One trick / on your bike Trap moanfest

[FarBeag]

time to wake up a bit there, head. We havent beaten anyone of note yet. We have failed our first real test in this group, Bulgaria at home.

If you think Robbie Keane played well out there today then i think you are the one who needs to give up watching football. Seriously. Im a fan of Keane but he was af*ckingnonymous today bar one or two trips out to the left wing.

If youre hapy to qualify for the world cup an then get lashed out of it by any team we face then good luck to you. Im not.

There are tough questions for Trap to answer and they are not the ones about Reid or Ireland. Theyre both no-brainers to me. Trap needs to be quizzed on his inclusions as opposed to his omissions.

Why is Caleb Folan in the squad?
Why does Liam Miller get called up?
Why does McShane even get near the squad, never mind next choice full back?
What did Stokes do to be next in line after Duff's injury? What was his logic behind that choice?
Why does he never make a substitution in order to try and change the game around, replace tired players etc.

Those are just for starters. Im on my way out now to get hammered.

Seriously Jicked, if you are happy with how things are going and the job Trapatoni is doing, then good luck to you.

Good post. At least you have insight. There is no point trying to argue with that football genius Jicked because he thinks no one else has an right to an opinion and just like some posters on here have an obsession with certain players he appears to have one with the present Irish manager.

[mypost]

unleashes McShane as the new Cafu, confidently leaving our world class defence to mop up any threat thrown at them,

If we're looking to top the World Champions in the group, tonight's result was bad. If we're looking for the runners-up spot, we're still in a decent position going into the second half of games.

It's all about patience. Trap's tactics worked in Mainz, last month, and in the other games. If KK hadn't hit the target tonight, it would have worked again. It's hard on the eyes, but we have limited ability players, some of them not playing in the Premiership, and Trap's way, however ugly, is working.

The prize lies in wait in the Autumn, our fate is still in our own hands. That wasn't the case last time.

[third policeman]

Noone should be allowed say boo about Andy reid's exclusion until they can name three good performances he's had in an Irish shirt.

Away to Holland, away to France, home to Italy, most of the latter games in Stan's Euro campaign and that's without thinking. Even Reid's bad games are better than Whelan's allegedly good ones. I go with the majority on this. I have been watching Ireland for 30 plus years and this is the most sterile and at times frankly embarrassingly poor team I have ever seen. We have been outplayed in virtualy every game we have played under Trapp (Serbia, Columbia, Poland, Cyprus, Bulgaria) and these are not great sides. NI exposed Poland last night and yet they came to Croker and completely bossed the game. We are not playing football, we are incapable of retaining possesion, we are creating nothing and we are selecting players who are manifestly not good enough to play at this level. Under Stan we were a shambles, but even then there were occasional glimpses of something resembling football, isolated moments of coherence and creativity.

Maybe we are not blessed with our greatest squad of all time, but we certainly have better right backs than McShane (Foley, Carr and Kelly would all have offered more last night) and we have better players outside the squad than any of the options on last night's bench. Delap, Reid, Morrison would all have offered something different as would Long whose ommission in favour of S. Hunt was another bafflingly perverse instance of Trapp genius. On the basis that Trapp does not have the capacity to change his tactics or revise his selection policy, I expect to lose againts Italy home and away and probably lose away to Cyprus and in Bulgaria as well. The Trapp experiment is an expensive and grotesque mistake, it's a typical knee-jerk reaction by the FAI to the farcical appointment of Staunton.

[mypost]

Under Stan we were a shambles, but even then there were occasional glimpses of something resembling football, isolated moments of coherence and creativity.

No there wasn't. Staunton was a total disaster.

Trappattoni beat Cyprus in one go, when Staunton couldn't do it in two, with allegedly better players.

Trap has us second in the group, playing players in their proper positions, and getting results. That's what he was hired for.

[papa-j]

I have to say I like Trappatoni as our manager. That doesn't mean I agree with all his choices. I presume Whelan is in the team to prevent / destroy. Yet Petrov ran theshow tonight and how he didn't get man of math is beyond me...we runn the risk of being as biased as Northern Ireland (that commentary on the Polish match was embarrassing). My understanding is reid is out becaushe doesn't track back etc. Yet where was whelan when Petrov crossed for the goal?At least andrews was trying to close down the player that played the initial pass and he does offer something.

On top of that I think s hunt is way overrated and completely out of his depth.
Mcgeady is also extremely frustrating, but could be class

agree about hunt. Not tactically or technically up to scratch. Normally you cant fault his attitude and even though he is a limited player his energy around the pitch can make things happen. However he looked a bit flat last night and really isn't an option when playing like that. If we had an option at left full then i'd start kilbane on left side of mid on wed. We absolutely must change McShane, Italy will target him and tear him apart.

Funnily I think we will get a result on Wed as our system will mirror Italy in terms of their midfield wont come pouring forward and if we can stop them outwide and sit on Pirlo(easier said than done) then we have a chance. Dunne and o'Shea will need to have stormers in the centre and deal with Pirlos defence splitting passes. Doyle will cause them endless problems and I fancy Robbie to nick one. They looked like they were finally on the same wavelength last night, although still work to do. It wont be pretty( big surprise) but we are well capable of getting a draw and if we are even more direct and clinical at set pieces we could cause an upset.

[the doc]

I've said all along that Trap was only here to take the money and run, he has no plan "B" either!

If he was using friendlies and "B" games to get players not in the squad used to the system, with a view for them to be ready incase of injuries to players in the squad then you could see that he was at least planning ahead.

But no, he has just gone with the same squad that he inherited, in addition to keeping Given's in the set up too!

The whole selection set up is a shambles as are people such as Given's and Brady having what seems to be "jobs for life" despite not doing anything productive to the future and well being of the national team.

No wonder Billy Davies turned the job down before they gave it to Trap, Billy Davies wanted to bring in his own men at senior and under age levels.

At the very least that would of kept people on their toes and got rid of the likes of Givens, who seems to be a law unto himself!

Onto Italy now, who knows we may get lucky, but at the end of the day it would only paper over the cracks!

Sorry Trapp you've been rumbled!

[Jicked]

Originally Posted by SkStu
time to wake up a bit there, head. We havent beaten anyone of note yet. We have failed our first real test in this group, Bulgaria at home.

If you think Robbie Keane played well out there today then i think you are the one who needs to give up watching football. Seriously. Im a fan of Keane but he was af*ckingnonymous today bar one or two trips out to the left wing.

If youre hapy to qualify for the world cup an then get lashed out of it by any team we face then good luck to you. Im not.

There are tough questions for Trap to answer and they are not the ones about Reid or Ireland. Theyre both no-brainers to me. Trap needs to be quizzed on his inclusions as opposed to his omissions.

Why is Caleb Folan in the squad?
Why does Liam Miller get called up?
Why does McShane even get near the squad, never mind next choice full back?
What did Stokes do to be next in line after Duff's injury? What was his logic behind that choice?
Why does he never make a substitution in order to try and change the game around, replace tired players etc.

Those are just for starters. Im on my way out now to get hammered.

Seriously Jicked, if you are happy with how things are going and the job Trapatoni is doing, then good luck to you.


Good post. At least you have insight. There is no point trying to argue with that football genius Jicked because he thinks no one else has an right to an opinion and just like some posters on here have an obsession with certain players he appears to have one with the present Irish manager.

What the **** are you on about? When have I said anyone can't have an opinion? All I'm saying is that there are people on here seriously advocating that the steven staunton era was better than last night. Do you not realise how incredibly insane that is? Seriously, people saying the Staunton years wasnt a disgrace?!

I don't know why those individual players are in the squad. The way I see it is the manager, one of the most succesfull in the history of football, knows what type of players he wants to play in his system. he sees certain things in certain players and goes with them, not calling up whoever is flavour of the month because a few fans on here read on Aertel that Player X scored against Burnley and so should be the fulcrum of the team in the next game.

McShane gets a game because the other option who has played premiership or international football is Stephen Kelly.
Stokes gets in the squad after Duff was out because even if he is a bit ****, he can play wide on the right in the same way that Duff/McGeady does. Andy Reid can not play in that style, and so playing him would change the system. Also, lets not forget Brady has worked with Stokes for years.
I agree Trap should use his subs bench, but then again I hardly think its that big a gripe if we get results, which we do. We "failed" nothing last night, a draw is a grand result and keeps our noses in front of Bulgaria, a shame we didn't win, but did you really expect players who were being laughed at by cyprus a year ago to breeze in to the playoffs?

Stan the Man went down the road of chucking in young players like you're advocating building the bloody team around Garvan or someone who's got high ratings on championship manager. It didn't work.


You say we've been outplayed in all these games against other teams, yet we've gotten a result in nearly all of them, bar Poland, and none of those sides have found us easy to score against. I can't believe you seriously don't want ireland to qualify because Owen Garvan or Kevin Foley haven't been involved. If stephen hunt had have been left at home last night you'd be clammering for his inclusion after reading he scored a few goals on teletext.

[Kildare Lad]

I see where people are coming from on this, poor performances, should be beating teams such as Bulgaria & Montenegro, hes not picking our best players, etc. Nobody can (or should) realistically expect us to finish top of this group considering the world champions are in it, so therefore second place and a play-off should be the aim, and as it stands we are in pole position to finish second, even if Bulgaria win their game in hand we are still 4 points ahead of them.

If Trapatoni gets us that second place, thats the first part of his job done. Second part being winning the play off. No matter how unattractive our football is, results is what matters.

[mypost]

I think most reasonable people would have been delighted with taking 11 points from the first half of games, considering where we were 12-18 months ago.

You know what would have happened under the last coach. Draws against Georgia, Cyprus and Bulgaria, and a loss in Montenegro. 4 points from 15. So the new boss has bought us a 7 point swing in 12 months.

And still people moan.

[Jicked]

I see where people are coming from on this, poor performances, should be beating teams such as Bulgaria & Montenegro, hes not picking our best players, etc. Nobody can (or should) realistically expect us to finish top of this group considering the world champions are in it, so therefore second place and a play-off should be the aim, and as it stands we are in pole position to finish second, even if Bulgaria win their game in hand we are still 4 points ahead of them.

In fairness I don't really see why people think we should expect to beat Bulgaria

[tetsujin1979]

it's a typical knee-jerk reaction by the FAI to the farcical appointment of Staunton.

Knee jerk reactions generally don't take 5 months

[Jicked]

Knee jerk reactions generally don't take 5 months

Nor is appointing a management team with the experience and caliber of Trap/Tardelli/Brady.
Then again, in the same post this guy bemoans the lack of Steven Carr, Rory Delap, Clinton Morrisson and Shane Long, and seriously says that Trap's selection policy is wrong for excluding players of that quality. If he did pick players like that, people would demand the inclusion of world beaters Keith Andrews and Glenn Whelan.

[third policeman]

In fairness I don't really see why people think we should expect to beat Bulgaria

I dont think its unreasonable to expect to see an international team capable of putting three passes together. The issue with Trapp is not the results (these have been acceptable albeit fortuitous), its the appalling quality of the football and the abject lack of imagination. We are a poor team, and even if we somehow qualify for the WC we will be found out. I dont think anyone is saying that there has not been some improvement in organisational terms from the Staunton era. Yes we are more difficult to beat, but maybe some of us have higher aspirations. Maybe there are coaches out there who are capable of organising a team and accomodating good technical players.

[FarBeag]

In fairness I don't really see why people think we should expect to beat Bulgaria

So when the group came out what teams did you expect us to beat? I suppose you are just pleased to sit through 90 minutes of rubbish and if we get lucky as we have been in every match we have won then you are happy irrespective of how the team played. We have players good enough to be expecting to beat all teams in this group bar Italy. We have better players than McShane, Kilbane, Whelan and Hunt.

I am glad we are in second place but we are only there because we have been lucky in every game we have played so far. We will be lucky to get a result in any of our remaining games as well but I think that it will run out and God only knows how we will win or draw our next games then. The U21 team beat Spain the other night and this was down to a good team effort with some very good play. NI beat a Poland team that hammered us in Dublin. Have they got better players than us? No they have not imo.

[Irish_Praha]

There is no doubthing that Trap has gone a long way to sort out the mess that Staunton left behind. There have been many positives and the results in general have been acceptable. However, it's not too much to expect that he would be a better coach/manager than Stan. The team has its strong and weak areas, which have been debated to infinitum here already. The squad selections have raised a few questions but IMO it is debateable that there is a major difference in the players being ignored and the ones that are in the squad. I also think that the majority of fans would agree with his starting 11. So on all these counts I'm happy enough with Trap's performace so far.

As has been stated on here already, his major negative point is just that, his negativity. Any time we have scored an early goal we jump into our shells and play way too defensively. We just try to stop the other team from creating anything and as a result limit our own attacking ability. Sometimes this works in our favour but more often than not if you invite a half decent team onto you for 70 or 80 mins they will evetually score a goal. Why don't we just go for the jugular and try finish off a game? If we are on top of a game and are good value for our 1-0 lead then there should be more goals in it. As soon as Bulgaria scored we woke up and created at least 3 really good chance in the last 15 mins which was more than in the 70 mins between the two goals. We can play much better when we want but why only when we really need a goal?

This was also the case for Kerr (Isreal and Switzerland away) and Stan (Cyprus at home). At the moment if I was comparing our current and past managers I would give Trap and Kerr similar marks. Both teams very well organised but ultimately too conservative.

[weldoninhio]

Manager

Milan 1974-1974

Milan 1976-1976

Juventus 1976-1986

Internazionale 1986-1991

Juventus 1991-1994

Bayern Munich 1994-1995

Cagliari 1995-1996

Bayern Munich 1996-1998

Fiorentina 1998-2000

Italy 6 July 2000-15 July 2004

Benfica 2004-2005

Stuttgart 2005-2006

Red Bull Salzburg May 2006-April 2008

Republic of Ireland May 2008-Present


Benfica, Stuttgart, Red Bull Salzburg!! If Il Trap is such a "world class" manager why has he been coaching such mediocre teams since he was hounded out of the Italian job five years ago??

[Jicked]

I said we shouldn't expect to beat Bulgaria, not that we couldn't. of course we could have won that game last night, we didn't, cest la vie. But we didn't lose it, and for all of Bulgaria's posession which was dissapointing, they created only one clear cut chance, and only scored from an own-goal.

Of course we'll get found out at a world cup, we're probably not going to win the thing. If we get to the world cup we'll end up playing in a group a side of the class of Italy, who we'd probably be able to frustrate and annoy, perhaps nicking a point. Then we'd have a side of the caliber of Bulgaria/Colombia/Serbia, who as we've seen we can match, and then a lower ranking side who I'd be confident we could put away. We'd hardly lose every game 3-0, or, I dont know, 5-2.

[Jicked]

Benfica, Stuttgart, Red Bull Salzburg!! If Il Trap is such a "world class" manager why has he been coaching such mediocre teams since he was hounded out of the Italian job five years ago??

So you're now questioning Trapattoni's record? I wouldn't consider Benfica or Stuttgart mediocre teams, I would consider Ireland mediocre when without Duff, Steven Reid, Finnan and Ireland though.

[fionnsci]

I don't know how you can call Benfica and Stuttgart mediocre teams.

[weldoninhio]

They are hardly world beaters!!!