Trapattoni - who would you replace him with?

[mark12345]

Not deluded too far from reality out in the states. Out of touch. I've seen it many times before.

Right you are sir. We are indeed out of touch. The ould black and white TV is very grainy these days and the airoplane that takes us back home hasn't been built yet.

[brine3]

are these the same players that performed so dreadfully over the last two critical qualifiers?
the more he introduced the players the fans and media wanted the more our results kept getting worse. long, wilson and mccarthy in particular had stinkers in both our recent qualifiers. the players have to take some of the blame at least. twice long got in behind sweden and twice he messed up badly. are you going to say that was under instruction from trap?

Long was out of form and shouldn't be playing. It happens. Meanwhile we have a fit striker in Walters on the wing. So yes, Long was under instructions from Trap in as far as he's on the pitch.

Trap played the same formation for every match. 4-4-2 with two holding central midfielders, one of which is Glenn Whelan. It doesn't matter if it's against cannon fodder in a qualifier or against Croatia at the Euros. Bilic studied DVDs of our matches and read us like a book. Double mark our wingers and you stifle all the creativity in the team, because there is not creativity in the centre of the park. Slip a playmaker between our two banks of four and he can do what he wants because we play so tactically rigid that there is always space there. It's exactly what Zlatan did against us in Dublin. Drop back into the space between the two banks of four and do as you like. Advocaat did the same thing with Russia, double mark our wingers and slip a playmaker between our banks of four. We were found out three years ago! But Trap just never sees it. He never had to, because, as he keeps going on, he had Boniek, Platini, Brady.

So what exactly was he being paid for when managing Ireland? He was supposed to analyse the opposition and come up with tactics for each match. But he does the same thing, over and over and over again. 4-4-2, two holding midfielders, rigid banks of four. If it is written in stone that we must always play the exact same formation, come rain or shine, then why bother with a manager at all? Save the million odd euros a year.

Yes, we have limited players. No, we don't have Platini and Boniek. That's exactly why we need a manager who is willing to get the most out of our limited resources and not take the **** by managing us by DVD from some lake in Italy.

[Drumcondra 69er]

Latest blog on Trap era and possible successors. Bit of a long piece, was a ******* to finish!

http://afalsefirstxi.blogspot.ie/201...ts-sprung.html

[Stuttgart88]

FAI to respect foot.ie posters' wishes to delay appointment in order to allow for endless hours / days /weeks of faux intellectual waffle

[jbyrne]

Long was out of form and shouldn't be playing. It happens. Meanwhile we have a fit striker in Walters on the wing. So yes, Long was under instructions from Trap in as far as he's on the pitch.

incredible logic.
you dont have to be "in form" to look up and play a simple ball accross the goal.

[Spudulika]

Once the first lie was told by our meeja, the first blatant, manufactured lie that was typical of fleet st/wapping wannabe dark art gobdaws, the coach should have gone. When it gets to the point where our "expert" is claiming that german football has serious problems, that the Spanish coach is only on 50k a year, and he and the ringmaster sneer at our best player, it doesn't matter who the next sacrificial lamb is, because the coach gave in to meeja pressure, as did his employers, and it made a mockery of the sport. If he'd gotten gibson, ireland, reid (both of them) giles and brady onto the pitch there'd be someone else to beat him with. It's a sick joke and nothing to do with sport.

[osarusan]

It's media, not meeja.

[paul_oshea]

It's not just those players. Getting Trap to change things is like turning an oil tanker. Too slow. We could have done with Wilson and Coleman at Euro 2012. Trap is very slow to bring players through. He refers to 27 years olds as young players for god's sake.

By the time Trap finally picked Long, Long may have been past his best form already.

He just kept picking the same players in the same formation for years on end. Any clown can do that. Basically, Trapattoni wasn't bothering his hole to do his job properly, despite having been paid a king's ransom. That's why it fell to bits and that's why he got the sack.

It wasnt a sly dig. I lived out there for a year, so i know how difficult it was for myself, granted it was a long time ago now and things have changed in 10 or so years. But even so, you dont get to see as many games, its a valid question.

I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your post though, Trap was solely to blame for the poor performances in Euros and against Germany he was far too slow for too long and got caught out. Granted most of those have played now and we lost the last 2 games but thats a different thing altogether.

[paul_oshea]

Once the first lie was told by our meeja, the first blatant, manufactured lie that was typical of fleet st/wapping wannabe dark art gobdaws, the coach should have gone. When it gets to the point where our "expert" is claiming that german football has serious problems, that the Spanish coach is only on 50k a year, and he and the ringmaster sneer at our best player, it doesn't matter who the next sacrificial lamb is, because the coach gave in to meeja pressure, as did his employers, and it made a mockery of the sport. If he'd gotten gibson, ireland, reid (both of them) giles and brady onto the pitch there'd be someone else to beat him with. It's a sick joke and nothing to do with sport.

The meejahideen osarusan. Did you read about that investigative journalist(Gemma O'Doherty) that got fired from the independent last week on the QT? Interesting article in the Guardian about it. Stepped on the wrong toes.... http://www.theguardian.com/media/gre...endent-ireland

[paul_oshea]

Brnie3 got me thinking about something, one of the main reasons it all came undone was because, he no longer had duff, and mcgeady wasnt available in the last few games to offer relief. Thats the biggest failing of the man, his system depended wholly on two speedy wingers capable of counter-attacking and creating chances from the wing. When those players weren't available he put square pegs in round holes and it didnt work. So after being stifled for so long, we ended up being suffocated, there was zero creativity. And thats where he should have been smart enough and experienced enough to bring in a playmaker like hoolohan for example, or just change his rigid and benign system.

But ya, any half decent manager spotted our strengths and more importanly our weaknesses. They used their most potent force to wonderful effect against our weakest achilles heel, modric/ibra/alaba etc. It shows just how toothless Trap was really. Thats why he has done nothing in 10+ years, as he is too institutionalised in his 70s/80s play and the game has passed him by. His tactics and system are well outdated.

[jbyrne]

Thats why he has done nothing in 10+ years

an unbeaten away competitive record until Austria, euro qualification, near wc 2010 qualification, paris, bari and other results would suggest otherwise.

[paul_oshea]

Sure kerr got a draw in paris, so what? When it really mattered we got hammered in the euros against any decent opposition. We got an easy group and qualified for the Euros, its like Switzerland on top of their group, Trap would have got us out of that no problem!

[DeLorean]

Thats why he has done nothing in 10+ years

an unbeaten away competitive record until Austria, euro qualification, near wc 2010 qualification, paris, bari and other results would suggest otherwise.

He also won titles in Portugal and Austria in the last eight years... nothing indeed.

[tetsujin1979]

Around 25-30 of which, we could have done without...

so he should have only given new caps to 7-12 players? Of the players he didn't cap, the only real outstanding "should have played" is Chris McCann, who was out injured for a year.

[brine3]

Sure kerr got a draw in paris, so what? When it really mattered we got hammered in the euros against any decent opposition. We got an easy group and qualified for the Euros, its like Switzerland on top of their group, Trap would have got us out of that no problem!

Kerr came closer to winning a qualification group than Trap ever did.

People like to knock Kerr, but that Zizou captained French team went on to lose the World Cup final on penalties. And Kerr, with a tiny bit of luck, might have won the group.

[DeLorean]

Or a tiny bit of 'not f**king up' against Israel... twice.

I agree he didn't do the worst job in the world though.

[brine3]

Which quite neatly captures the problem of picking players on temporary form, and it's the reason why Robbie Keane has seen off every pretender to his throne in nigh-on 15 years.

There have been times when Robbie was out of form and shouldn't have been picked.

No player in the Irish team should have a throne. We should field the best XI at our disposal at the time.

This is pretty basic stuff really.

[bennocelt]

He also won titles in Portugal and Austria in the last eight years... nothing indeed.

Didnt do the job for salzburg, which was to get into CL group stage

[brine3]

incredible logic.
you dont have to be "in form" to look up and play a simple ball accross the goal.

?? Are you familiar with football?

When a player is out of form, lacking in confidence and his club is trying to push him out the door, the simple things can start to go wrong.

Footballers are human beings.

[brine3]

Brnie3 got me thinking about something, one of the main reasons it all came undone was because, he no longer had duff, and mcgeady wasnt available in the last few games to offer relief. Thats the biggest failing of the man, his system depended wholly on two speedy wingers capable of counter-attacking and creating chances from the wing. When those players weren't available he put square pegs in round holes and it didnt work. So after being stifled for so long, we ended up being suffocated, there was zero creativity. And thats where he should have been smart enough and experienced enough to bring in a playmaker like hoolohan for example, or just change his rigid and benign system.

But ya, any half decent manager spotted our strengths and more importanly our weaknesses. They used their most potent force to wonderful effect against our weakest achilles heel, modric/ibra/alaba etc. It shows just how toothless Trap was really. Thats why he has done nothing in 10+ years, as he is too institutionalised in his 70s/80s play and the game has passed him by. His tactics and system are well outdated.

Alaba too, forgot that. Our centre-midfield has had the mickey taken out of it for three years now and Trap just stands by and does nothing. We even made the Armenians look like Brazil.

As you say, Trap got away with it as long as he had Duff, who is our greatest player from the post-Roy Keane era, winning free kicks all over the place.