I would be very confident of St Pats or Bohs beating the Georgia International team, if these fellows on 10K+ per week cannot beat Georgia then they should be sacked. Simple as. This is the easiest away tie you could ask for. And remember that Georgia are away from home too.
The deepest layer of human thinking and feeling somehow knows that God must exist - Pope Benedict XVI
Originally Posted by Ordinary Fan
with a post like this, its no wonder you call yourself 'ordinaryfan". Whats your definition of 'never will be" they have all reached a level of football that most of us only ever dreamed of, do you mean they "never will be pele" ?
Looks like a genius has spoken. Guess I wont go out and watch the game since Ive already been told the ending...Thanks, Genius.
Would you stop for jaysus sake. Either team would be lucky to get 2 or 3 of the Georgian first team playing for them. Anyway, I don't know why I reply because I doubt you even believe the stuff you write on this forum.
Last edited by eirebhoy; 04/09/2008 at 11:22 PM.
Friend was just telling me how his cousin was on the Irish 'Wet Paper Bag Fighting' team, and how they yesterday failed to qualify from the group stages of the World Championships (held in Albania this year) for the first time since 1977 after not a single one of the team managed to fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Apparently they've been labelled the weakest Irish squad in 30 years .
You might be. I certainly wouldn't.
Whelan is starting this week for Ireland yet we have A. Reid and S. Reid both of these players are better than Whelan would you not rather have the reids play instead of rookie Whelan as first post said he is a championship player.
Name the 5 or 6 fantastic players there. McGrath was the only "fantastic" player and remember he was let go by Man U. Whelan and Houghton were excellent although I think the latter did more for us than he did at club level. The rest were average Premiership players (some worse than that e.g. Morris). We think they were better than that because they played for us and they were our heroes (e.g. Moran) and were all part of the huge hype that went with us qualifying.
We know this current crop of players are no world beaters but with the right management and the rub of the green they have enough ability to get second place in the group. We are probably stronger up front than in Jack's days but where we are struggling is midfield. It's great to see Stephen Reid back so fingers crossed.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Agree with OwlsFan. They could possibly be the worst Irish team in 30 years or even a hundred million years but if they qualify for a major tournament and give it their best when they get there, who cares?
And breath. Use the fullstop.
Lets give Whelan a chance and see how it works out before we say its the wrong choice. Andy Reid looks like an obvious choice to play but Trap has his way of playing and hopefully the side he puts out will do him and us justice.
In 1986, if you had told someone that Ireland would compete in the next European Championships without Brady, O'Leary and Lawrenson, and beat England, people would have laughed. It's easy to look back at Irish teams from the past and glorify them, but that's the benefit of hindsight, knowing how much players achieved in their entire careers. Twenty years ago, the likes of Aldridge, Houghton, Moran, McCarthy and McGrath were journeymen, no-one could foresee how good they would become, or the adventures they would bring us on in the early nineties.
For example, we remember Niall Quinn as a great Irish player - were people saying the same when he was shipped off to second-division Sunderland in 1997, after warming the bench for Man City and being injured for two years? People were saying he was washed-up, finished, that he was never any good anyway. But he came back and played the best football of his career. Football is a fickle game.
Given, Duff and Keane are established - up there with any of the heroes from the Charlton era with their contributions, even through frustrating recent times. Finnan, Dunne and Kilbane are solid, model pros. The likes of O'Shea, Reid, McGeady, Doyle, Whelan and Hunt (as well as Andy Reid, Long, Murphy, Keogh, Delaney, Kelly and McShane) still have their best days ahead of them. Given the fact that Staunton failed to create a settled team or squad, we really don't know how good this Irish team can be. Only time will tell. Damning the Irish players now, at this fresh new beginning, before a meaningful ball has been kicked, is unhelpful, and fairly boring now. At least wait until we've played a couple of games.
Last edited by Supreme feet; 05/09/2008 at 5:47 PM.
Very good post.
No, i wouldn't. Whelan will be told not to leave the back unprotected, and Stephen Reid will be free to do his thing. If Andy Reid comes in the whole balance of the midfield is lost. I would prefer to see Joey O'Brien doing the holding job, but it seems a sensible side.
If we had a midfield of Hunt, McGeady, Reid and Reid in what is still an away game against a highly motivated side they would run over the top of us.
The Georgia team are going to be told to go out and write a good headline for their country.
Ask your self this. How motivated would you be pulling on a green shirt (no matter who we were playing) the weekend after the British army crossed the border and occupied Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal??
This will not be easy. Our side is better, but it is important not to be cocky. they will give it 100% for 90 minutes, and the midfield you suggest would be suicide.
You clearly weren't around with some past Irish teams. The talent's not the greatest;all we ask is they give their all, which was managed at times under Jack & Mick!
Which is the same for any country of the same size....Croatia, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark etc.
There is no way we could have 11 brilliant individuals with our population, hell not even Holland with 16 million have the most talented players in every position(Engelaar, Ooijer, Bouma)
I suppose fantastic is open to interpretation but I meant players that consistently proved themselves at international level or had an important role at a successfull club. The 3 players you mention would make up half of the 5-6 fantastic players. O'leary was maybe past his peak but you could add him to the list. Aldrige's club goal scoring record speaks for itself, he just wasn't utilised properly by Charlton. Looking at other players like Sheedy, Townsend, Staunton and Stapelton who were all big players for teams that won silverware you would have to agree that that squad of players was talented enough to qualify for a WC (which is probably why they did
I guess my point is that eventhough it took 3 attemps it was a much greater acheivement by McCarthy to qualify with the squad he had available. However, Chartlon would have to be considered our most successfull manager to date. We had the raw talent and he whipped us into shape and gave us the confidence to believe that we should be qualifying.
Also Supreme feet's point is very valid. We can evaluate the past squads and have a complete overview of each player's CV. The players in the current squad are still developing and some have yet to reach their peak. Who knows what they will achieve over the next 5 years.
Last edited by Irish_Praha; 05/09/2008 at 10:55 PM.
pointless post - who care bloody cares how many would or wouldnt make the england squad - i mean what the hell have england done with all their "fantastic players" - Absolutely nothing - all they do is self destruct every tournament and dont even qualify for some - and they will self destruct again
We (ireland) may have our limitations - put if we get the tactics right , have the proper mindset and focus ,proper manager (which we do) and good players (which we do imo) then we can achieve things - Great player dont always make a great team (i.e england and many more) - hence i think your comparison is pointless.
Pointless post. "It finally dawned"? God, it's been obvious for ages that we don't have the quality of players available to us in some positions, especially central midfield, in a generation at least. That's not to say we haven't woefully underperformed since 2002 though and it's certainly not true that our players are rubbish. Even during the better times the full squad available to us hasn't been great, we've just had a stronger core to the team. The core of the starting XI today is pretty good by comparison to any era, especially if like me you give O'Shea the benefit of the doubt and believe in Steven Reid as a central midfielder.
How can you tell before we've even started that you don't like the way Trap is going about qualifying? At least he says he'd be lying if he'd be happy with fewer than 6 points - a welcome change from the "draw away win at home" codology of previous managers.
This point is being completely over looked by everyone, this Georgian team are essentially playing with a siege mentallity, this could be a potential banana skin.
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