Slovakia V Republic of Ireland - Tuesday, 12th October 2010 - Euro 2012 Qualifier

[ifk101]

I think you just what to moan today. Everything okay in your personal life?

[paul_oshea]

I think you just what to moan today. Everything okay in your personal life?

couldn't be better to be honest, i got the job i went for yesterday confirmed at lunch time, and its a sector ive wanted to work in again for quite some time.

However I just got a bit fed up of everyone here before not questioning anything and thinking all about 4 points and this and that, and blind to the fact that going the way we were we were never going to get those points. Everyone had a go at shamrockireland even though he put across a very good argument backed up well with relevant points. Im surprised he hasn't actually come back to gloat tbh!!

I think the conclusion comes that, unless we find a few solutions and trap uses the friendlies to the best possible effect by bringing in the names mentioned, and possibly some more, assuming they do well they ACTUALLY start the competitive games, then we will be still talking along the same lines come the next qualifiers i.e. it is up to trap to CHANGE himself and change the team and tactics as the need arises.

[SwanVsDalton]

However I just got a bit fed up of everyone here before not questioning anything and thinking all about 4 points and this and that, and blind to the fact that going the way we were we were never going to get those points.

For the last time Paul very few people did this, there was a wide range of positive and negative views on the team pre and post games. Whereas the only people blindly insisting on a point of view were people like...

Everyone had a go at shamrockireland even though he put across a very good argument backed up well with relevant points. Im surprised he hasn't actually come back to gloat tbh!!

...ShamrockIreland. He brought up a couple of decent points but generally masked it in the kind of WUMming, hyperbolic rhetoric that's easy to ignore. And the evidence for his 'we're doomed' mentality was, and is, extremely thin.

I think a lot of people actually agree with some of the things he, and you say, but it's just so OTT. You can't complain about people being blindly positive when you guys are just as myopic on the negative side.

[ifk101]

There're massive question marks there. For example, poor Paul Green has taken some slaughtering in here.

But I think there're lots of positive signs to take from yesterday's game, despite the overall lacklustre performance in the second half. We created far more clear cut goal scoring chances yesterday than Slovakia. We kept their two best players relatively quite throughout. Hamsik, who I personally think is quite a player, never had any real influence on the game. Both Fahey and Long were our best players, and in the process showed to Trapattoni that we do have some level of depth in our squad.

Russia are the best team in the group so far but there'll be plenty of twists and turns before this group is decided. We still have everything in our own hands.

[Duggie]

lads in all likelyhood the team will stay the same with duff/hunt/lawerence/andrews/doyle all coming back into contention. i dont see to many, if any additions from nov friendly.

[Stuttgart88]

if russia lost to slovakia a away... slovakia could pip top

True, but how do you square that scenario with

Slovakia are very poor

?

Congrats on the job. I trust it's not as a motivational coach

[paul_oshea]

same way as kingdom says it here(perhaps luck....

[quote]As for their result against Slovakia, I wouldn't agree that they caught the Slovaks off guard at all. Slovakia I feel aren't as good a team as has been made out, and while results are the important part of football, sometimes they don't tell the full story. Slovakia were absolutely poxed lucky to beat Russia, and they needed an injurytime goal plus a ludicrous red card for Macedonia to get the three points[/qoute]

...But more likely because we cant finish teams off, and they only need one lucky deflection/penalty and 10 men behind the ball for 90 mins against russia to win, sounds unrealistic doesn't it? BUt they did it once.....

thanks stutts. ill have to put up with working with knob jockeys for the overall benefit of good experience.


Swan: honestly if i had the time or could be arsed and wasn't so lazy, id pull out the posts, but there was definitely too much unrealistic expectation, i say that based on what went before.

[SwanVsDalton]

There're massive question marks there. For example, poor Paul Green has taken some slaughtering in here.

But I think there're lots of positive signs to take from yesterday's game, despite the overall lacklustre performance in the second half. We created far more clear cut goal scoring chances yesterday than Slovakia. We kept their two best players relatively quite throughout. Hamsik, who I personally think is quite a player, never had any real influence on the game. Both Fahey and Long were our best players, and in the process showed to Trapattoni that we do have some level of depth in our squad.

Russia are the best team in the group so far but there'll be plenty of twists and turns before this group is decided. We still have everything in our own hands.

I partly agree. Last night was, for me, one of our better away performances under Trap. We bossed most of the game and should've won - poor finishing was our undoing. Slovakia arn't great, and certainly wern't last night, but we dominated them in their patch. Given the paucity of riches we've experienced away in recent years, that's worth something. There's still plenty to look at of course - our reliance on long ball, our inability to change a match or really up the tempo, our defending at set plays.

But again it seems to come down to this argument of 'we're rubbish when we play poorly, but the opposition is rubbish when we play well.' So simplistic.

[ifk101]

lads in all likelyhood the team will stay the same with duff/hunt/lawerence/andrews/doyle all coming back into contention. i dont see to many, if any additions from nov friendly.

Yeah I wouldn't expect too many changes. I don't think it's wise anyways to make too many changes. But Foley and Wilson are in the squad so I think Trapattoni will give them a run out against Norway and/or in the forthcoming 3 nations cup. McCarthy possibly might get a look in as well (.... that's if he wants it).

[Stuttgart88]

There're massive question marks there. For example, poor Paul Green has taken some slaughtering in here.

But I think there're lots of positive signs to take from yesterday's game, despite the overall lacklustre performance in the second half. We created far more clear cut goal scoring chances yesterday than Slovakia. We kept their two best players relatively quite throughout. Hamsik, who I personally think is quite a player, never had any real influence on the game. Both Fahey and Long were our best players, and in the process showed to Trapattoni that we do have some level of depth in our squad.

Russia are the best team in the group so far but there'll be plenty of twists and turns before this group is decided. We still have everything in our own hands.

I agree but I'm nowhere near convinced that we have it in us to eek out all the results we need. We're just not clinical enough.

I think Paul is misreading a lot of what some of us are saying. Speaking for myself, I have said that the team needs refreshing, but in this context it's good that Long & Fahey have shown that players can come in and make a difference. I hope, but don't necessarily expect, that at least one of McCarthy, Wilson or Foley may make an impact in November and afterwards. All I've been saying (since November 2009) is that with a bit of polish at either end we'd be miles better off. It's not wildly optimistic to think we can - note: nobody is saying we will.

In 5 months time we might have a bit more depth and players like Duff, Hunt, Lawrence may be back competing for wide spots allowing Fahey to move centrally. I can't tell you how happy I was with this fella's contribution last night. Keane and Given may be sharper. Of course, we may also be depleted so you can't count on anything.

[Duggie]

id actually love to see fahey in the middle, think he could actually control the tempo. but hes not playing that role at birmingham so this may not help his case.

[Stuttgart88]

I always take a glass half full approach, rightly or wrongly. I've got a positive view of people & the world, it's just me.

Some facts:
Russia lost over 2 legs to Slovenia. They laboured against Andorra and lost to Slovakia in Moscow.
We were unbeaten in 10 games last year and the general feeling is that if we sharpen up we have it in us to get better.
That makes getting some kind of result being possible against Russia not unrealistic in advance of the game

We were the better team and made the better chances yesterday. Usual faults cost us the win. I'd have preferred they had less of the ball in the last 25 minutes but I felt comfortable during the second half last night, and this is from a guy who practically has a coronary when the opposition wins a goal kick against Ireland. This means that expecting a decent result in Slovakia wasn't too far out.

This is decidedly glass-half-full as well, but it's true that:
Slovakia were blessed to win in Russia
Slovakia were lucky to beat Macedonia
Slovakia were lucky not to be 2-1 behind to us (and lose)
Russia's 3rd goal against us was an outrageous deflection
Russia were lucky not to be pegged back to 1-1 last night.
On our side we got a soft (but correct?) penalty v Russia and Slovakia missed a couple of key players.
In the debit column we missed a few players ourselves.

On our side we also deserved our ugly win in Armenia and weren't clinical enough in either Armenia or Slovakia. With luck (a fair bit of) we might have got something against Russia (hitting the bar early on when Doyle was certain to score, Dunne being penalised wrongly for Russia's deflected first goal...).

OK, I'm rambling, but if Paul's contention is that Slovakia might pip the group because their luck might continue then I can't let that go without a counter of we might just stay in there if we play to our best.

[paul_oshea]

OK, I'm rambling, but if Paul's contention is that Slovakia might pip the group because their luck might continue then I can't let that go without a counter of we might just stay in there if we play to our best.

Ya, ill go with the luck part when it comes to the latter joking.

[tetsujin1979]

id actually love to see fahey in the middle, think he could actually control the tempo. but hes not playing that role at birmingham so this may not help his case.

I don't know if the defensive side of Fahey's game would be enough for him to play in centre midfield. If he did play there, I'd like to see him behind the main striker with 2 defensive players behind him.

[geysir]

It's always a bad sign when the calculator comes out and we haven't even reached 1/2 way yet.

Time to smell the coffee Tets, 2 defensive midfielders is not working for us, it is as dead as the dodo.
Moving pieces around the board won't give it real purpose. There is no substitute for midfielder who has got the attributes of a midfielder.

[tetsujin1979]

It's always a bad sign when the calculator comes out and we haven't even reached 1/2 way yet.

Time to smell the coffee Tets, 2 defensive midfielders is not working for us, it is as dead as the dodo.
Moving pieces around the board won't give it real purpose. There is no substitute for midfielder who has got the attributes of a midfielder.

Like I said, I don't know if the defensive side of Fahey's game is strong enough for him to play in central midfield.
One of the first things that Trapattoni said about the games before he took over was that we were conceding too much possession and territory and the centre of the park, e.g. VS Cyprus, and bringing players like Whelan and Andrews into the side helped to shore up midfield and protect the central defensive pairing. Look at the goals conceded in the last campaign, the majority of them came from play down the wings, not through the centre. Russia were the first opposition in Trapattoni's reign to play through the centre of our midfield repeatedly in a game, almost three years after he took over.
I don't know enough about Fahey to say that playing him there would be a mistake, but I have serious doubts that it is the right thing to do. When Gibson came on last night, I said that Whelan would have to work harder than he had up to that point to cover for him, because he would stand that few yards ahead of where Green had been playing, opening space for Slovakia to play into, would starting Fahey in the centre introduce the same weakness?

Basically I don't think we have a solid enough defensive midfielder to cover for an attacking partner. Steven Reid was marked out early on as a box-to-box player by Trapattoni (go back and watch the away friendly against Norway - fantastic performance) who could play a defensive role and provide a link with the attacking four players, and we still haven't replaced him. After his last serious injury, it seems to me that the decision was made that guarding against a loss with two defensive players was a better option given the squad options available to use than playing someone like Andy Reid in midfield and trying to create a chance from the centre of the park.

As for Reid's eventual replacement, it might be McCarthy, Meyler, Wilson or even Clifford, it could even be A.N.Other playing DDSL right now. But I don't think it's Fahey.

[paul_oshea]

It's always a bad sign when the calculator comes out and we haven't even reached 1/2 way yet.

Time to smell the coffee Tets, 2 defensive midfielders is not working for us, it is as dead as the dodo.
Moving pieces around the board won't give it real purpose. There is no substitute for midfielder who has got the attributes of a midfielder.

Geysir, ive noticed a change in direction(thinking and mindset) from you also.

Perhaps tets, meant in terms of the way trap looks at things as oppossed to his own side of things i.e. fahey hasn't the defensive ability that trap requires for CM.

[Billsthoughts]

I don't know if the defensive side of Fahey's game would be enough for him to play in centre midfield. If he did play there, I'd like to see him behind the main striker with 2 defensive players behind him.

I think Fahey in central midfield would be fine. He can control and pass the ball. he also wants the ball as opposed to want to get rid of the ball. The game drifted away form us last nite when we started handing the Slovaks the ball. How many times did Mageady ,Green and Kilbane give the ball to Slovakia under very little pressure. I doubt passing the ball to the opposition is Trapps tactic.

[paul_oshea]

Basically I don't think we have a solid enough defensive midfielder to cover for an attacking partner. Steven Reid was marked out early on as a box-to-box player by Trapattoni (go back and watch the away friendly against Norway - fantastic performance) who could play a defensive role and provide a link with the attacking four players, and we still haven't replaced him. After his last serious injury, it seems to me that the decision was made that guarding against a loss with two defensive players was a better option given the squad options available to use than playing someone like Andy Reid in midfield and trying to create a chance from the centre of the park.

he still played whelan with reid......

[tetsujin1979]

he still played whelan with reid......

Reid had a good balance between attack and midfield, receiving the ball from defence, passing it out and driving forward for a return ball, and then getting back to cover. Has Fahey got that same work rate?