Matt Holland and the Irish midfield in general...

[only1kilbane]

Im sick of the Liam Miller thing and how he should be playing . Let him settle at club level before heaping the kind of pressure you are at international level.

He is promising but we seem to bring players up before they have even proven themself just so we can knock them. The midfield were excellent against brazil and would warrant serious consideration with the introduction of duffer to be included on a regular basis !

[Slash/ED]

I thought the central mid field was poor against Brazil, tbh. I love all the people saying "Millers proved nothing, but we can't drop Kilbane because he's been playing decently for the same amount of time Miller was starring in the champions league!" what a load of ********, espically when people saying that include Kavanagh ffs.

Where will this fascination with experience end. It started in Basle, "No, we can't play Miller and Reid, the old heads will see us through this one" and frankly I'm hearing the same rubbish every single match. Experience is no substitute for ability. Also you can't dismiss someone based on their level, there was a time when Keane was a first division player, Duff was a first division reserve and Connolly was playing champions league football, so the argument about not being able to play Reid as he's a first division player doesn't wash with me one bit.

By the time the competitive matches begin the US tournament will have come and gone. Football or no football, Miller will play in that cup, except for injury. That will be enough 'preperation' as far as I'm concerned to throw him into the dangerous heights of Cyprus at home, and from there, if he shows he is our best option in central mid field, then he plays against the Swiss and the French. The old heads failed against the Swiss, now their older, it's time to bring in the youngsters. Reid and Miller simply must start when the qualifyers come around.

Look around you, other teams are throwing youngsters in all over. England, Rooney had played 20 minutes of international football and started against Turkey, man of the match. Darren Fletcher got Scotland to the play offs, frankly that says enough for me.

That leaves Duff on the left and an open space in central mid field, presumeing Reid can fit in on the right. Fill it with either Delap, my choice, Kilbane, Holland, Carsley, Healy ect ect based on their form in the friendlys between now and then. That is, after all, the point of the bloody things.

[Falconblade]

Talking about Kavanagh, having had a poor night with the set pieces in Dublin, he scored a decent free kick for Cardiff today against Sunderland.

[brine2]

Miller hasn't proved anything yet for Ireland, because he hasn't had the chance. Kilbane has had six years to prove himself.

New players have to be given a chance. The "player x hasn't proved himself yet" mentality will get you nowhere. In fact, it is that mentality that led to John O'Shea watching the World Cup on television.

[carnstien]

Originally posted by brine2
Miller hasn't proved anything yet for Ireland, because he hasn't had the chance. Kilbane has had six years to prove himself.

New players have to be given a chance. The "player x hasn't proved himself yet" mentality will get you nowhere. In fact, it is that mentality that led to John O'Shea watching the World Cup on television.

Well said boss, all the likes of Kilbane, Holland, Harte, Breen and Kinsella have proved is that they were not good enough to get us to Euro 2004, its time to give the likes of Miller and Andy Ried a chance and see if they can do one better!

[fergalr]

The lack of consensus on this just proves that we have just one decent midfiielder (Duff) and a selection of mediocrity and inexperience.

Its a long way from the times when we had so many world class midfielders that Ronnie Whelan had to be put in at full-back.

[Junior]

Originally posted by Slash/ED
I love all the people saying "Millers proved nothing, but we can't drop Kilbane because he's been playing decently for the same amount of time Miller was starring in the champions league!" what a load of ********, espically when people saying that include Kavanagh ffs.

Roughly one and a half games, while very average performances in the SPL

Originally posted by Slash/ED

By the time the competitive matches begin the US tournament will have come and gone. Football or no football, Miller will play in that cup, except for injury. That will be enough 'preperation' as far as I'm concerned to throw him into the dangerous heights of Cyprus at home, and from there, if he shows he is our best option in central mid field, then he plays against the Swiss and the French. The old heads failed against the Swiss, now their older, it's time to bring in the youngsters. Reid and Miller simply must start when the qualifyers come around.

That leaves Duff on the left and an open space in central mid field, presumeing Reid can fit in on the right. Fill it with either Delap, my choice, Kilbane, Holland, Carsley, Healy ect ect based on their form in the friendlys between now and then. That is, after all, the point of the bloody things.

IT looks as though you are detemined to play Miller, having seen little or nothing of him of late. I am 100% certain he will be a great Irish star of the future, but it seems that you feel he should get an automatic start without even playing in the u21 league in Scotland, while say a form player, such as Kilbane needs to prove himself in friendlies - you could be accused of having favourites Slash....are you Mick Mc in dsguise!!!!

[Slash/ED]

I'm determined to play our strongest starting XI, yeah. Miller is in that. Not only because of what he's shown with Celtic, but because he plays in argubley our weakest position. The same could have been said of Robbie Keane when he emerged.

Kilbane is not worthy of a place in out starting 11, imo, based on, well, pretty much every one of his caps. I've seen little of his so called great form for Ireland anyway, same old Kilbane, works his absolute arse off, skins a few players, lacks the quality to put some end product on it. The little bits I've seen of Everton, which is all anyone bar regular matches goers have seen, have done little to convince me I'm wrong either.

[Junior]

Originally posted by Slash/ED
I'm determined to play our strongest starting XI, yeah. Miller is in that. Not only because of what he's shown with Celtic, but because he plays in argubley our weakest position..................

Miller is not in our strongest starting 11, how you can come up with that assessment is beyond me, as I've said he played 1 game against Lyon (excellent), 25 mins against Anderlecht, creating a few chances & then a number of league matches in which he was fairly average. (from someone who regularly attends Celtic Park).

As I've said, he will be a star of the future, but needs blooding, hopefully as you say in the forthcoming friendlies, or the US, though this does not disguise the fact that he will have played zero club football between now and August and thereafter at Man U, who knows? with our 2 toughest matches of the qualifying games in Sep/Oct - that is not ideal to say the least.

It just appears to me that you have made your decision on Miller based largely on media hype (I'm assuming) for he simply hasn't played much football. It reminds me of the urgency to get O'shea in the first 11 after great form for Man U last season and well he looks brutal for ireland at the moment

[Slash/ED]

I base my decision on watching him with Celtic and our U21s and how dire out central mid field has been latley. It was, by far, the worst I've ever seen it during the last qualifyers. It needs new players, you have to take risks, I gave two examples up above and I don't see why he can't have the same impact. I can't name two central mid fielders we have who are better, and by the time the big qualifyers come around he should have played in the US and the Cyprus match.

I don't want to go into the France and Swiss matches with the same mid field that was absolutley awful in Basle, and the entire campaign, it wasn't good enough then and it wont be good enough a year later.

[eirebhoy]

Originally posted by only1kilbane
yeah but the fact is without duffer he is our strongest midfielder at the moment. Miller is all potential which has yet to be put to test on the big stage so how people can say he should be a regular is beyond me !

A few champions league games and hes suddenly a regular international..

Midfield Of - Reid - Kavanagh - Kilbane - Duff

with choice of mcateer , holland, miller and healy as replacements

Aren't you contradicting yourself by putting Reid in while Miller hasn't enough experience? Also, what had Healy done to earn his first callup that Miller hasn't done 3 times over?

Roughly one and a half games, while very average performances in the SPL

I have seen a lot of Celtic this season and Miller has been outstanding in over half the matches. He also had a season long loan spell in Holland aswell as captaining the Irish U-21's.

He has been praised by people that know best, incuding ex-Celtic stars that see him in training and at matches on a regular basis. A lot of players get overrated by papers and TV pundits but I have never heard the amount of praise for any player that Miller got from the people that know best (teammates, ex-managers, current manager, international players, etc, etc.)

[Junior]

Originally posted by eirebhoy

I have seen a lot of Celtic this season and Miller has been outstanding in over half the matches. He also had a season long loan spell in Holland aswell as captaining the Irish U-21's.

He has been praised by people that know best, incuding ex-Celtic stars that see him in training and at matches on a regular basis. A lot of players get overrated by papers and TV pundits but I have never heard the amount of praise for any player that Miller got from the people that know best (teammates, ex-managers, current manager, international players, etc, etc.)

Don't get me wrong I know he will be a star, and during that period of CL games at Celtic, I was extremly excited about the prospect of him as a celtic & Ireland player (Himself, Celtic and Man U saw to it that the Celtic bit would be no more - but thats another story).

MY concern is

1) over hype - to be honest you rarely get teammates, managers, players do anything but say positive things about a player - particularly while he's still at the club!! I think he looks a real prospect, but in a significant number of his spl performances he was VERY average.

League 11 app 7 sub 2 goals
*Europe 4 app 6 sub 3 goals

*Kaunas 18mins + 90mins
MTK Budapest 12mins + 90mins
B Munich 24mins + 27mins
Lyon 25mins + 90mins
Anderlecht 10mins + 75 mins

he actually played more CL than I thought, but still not a great deal 15/20 mins here and there.

2) The reality is he will play zero club football between now and August, he may get an opportunity in the couple of friendlies we have or the US cup (but hey, Dom Foley looked good in the last one of those) to throw him in for our two toughest games of the campaign Swiss/France away with just a couple of friendlies under his belt + the pressure that comes with being our new midfield messiah, I think will be too much. Heres hoping Im wrong

[eirebhoy]

Originally posted by Junior
The reality is he will play zero club football between now and August, he may get an opportunity in the couple of friendlies we have or the US cup (but hey, Dom Foley looked good in the last one of those) to throw him in for our two toughest games of the campaign Swiss/France away with just a couple of friendlies under his belt + the pressure that comes with being our new midfield messiah, I think will be too much. Heres hoping Im wrong

Who says he won't play for Celtic again? MON certainly hasn't ruled it out and i would be nearly certain he will play again. He will be moving to United in June/July and we play France in October so that is 3 or 4 months with United.