a second here to explain.
She gets into a bed before the gates open, and doesnt get out until MOMA closes for the night. Must be at least 8 hours if not 10. She puts herself into a trance. She is a Scot, but with Irish blood like James McCarthy and Aiden McG. My point is, she is 50 and she doesn't have to go to the bathroom one time. Im 35 and i pee about 50 times a day. You people from being raised over there with that stron ability to hold on have that extra "oomph" like Tilda.
Ireland will Qualify, because they have that intangible ability to see things out like Tilda Swinton does.
After seeing her laying there I'm sure of it.