Your post amounted to little more than spam. Why the reference to Slovakia? Relevancy? Why the reference to your 40 years of following NI? What's that got to do with how NI play today under Nigel?
You seem to assume that merely producing a block of text proves your point. It doesn't.
Where's the criticism in saying NI play an ultra defensive style of foootball? We under Trapattoni are very defensive. That's not a criticism - it's an observation.
Hard facts to the contrary - yeah right
You had 4 centre halves in the back line. Two very defensive midfielders. And a supposed striker in midfiled.
I'm not the only one with that thought. Read more here.
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/10/...italy-tactics/
"They played a 4-4-2 shape that often looked like 4-4-1-1 when Warren Feeney dropped deep into midfield when Northern Ireland lost the ball."
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"Northern Ireland’s strategy for dealing with Italy’s extra midfield was to drop Feeney back to help out, often picking up Pirlo, since Northern Ireland’s other two midfielders were playing very deep. "
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"The other impact of Italy’s 3 v 2 in the midfield was that Northern Ireland’s wide players tended to be sucked into the midfield battle , leaving Italy’s full-backs free to get forward, and Italy switched play between the two flanks."
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" Northern Ireland’s full-backs stayed at home – pegged back by Cassano and Pepe. In any case, Evans and Gareth McAuley are both centre-backs naturally, and this was evident as Northern Ireland defended across the width of the penalty area."
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"Indeed, Northern Ireland did drop deeper in the second period"
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"Despite plenty of substitutions in attacking areas for both teams, the formations stayed the same"
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"Lafferty and Nigel Worthington both punched the air at full-time – not often you see that the end of a 0-0 at home"
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"Their general outlook was cautious and playing for a point was the idea from the outset"
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"Northern Ireland coped very well with Italy’s front three (or four) by getting two banks of four behind the ball, and defending very narrow which made through balls very tricky for Italy."
Fair enough .
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