Expectations

[Straightstory]

Football is never as black and white as this. You can play a passing game that doesn't involve suicidal all out attack - you could pass whilst play a diamond midfield, or playing with a holding midfielder, or you could play 4-2-3-1, or, or, or...

Its about trusting your players to be able to pass to each other, to not bypass midfield as though its an out and out risk to involve your midfielders, and to give your forwards something other than balls coming out of the clouds.



Perhaps we disagree on the quality of our players. Of the starting eleven last night, eight play at EPL clubs, one is in the top flight of Russian football, one is at a Championship club on loan from an EPL club, and the other plays for one of the better Championship sides. Given all that, I would trust them to get the ball down on the deck and pass it to one another.

Completely agree. We've played so badly in the qualifiers and a huge slice of luck has got us this far. The good fortune may even hold and we could get Estonia in the play-offs. But it's a dismal, frustrating and genuinely puzzling experience watching this Irish team struggle to string even two or three passes together. As a group of (mostly) Premiership players, they're clearly not playing to the best of their ability - presumably because of the straight jacket of fear and conservatism which Trap has imposed on the team. His record is good, but he is the luckiest manager we've ever had.

[bennocelt]

what potential exactly? id say we are exceeding it given the players we have

Hate this tripe. What? As bad as Greece, as bad as Denmark who always seem to qualify comfortably, as bad as Estonia, as bad as Montenegro???
Have you not noticed, international football bar Germany and Spain isnt that good
By the way Gus Hiddink is manage of Turkey, so beware

[ArdeeBhoy]

You could add the Dutch currently.

Not sure about the other point, mind?

[zero]

i thought we played well enough last night, for the first hour anyway. i am surprised and disappointed at the negativity.

you'd think we lost the game. armenia had two shots on target all night, and the one we did let in, shay should have saved.

[hunt4the]

[QUOTE=richieos;1542060]Im sorry for posting a new thread. But in my opinion things here have gotten ridiculous.QUOTE]
totally agree and in the space of 2 pages this post has gotten ridiculous
were into the playoffs, top seeds happy days
clap for trap

[Stuttgart88]

21 points - our second highest ever?

Imagine what we'd have got if we were any good!

If we had drawn at home to Russia, everything else the same, we'd have qualified I think.

[Drumcondra 69er]

21 points - our second highest ever?

Imagine what we'd have got if we were any good!

If we had drawn at home to Russia, everything else the same, we'd have qualified I think.

Jesus, only twigged that now, we'd have been a point ahead of them had we managed to sneak an equaliser...

The original poster is bang on the money, there's an awaful of people that just bleat what ever the likes of Dunphy or those halfwits on Off the Ball come out with.

Yeas, we could play better on occasion but it's rarely as bad as is made out. Slovakia away was a decent performance this campaign as was Aremnia and Macedonia away. Andorra was professional if uninspiring both games. Dunphy asying last night we'd have no chance against anyone over 2 legs?? Outside of Russia we were ahead of every other team in the group on the head to head.

[BonnieShels]

Re otb, Early was actually echoing the sentiments of positivity last night. He was delighted and thinks we could do it in the play offs.

[TiocfaidhArmani]

It would be crazy to sack him now but I want no more of him. Given the groups he’s had it hasn’t taken a major effort to make the play offs. Like the last group he had against the better teams we’ve not won once. This campaign we’ve done it against the lesser teams and failed miserably against the teams seeded above us. I don’t think it’s been that great an effort and don’t hold any confidence still that we’ll qualify. We struggle to win games and over a two-legged affair that won’t bode us well.

[TiocfaidhArmani]

21 points - our second highest ever?

Imagine what we'd have got if we were any good!

If we had drawn at home to Russia, everything else the same, we'd have qualified I think.

Points massed by beating the mighty Andorra, Armenia (one game with the majority with 10 men) and Macedonia. No great shakes. Looks great on paper but in the four games against Russia and Slovakia, again, we've won zero games. We don't need someone on €2 million a year to beat the likes of them and to bore us to death in the process.

I hope we qualify but still want him gone. His central midfield partnership is just dreadful and playing full backs and wingers on the wrong wings is baffling.

[tetsujin1979]

Points massed by beating the mighty Andorra, Armenia (one game with the majority with 10 men) and Macedonia. No great shakes. Looks great on paper but in the four games against Russia and Slovakia, again, we've won zero games. We don't need someone on €2 million a year to beat the likes of them and to bore us to death in the process.

I hope we qualify but still want him gone. His central midfield partnership is just dreadful and playing full backs and wingers on the wrong wings is baffling.

We were the only team to take 6 points off Armenia, and Macedonia have proven more than a handful to previous Ireland teams.
Apart from the 1-0 win over Holland, a win over a higher ranked side in a qualifier is a rarity for us

[backstothewall]

That clown Dunphy described the approach last night as "worse than Charlton".

Trouble is Eamo, Charlton is our most successful manager ever. And our approach last night, whilst not pretty, worked.

They showed clip after clip of us humping 2 big long balls forward, and seemed to think that this was bad by default. What they failed to comment on was everytime we dropped a long ball into the box their centre backs looked completely terrified.

Then he showed the two goals and said it was dreadful defending and that we were lucky.

Not once in an hour or so of analysis did that they consider that trap might have noticed that their defenders were ropey under the sort of pressure we put them under, or that the last team who tried to play football with those guys got 4 put past them. There was nothing lucky about it.

Why would we have tried to play football in the middle of the park against a team who are clearly technically better than us? Trap's approach to the game was spot on.

[backstothewall]

His central midfield partnership is just dreadful and playing full backs and wingers on the wrong wings is baffling.

He plays wingers on opposite wings because Duff & McGeady have been playing on those wings for their clubs for years now, and because given we have 2 sub 6 ft strikers, he feels they are better to run at the channels between full back and centre backs, and create gaps by pulling their defence out of position, rather than getting to the touch line and putting in a cross for a 6ft4 centre back to nod away.

[mypost]

Points massed by beating the mighty Andorra, Armenia (one game with the majority with 10 men) and Macedonia. No great shakes. Looks great on paper but in the four games against Russia and Slovakia, again, we've won zero games. We don't need someone on €2 million a year to beat the likes of them and to bore us to death in the process.

I hope we qualify but still want him gone.

If you want him gone, you have to hope we don't qualify, otherwise he's still there.

Slovakia won in Moscow, but scraped past Andorra and lost 6 points to Armenia. Russia had to settle for 4 against Armenia, and struggled to beat Macedonia. We beat them both comfortably. We got results in 9 of the group games. We got results in all 10 last time. We've got good results against Italy, Russia, and France playing our way. We've won a tournament without conceding a goal. We've shot up the world rankings. Because of that, we're now seeded for the coming playoffs. That's why Trap is one of the world's greatest coach's and why he is paid the salary he is.

Style of play wins no ranking points or seeding pots. Results do. The side is unrecognisable from the shambles it was this night 4 years ago. Budding Championship Managers come here and keep telling us we can't do this and we won't do that. But we keep proving yous wrong, time and again.

[rebelmusic]

Really refreshing post above. I almost threw myself in the river lee last night people were annoying me so much. The amount of people giving out to me that O'Shea should have been left back with Coleman right full....WHAT??? Coleman hasn't played full back in donkeys and is relatively untried at international level.

Trap got the tactics spot on last night. We may have had a serious dose of luck but i really felt we were in control of the game. They were largely contained in their half. At one point it showed Armenia had 71% of possession in the previous 5 minutes and Ronnie starting ranting. He neglected to mention that 4 of those 5 minutes we were pressing them so hard that they couldn't get the ball past the half-way line.

Great performance for the most part. McGeady and Sledge had bad games - if they had been on form there would be very little to complain about.

Sick of this country constantly knocking us in football and then calling the rugby team heroes for losing to Wales

Dunphy should be ashamed. That panel badly needs someone like Sounness back to give the opposing view.

[da bishop]

i think trap has done a brilliant job,we were a shambles before he arrived,we have now some respect back.while i would love to see the total football we,d all aspire to the fact is we do not have the players for it.none of our present crop are technically gifted but are all decent enough players at the levels they play at,with maybe Given the only real world class player we have.many are not regulars at their clubs,or are out on loan at others,trap is rigid on his system because he believes its about results.Giles and Dunphy wanted Paul Jewel to be appointed a while back....nuf said.

[Sullivinho]

That panel badly needs someone like Sounness back to give the opposing view.

Give him Brady's seat. I think I'd prefer a dodgy euphemism to Liam's pre-match bricking last night.

[Stuttgart88]

If there was a "qualified thanks" button, I'd have pressed it for rebelmusic's post. I wouldn't have said "great performance for the most part".

It's not as if we got a stroke of luck when we desperately needed it. We got luck that helped our cause, but the cause looked pretty achievable even before the red card & OG. I didn't agree with Trap's assertion that Armenia were better in the first half. I usually crap myself watching Ireland & I was relaxed nearly all the way through the first half. The last 10 mins was different, mind...

[Stuttgart88]

Style of play wins no ranking points or seeding pots.

Agree totally, but I still can't help think that we'd make things easier for ourselves by playing a bit better. Its not a zero sum game where playing with more cohesion and attacking intent automatically makes us more vulnerable. I think we can play on the front foot more and still be buggers to beat.

[rebelmusic]

I'm strongly of the opinion that all we're lacking is 1 midfielder. Of Whelan/Andrews, i personally prefer Whelan but they should be contenders for eachothers spot. This team is missing what Steven Reid was bringing to us. Maybe in the future the answer is McCarthy but here's the most important point - McCarthy has missed virtually all our friendlies and one of the few he bothered showing up to he got his game and didn't really prove himself. People have to stop roaring about him.

The system works, it just needs one better player in the middle to link up the play. If the back four always felt they had a midfield player to lay it off to, they wouldn't be hoofing it. They don't feel confident laying it off to whelan/andrews since they're pretty sure it'll come straight back to them.

This is what we all hoped Gibson/McCarthy/A.Reid could be, none of them have shown they can be.