Very proud of our supporters. Trap did well to qualify with this team but they did not know (or were unable) to compete against this quality of opposition.Originally Posted by the bear
Terrible, 7 goals conceeded in 180 mins. All this with a manager who prides himself on tight defensive play, all 7 have been sloppy errors. We look inept in defence, flakey in midfield and blunt upfront. The worst bit was there was simply no fight from any of the players, it was almost lik e a Staunton performance in that sense. I admire Trap for getting us there but it seems he can't inspire the players or he's lost the dressing room or something
Gutted because of the performance and the result, but proud of the fans. Spain were just on another level.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
How are people blaming Trap for this?
Dunne has been a mess, the less said about Given the better, St.Ledger is sadly all we have and can't even get a game in the Championship, O'Shea can barely run, Duff tries hard but has lost pace, Keane should be taken out back and shot and we're left with the maestros of Paul Green, Stephen Ward and the rest to make up a squad.
It's a miracle we got here and people are wanting the manager sacked because we can't stand up to the best team in the world?
true, we completely lost our basic structure and strength. in fairness spain can be unplayable but we were muck against croatia as well
My ratings.
Given - 5 - A few very sloppy mistakes and some poor distribution. Completely not like him. Am gutted for him.
O'Shea - 6 - Probably our best defender, even still he made a few mistakes early on.
Dunne - 5 - Looked very sluggish, although he did improve a bit as the game progressed.
St Ledger - 4 - Probably the worst game he has had for us. How he ended up on the deck for two of the goals was ridiculous.
Ward - 4 - I have always said he is just out of his depth at left back. He showed it again tonight, positionally shocking.
Duff - 6 - Very quiet. Did a lot of tracking back and worded hard, but I don't recall him getting forward once.
Andrews - 7 - Easily our best player. Tried his heart out, put himself about, but just didn't have the quality to compete. Feel gutted for him.
Whelan - 4 - Whelan was at the other end of the spectrum. When he gets the ball, he isn't just nervous, he is completely terrified.
McGeady - 6 - Worked hard like Duff, got forward a few times, knocked in two crosses, had a few decent touches, but was ultimately swamped.
Cox - 6 - Tried his nuts off, linked up play a few times. Shouldn't be embarrassed at his performance.
Keane - 5 - Worked hard through out the night, but fluffed the one decent and one half chance that he had.
Walters - 6 - Put himself about, ran down some channels, but saw little fruit for his efforts.
McClean - 5 - Lost the ball a few times, but tried hard.
Green - 4 - Like Whelan and Ward, he was just nowhere near good enough to be wearing a green jersey.
He picks the team.
And the "tactics".
Last edited by SkStu; 14/06/2012 at 9:07 PM. Reason: Forgot the inverted commas...
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
And who among our world beaters on the bench or in Norwich would have stopped that happening tonight can I ask?
You can blame the Trap for playing Keane & Cox together. Absolutely bonkers.
If Shay Given wasn't 100% he shouldn't have been playing. Irish legend or not.
It hurts to see players who get paid 10-50k a week not able to control a ball or pass it to a team mate.
Our experienced players have been the biggest let down. Dunne has been awful.
Has the RTE panel been harsh? I thought Roy Keane was spot on with his analysis.
what did keane say. the rte lads havent been harsh at all basically said we hadnt a hope to begin with
Does anyone need any extra convincing (after that performance against Spain) that possession is 99% of the game in football. Sure, goals win games but the Ireland v Spain game just illustrated how many chances can be created by the best possession team in the world verus that which gives away the ball the most.
Our first major tournament was 24 years ago. We did a lot under Jack because he recognised the fact that we couldn't maintain possession. He came up with a game plan and it worked wonders. And just to think some people still ridicule Jack to this day. In my mind he was a genius.
And speaking of geniuses, Roy Keane was also a genius.
He managed to pull together a bunch of players (better than that assembled tonight) and made them actually pass the ball and place a premium on not giving it away. We used to go to places like Holland and Portugal and have a real go at them.
And to think Roy was ridiculed and still is to this day.
So where to from here?
Major surgery is needed to our brains really. We have got to stop giving the ball away. It's our friend, when you keep it and moved it from player to player good things happen (as we all saw today).
Until the FAI hires some really good foreign coaches who can teach this aspect of the game to our youngsters, we are doomed.
Perhaps given the headline of this thread, Giovanni Trapattoni pales into insignificance as one who wasn't the best Irish manager of all time. Certainly I would take issue with him over his choice of midfielders. But that's small potatoes. The larger picture shows that we have to make radical changes to our game so as never to be embarassed like that again.
So you think that was our strongest possible starting 11?
so good you said it twice
He picked them? There are better players sitting at home who haven't even been considered loyalty is one thing stupidity is another.
"Joe Jordan is off to watch Young Boys tomorrow" Ian Darke
good shout dancy pants, at least i got to be positive for half an hour before the match and the first 3 mins
You can't win possession unless you mark player and close them down.
We don't do this we just chase the ball around the pitch, you don't have to chase if you mark players because you are already where you need to be.
If we marked them 1 on 1 they would struggle to string 3 passes together, not the 30 they do when we mark space.
WE just tend to vaguely mark space somewhere in the vacinity of the goal in the van hope they will run into it.
When we did close them down low and behold they lost the ball""
We also looked tired and lethargic, I wonder if Trap has over trained them?
Yeah, because no one was listening the first time
I'm not as concerned about the tactics as I am about the lack of bottle and drive. We were always a team that was better than the sum if its parts in 1990, 1994, 2002, even the botched play offs against Turkey, Belgium. These last two games we've looked just like a haphazard collection of players. In my opinion only Andrews has really given 110% in these two games
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