Ireland V Sweden(A) 22 March & Austria(H) - 26 March 2013 - World Cup 2014 Qualifiers

[DeLorean]

Like I say BS, I still believe certain changes should have been made. I also thought Sammon shouldn't have started. In hindsight, I'm not one bit convinced I was right about this as I do believe he helped set the tone for a really excellent first half performance. We have already established that yourself and Stutts (and the rest of the A-team ) don't even agree that we played well in the first half so there's no great need to get into that one. My point is that even though something seems really obvious, it doesn't always work out the way you'd expect.

[BonnieShels]

True enough. But what is your solution? No further discussion as there's nothing else that can be done.

Also I suppose you'd be in the A-Team too.

[paul_oshea]

I can see how the Civil War started.

I find in moments of lull(i know that's wrong) still getting upset over losing 2 points and the indecisiveness of Trap, I realise that foot.ie is a form of soothing for me.

Don't go that far BS he only has 2408* posts.

*Aside is it possible to make that number dynamic, so my post is seamless in time i.e. if DL creates another post my number would automatically go up to 2409. Is that possible on Vbulletins? If not the solution is for DL not to post again. I don't think anyone would mind to be honest. Only joking DL

[ifk101]

Maybe somebody from the A team can jog my memory? When Green came on, did we play a flat 3 in the center or did one of Green, McCarthy, Whelan play in a more advanced position?

[paul_oshea]

Green played on the wing for walters, and walters pushed up top.

Another completely nonsensical idea - considering when we got a free no one went in (the box) for it and we just played it short anyway.

[DeLorean]

True enough. But what is your solution? No further discussion as there's nothing else that can be done.

No, it's obviously worth discussing and chances are that Trap got it totally wrong from the sideline on the night. I just don't think things are "as matter of fact" as they're made out to be sometimes, and OwlsFan was right to point out that things may still have gone (or even remained) pear shaped.

Remember Sven getting ridiculed when he was the England manager for always making the popular decisions and not having a mind of his own? Well at least we can't accuse aul Trap of that!

[paul_oshea]

No, but the thing is Owlsfan has come accustomed to this, so he takes an agnostic approach to the whole thing like, ah well shrugs shoulders, shur we can't do anything better, and is happy to just accept it.. To me that's not acceptable, maybe his years of experience seeing it over and over again, is a way of dealing with it, but for me there is always room for improvement and room to fix what goes wrong, whether that's a player making a mistake a la Clark or the manager making the wrong or not making any decisions. The problem here is the manager isn't learning and isn't changing so you guys can come on and defend him, but we will actually never know because he wont do what the majority see as the obvious.

I mean things went right away from home against a superior team to what we played last week, yet he goes and changes it again. We weren't going out to win against sweden with 20 mins to go, we were going out realistically to hold onto what we had, the exact same as what we were trying to do against Austria(hold on to what we had), but the changes-relative to what was required see point below- were all wrong and in such contrast to what happened in sweden. Its just mind boggling. ArGh!

In a way the changes player wise and position were similar to what we did in Sweden, but that wasn't what was required at the time against Austria, because in Sweden we were dominant in midfield really, never troubled, but against Austria we were, we needed to adapt and make the necessary changes to reflect and rectify the problems, not just do a like for like with the changes in Sweden.

[Stuttgart88]

Maybe somebody from the A team can jog my memory? When Green came on, did we play a flat 3 in the center or did one of Green, McCarthy, Whelan play in a more advanced position?

As Paul said, Walters swapped with Long and Green swapped with Walters. We all looked at each other and shook our heads. The situation was crying out for anything but that.
Bringing on Green (rather than, say, Hoolahan, Cox or Doyle) was fine but surely to man-mark Alaba, leaving the midfield 4 in tact. Thta might have allowed an austrian defender license to join in, but they had started to do that anyway.

[Closed Account 2]

Owls Fan's usual perspective is don't fire Trap, you'll get Paul Jewell, you can't tell what happens in a parallel universe and RTE is rubbish. He's often right, but the debate needs to be more expansive.

But that is surely the biggest point about potentially getting rid of Trap. Not Jewell per say, but when you consider that we still have a chance (albeit slimmer) of second place and there are no credible candidates to replace him at the moment, why make the decision now. Is there anyone we could bring in now who would give us a much better chance of making second than Trap? I don't think there is. Furthermore what if we do get someone in who is a disaster (perhaps Jewell or someone like Stan, the text book example of woeful manager) and who really buggers up the campaign - we lose at home to Sweden, in Vienna and in Köln, and maybe only draw home to the Kazakhs, we would plummet down the rankings and could end up with the group from hell for France 2016 - a tournament where (if we maintain our current seeding) we should have a great chance of qualification.

I think the FAI should be sounding out managers anyway since Trap isnt going to be around in a years time anyway, it would be wise of them to check on early availability (in case Trap goes before qualification is complete) but there is no point in firing Trap now without a viable replacement. Do we really want a Maurice Setters or Don Givens-esque interim in charge (I'm guessing it would be Tardelli who probably wouldnt be that different anyway.

[DeLorean]

Exactly Edmundo. Maybe a lot of my support for Trap stems from my fear of the unknown, and the known in relation to what a balls of it the FAI are likely to make.

That, and I just plain like Trap

[Closed Account 2]

As I say if there were credible alternatives I'd be more inclinded to join the "Trap out" brigade but I just dont see any that are crucially both better at getting results and realistically likely to take the role. Maybe at the end of the season there will be more candidates (as well as people talking about O'Neill you might find someone like Bilic at Lokomotiv Moscow or even Remi Garde at Lyonnais, Schaff has been mentioned too, possibly O'Driscoll but I dont know what sort of contract he is on) and more likely at the end of the qualification campaign or even post World Cup there will be a lot of internationally experienced managers available (someone like Zaccaroni from Japan).

For all the critisim about playing Sammon I can see the logic in deploying a target man especially vs the Austrians who looked all at sea in the air. We'd done it before going way back to the likes of Quinn, to more recent ones like Gary Doherty (who ended one campaign as our top scorer) and even Alan Lee. It just happens that Sammon seems to be a fairly limited player, but what alternatives are there, perhaps Doyle but he isnt really an out and out target man and is on a very barren run, or perhaps Jon Walters but again he'd done very well for us in other roles (e.g. out wide), Cox had been tried in a more advanced role and it hadn't worked. As I say, when Austria were so weak in the air it made sense to use height as a weapon it's just for whatever reason we don't have a quality true target man.

People talk about us having great central midfielders like Wes Hoolahan and James McCarthey. Well the first two are very good in an attacking sense and McCarthy plays a great short passing game and keeps possesion well - but in there are no hasslers, no one who will really get at the opposition and stifle them. One of McCarthy and Hoolahan (or both if you only play with one striker) would be great if balanced along side a good energetic defensive player. Obviously a long time ago we had the likes of Townsend and Roy Keane, but even not that long ago we had Graham Kavanagh - you could never call him world class but he's just the sort of defensive player we need to go with the more attacking central midfielders we have, maybe Hendrik will be that sort of player in the future but he doesnt have the experience to be thrown into the fray yet. I don't think Whelan is the answer as his legs have gone but I can see some of the logic behind it.

[BonnieShels]

There is no logic to using Whelan when we have Green. I've not gotten over the horror show against Russia in Lansdowne where Green got the blame for Whelan's gash performance.

Whelan proved again the other night that he's not up to the role we require him for. Green proved that he's that man against Sweden.

5 in the middle is the answer?

[Closed Account 2]

Maybe having more in the middle but that would limit us a bit going forward. Even if we had say Hoolahan, McCarthy and Gibson who are probably our best on form midfielders playing regularly at a high level there isn't really a pure defensive midfielder there (and to compound the issue McPhail, who has been very good in a strong Cardiff side for a number of years, isnt that defensive either he's a bit like McCarthy) I suppose that having 3 bodies in midfield might give us more of a defensive edge (as opposed to having two in midfield) but with just one striker (and all of Keane, Doyle, Cox, Walters tend to drop back) I think we could end up with little cutting edge upfront.

I don't think there is an easy solution and you can see why Whelan and Andrews are near the squad. Whelan is defensivly minded to a degree, is decent at set pieces but seems to have no stamina at all. Andrews is sort of the opposite, energetic willing to run and close down but not with great footballing intelligence it's almost like one has the mind and not the body and the other has the body but not the mind. There is the chance of playing someone like Clarke (or another center back) as a defensive midfielder, I could see it might be worth a shot with Clarke since he can play the ball and does drive forward and his errors would be less catastrophic in midfield than as a center back. But again its like smashing a square peg into a round hole, and with Dunne out and St. Ledger's injuries we need all our center backs playing at center back and cant really experiment with them.

[the bear]

There was a moment towards the start of the first half against Austria where the ball broke to Whelan in midfield and bounced to knee height directly in front of him. an Irish player was standing unmarked 10 yards from him directly in his line of vision. Rather than passing him the ball Whelan blindly hooked it over his left shoulder up into the air. Did anyone else pick up on this moment? We cannot keep playing this guy.

[brine3]

Maybe having more in the middle but that would limit us a bit going forward. Even if we had say Hoolahan, McCarthy and Gibson who are probably our best on form midfielders playing regularly at a high level there isn't really a pure defensive midfielder there (and to compound the issue McPhail, who has been very good in a strong Cardiff side for a number of years, isnt that defensive either he's a bit like McCarthy) I suppose that having 3 bodies in midfield might give us more of a defensive edge (as opposed to having two in midfield) but with just one striker (and all of Keane, Doyle, Cox, Walters tend to drop back) I think we could end up with little cutting edge upfront.

I don't think there is an easy solution and you can see why Whelan and Andrews are near the squad. Whelan is defensivly minded to a degree, is decent at set pieces but seems to have no stamina at all. Andrews is sort of the opposite, energetic willing to run and close down but not with great footballing intelligence it's almost like one has the mind and not the body and the other has the body but not the mind. There is the chance of playing someone like Clarke (or another center back) as a defensive midfielder, I could see it might be worth a shot with Clarke since he can play the ball and does drive forward and his errors would be less catastrophic in midfield than as a center back. But again its like smashing a square peg into a round hole, and with Dunne out and St. Ledger's injuries we need all our center backs playing at center back and cant really experiment with them.

Nobody plays with a pure "defensive midfielder" in football any more. The Makelele position is dead.

Gibson and McCarthy are two controlling midfielders who would offer ample protection for the back four and ball retention as well, with Hoolahan in front of them linking to the front.

Everybody can see that this is how we should be playing, but Trap has being playing exactly the same tactics for the last 40 years, and he's not going to change.

**** it, all these players are in blazing form and will be at the peak of their careers come the summer of 2014. It's enormously frustrating.

Now we're looking at Euro 2016, when Shane Long and Darron Gibson will both be 29, and Wes Hoolahan will be 34.

[DeLorean]

And Mr Gibson will still be an egocentric maniac we can do without.

[geysir]

Why is it such an issue for us to change from a 442 to 451 in midstream without having an AGM to hear all sides of a debate on the matter before deciding.
Even the most basic teams in Europe have no such issue with using what they have and flip from one to other, depending on the needs of the game making substitutions if required.
Playing a target man like Sammon limits flexibility during a game, if you want to go 451 to shore up midfield, he should be first to leave the pitch.
Trap put on Green a midfielder, but he didn't shore up midfield, instead he shored up a liability - Sammon.
This was a major (major major...) f..k up. I can take the odd glaring f...k up by a manager and put it down to the ways of life and learning.
I just cannot accept such a f..k up from one of the most experienced managers on the planet, a supposed expert in caution and definitely not when it follows f..k up after f..k up.

[Closed Account 2]

Nobody plays with a pure "defensive midfielder" in football any more. The Makelele position is dead.

Gibson and McCarthy are two controlling midfielders who would offer ample protection for the back four and ball retention as well, with Hoolahan in front of them linking to the front.

I disagree. Some teams don't notably Spain and Barcelona. But if, heaven forbid, people look beyond Iberia, other teams very much do play with defensive midfielders (or at least midfielders who have a primarly defensive role). At the last World Cup De Jong marshalled the midfield for the Dutch. Bayern Munich have had players like Tymoschuk and Van Bommel. Inter had Cambiasso when the won the CL, in the final they played Zanetti next to him. Look at the Euros Russia (and Zenit) had Zyrianov and now Denisov, Poland had Dudka, Denmark had players like Christian Pouslen and Wim Kvist, Croatia had Vukojevic and Dujmović, England had Parker, France had M'Villa and Alou Diarra and also played Debuchy as a defensive midfielder. I don't think McCarthy is this type of player, he is not naturally defensive in the way most of those are.

[back of the net]

IMO First 20-25 mins were a horror show where Austria out passed us and out played us and fully deserved their lead. We got momentum in the remaining 20mins of that half and played some good stuff and were the better side for that period. We seemed to come out of the blocks and the beginning of the second half and were ok for the first 10 mins of it but then gradually Austria started to turn the screw and you could sense the nerves around the stadium of what they might do if we continued to play so poorly and post 70 mins till the final whistle due to shocking tactics, manager instructions ,nerves and god knows whatever else we were lucky just to concede just 1 goal in that period. Absolutely furious that we allowed them to score in injury time, but alas our setup and defensive approach in trying to close the game out with so much time left on the clock was potentially always going to be our downfall and in the 92nd minute thats what it proved to be.

Fair play to Sammon , 100 percent commitment he gave, but this was a competitive game that came to soon for him. The game passed him by and IMO his effectiveness in his role was minimal.


Austria deserved the draw at least IMO


@ The bear - i picked up on the whelan moment along with many others.

Somebody needs to inform James Mclean that he is meant get the ball more than 2 foot off the ground when taking a corner....so wasteful

I was thinking back over the years on near misses or performances that p*ssed me off, but the Austria game has seriously annoyed me.

I credit Trap and his fantastic away games record and long may it continue...but our poor home form and ill conceived tactics and player selection and deployment over the last couple of years are killing us and they show no sign of improving.

We are far from out of the running for second place ...IF.... Trap realises his errors...BUT ....dont expect him to acknowledge or rectify them.......and thats gives me huge cause for concern


Semi - rant over ....cheers

[Stuttgart88]

There was a moment towards the start of the first half against Austria where the ball broke to Whelan in midfield and bounced to knee height directly in front of him. an Irish player was standing unmarked 10 yards from him directly in his line of vision. Rather than passing him the ball Whelan blindly hooked it over his left shoulder up into the air. Did anyone else pick up on this moment? We cannot keep playing this guy.

Yes, and you should hyave heard me at the game at the time.

Another thing that annoyed me about the game is that we pressed the ball well at times when they were in possession and it was far more effective than when we just stood off them. I thought the penny had finally dropped but no, back to being happy to mark space again.