Brian Mc Dermott has done excellent work at Reading.
Trap has been a fantastic manager in the past. He had a tough job sorting out the mess after Staunton and qualifying us for the Euros was fantastic. I think though that a lot of people would admit that we qualified inspite of some terrible performances through out the group stages, and had we been drawn against teams of the level of Estonia in other play offs we would have been at more major championships.
During the Euros there were so many interviews with players where they talked about the fantastic opposition they were up against and almost a case of "what did ya expect" when we were beaten. It was almost like it had been drilled into them that they were inferior before the tournament even started. Yes, we lost against the two finalists , and they were brilliant( especially the Spanish) but I dont believe that Croatia are that far ahead of us. Yet we were lacking the one think throughout the three games that has always been second nature to any Irish team, fight! Im not saying that the players didnt try, but to nowhere near the levels that we have become used to in the past and they looked like a beaten team from kick off.
The constant "miscommunications" have gotten beyond a joke at this point. This week we had Trap saying McClean was ill only for McClean to say he wasnt. After the Serbia game Trap said Long wasnt fit only for Long to say he was. These are only the latest two, we've had issues with Stokes, Best, Wilson, Foley, McCarthy,Clarke amongst others. Even though I know some of these were not the managers fault it happens too often for him not to take a lot of responibility.I dont think a lot of these issues with players would happen if he actually spend his weekends travelling to watch players play and meeting up with them for a chat after these games.
His selections are becoming increasingly erratic too. Last night seeing 3 different strikers playing on the wing when he had 2 premiership wingers sitting on the bench was the latest in a long line of frustrating selections. John O Shea said only recently that his days playing at right back are done because he doesnt have the pace but yet continues to be selected there instead of his much better position of Center half. His baffling selection of Paul Green during the euro has (rightly or wrongly on the players part) cost us Darron Gibson who is developing into an excellent player in a position we are short. These are just the most recent in a long line of frustrating decisons that have seen the likes of Cillian Sheridan, Liam Miller, Andy Keogh, Paul McShane and Calleb Folan selected regularly in Traps squads and even starting when better players have been left on the bench or out of the squad completely.
I think its pretty obvious that Trap doesnt trust the Irish players abilities to play football and so we end up with the long ball to the front that we seen time and again last night. Id love to know what he does on the training pitch. I have images of the defenders just having competitions to see who can kick the ball the longest. We are consistantly tactically inept and it really isnt good enough from a manager who is paid so highly.
Last night on RTE Brady nearly came out with the usual rubbish we heard from the Joe Duffy callers after Staunton was sacked... we dont have the players and who else would ya get.Theres lots of managers in the world game that would take the job. No body would have thought about Trap before we suddenly went and got him.The likes of Martinez, Lambert, and Rogers proved just last season in the Premiership that you dont have to have a team of superstars to be tactically good, play decent football and get good results.... Christ we have a small pool of players so the first job for any manager would be not to fall out with so many of them.
Originally Posted by Kingdom
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