Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
We are going nowhere with Trap but Trap won't be going anywhere, until we are mathematically out of the running. It's pointless looking at which managers are available to come in now.
The current Iceland boss, Lagerback, is an outstanding candidate, a safe bet on a sane salary, buckets of experience and tactically astute. He can coach a squad in the intricacies of intl football, select the players to play a game with emphasis on players retaining the ball and passing to feet. He can manage a team during a game to change the flow and isn't afraid to make the big fundamental game defining change at half time.
He's available in november unless he can win the group, which actually is not out of the question. Make the provisional contract now and save our team from a banal list of overpaid English league based, homeless managers.
The most depressing thing about all this is that we're still not able to effectively change our game plan during the game. We play with two banks of four and once teams figure out how to exploit the space in between we're effectively lost. Oddly, Walters and Sammon had the sense to combat this problem during the second half by slotting into midfield to even up the numbers, but then Trap inexplicably moved Walters up top and put Sammon into the target man role, effectively stopping the good work both had been doing and eliminating the tactical changes the players had initiated to successful shore up the midfield. It was bizarre to watch.
In the space of nine months we've put in the worst performance in the history of the European Championships and suffered the greatest ever home loss in the history of the Irish football team.
Excuse me for getting ideas above our station, but that's just not good enough.
I'm not. Well from a football perspective. It was fairly (& literally) pointless.
Visits to hospitals aside, had a great time otherwise though, especially in Torun...
I don't think so. Success breeds success, and qualifying is definitely a success of sorts. It would have been great to have done better but it would have been far worse not to have been there at all. We needed it after Paris as well I think. Plus, psychologically it's definitely a good thing that we have qualified as recently as 2012...the clock was starting to tick louder when we had to think back as far as 2002. Even just for our status and general stats, the more Euros and WC's we qualify for the better.
We were there briefly too, got absolutely soaked half way across that really long bridge...nowhere to run or hide!
Funnily enough, I was just looking at Asian qualification last night and the Saudis don't appear to be the AFC "powerhouse" they once were. They didn't even make it through to the fourth round/final group stage of qualification. Uzbekistan actually look like hot favourites to qualify from Asia this time round.
Originally Posted by cfdh
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
And the Australians who have qualified easily in the past through Asia, struggled at home against Oman. Oman actually lead 2-0 but the Aussies scored 2 for a draw. The Oman blokes are particularly skilful as they decided years ago to adopt Brazil as a role model. My heart bleeds for the Australians!
Typical Dunphy stuff, but I do think he has a point about Trap not appreciating Ireland's football tradition.
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/inter...uld-be-sacked/
the managers i have known...
eoin hand term ridiculed by dunphy
charlton term ridiculed by dunphy
mccarthy term ridiculed by dunphy
kerr term initially welcomed by dunphy (mainly to have a pop at mccarthy) but then ridiculed
staunton term ridiculed by dunphy
trap term initially welcomed but now ridiculed
how far do we have to go back to find this Irish football tradition that Dunphy mourns?
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