Stunned how bad we played after going 1 nil up.
Glenn Whelan. My God.
Team crammed with average players. Squad crammed with middle of the road no-bodies. Rarely have I felt so deflated watching Ireland. A defeat like this used to put me into a couple of days depression. Now its just a dull lingering sadness that the inevitable has come to pass.
The dude abides....
It's all over in more ways than one!Originally Posted by shakermaker1982
I was full of "I told you so's" just a few minutes ago, but at this point I say what is the point in placing blame?
Can't blame Trap for the two goals, and as much as I want to say this player or that didn't perform well, I have to say we just don't have it any more.
At this premature stage I'd say we'll see Trap and Robbie retire before Tuesday. Nothing left to play for. It's time to begin the long road to rebuilding a new Ireland, and that starts with the coaches who teach the kids every weekend across the length and breadth of the country.
How did Gio's man Whelan play?
Another good game eh?
For including him Trap should get the bullet. Amazing to think that a punter like me (and you Shakermaker along with the rest of creation) can see that Whelan has nothing to offer and Trap the vaunted manager that he is cannot see the same thing.
Glenn Whelan couldn't keep up with a 37 year old for their goal...
Looking at the positives you can get 1000-1 on us winning the world cup, £1000 on that and you are a millionaire, enough to buy Bales toe nail clippings.
Five years of Glen Whelan.
Should have played Owen Garven in midfield, I bet he would have been fired up.
It's all too toxic to talk about at this time. Unplugging from Ireland talk for a week at least, think I'll go for a walk Tuesday night.
With a decent manager we would have beaten Austria at home. That puts us on 13 points. We'd have gotten four points against Sweden. That puts us on 16 points.
With Austria on 10 and Sweden on 11.
That's the god honest truth, I don't care what anyone says.
Time to look forward to France 2016 now. Onwards and upwards.
After a savage goal from Robbie, what followed after was 'disappointing'.
Inability to play through the middle was just one of our undoings, it use to be the main one, but now there are plenty of challengers. Wilson had a nightmare. I was urging the ref to give Glen a red card but essentially our redundant tactics paid no dividends and the players should probably be given a free pass from criticism.
Earlier mentioned critic of Forde as being the architect of our doom ....... go take a running jump
We didn't create that goal. That goal was lucky. Good finish from Robbie, but we didn't create that goal. We created f all.
Zlatan really showed Robbie Keane who's boss. Zlatan is a great striker, but he's also a great team player.
Much as a I hate to see Ireland lose, I see this as a new beginning. Trap should have gone after the Euros and leaving him on after losing a match 6-1 at home was inexcusable. Contrary to what a lot of people say, I think we have the makings of a very good team but at the moment there is zero self belief.
Mixed feelings I have to say.
One thing I think I want to get out there is that I think a lot of people, myself included, got sucked into a line of thinking that Sweden were some over-rated team that were treading water or something, a thought given credence by a somewhat stale showing in Stockholm against us.
But they were awesome at times tonight, passing with ease, defending strongly and physically in the second half. Ibrahimovich may not have been the 30 goal a year striker out there tonight, but his crosses, through balls and assists were top notch. That cross in the first half, sublime. Started out the run-up to the first Swedish goal with a great switching pass from middle to right. Elmander was also looking dangerous, Larrson was a beast going forward.
I usually don’t have sympathy for the viewpoint that “Sure, we can’t be excepting to beat teams like XXX”, but a little, tiny bit of it pervaded into me tonight. I thought the Swedes were very, very good, bounced back from the Keane goal brilliantly and never looked like losing after they went ahead.
So, on Ireland. First half hour/35 minutes was great. We were passing the ball, working the left wing hard, pushing Sweden. Zlatan looked ineffective and we made chances.
But Elmander scored and it just fell apart. Did we have a shot on target in the second half? The second Swedish goal went in and it was back to the long ball. Sure Keane scored off one, but that was a defensive ****-up, a very singular one for the Swedes (more on that in a sec). Hoof, hoof, hoof, in the last 20 minutes, hit and hope. Nothing being created through the middle, no one on the end of crosses.
Forde in goal, some good saves, especially at the feet of Elmander (?) in the second, but thought he should have done better with the first goal. He clearly wasn’t prepared for the header and didn’t have his hands ready, flapped at it rather hopelessly like it was coming at his head.
Defence, iffy, but we’ve come to expect that. Dunne is lacking a little bit of pace now, but still performed admirably, that penalty area interception in the first half typical of him. O’Shea, as good as you can reasonably expect him to be. Both of them, struggling against younger, faster opposition. Wilson and Coleman did OK coming up the wings, provided that extra option on the wings, but thought they were struggling to deal with the Swedish attackers and through balls all night.
McClean, great performance. Full of confidence, challenging the Swedish defenders, getting crosses in or winning corners. Taking him off was criminal I thought, even if Pilkington did an acceptable job. McCarthy was largely anonymous, a shame, didn’t really throw himself around as much as I hoped he would.
Whelan was dreadful. This role he picked up, of being the man on the edge of the area who took the loose ball and shot was hilariously inept, two wides and one straight at the keeper. Several bad passes and unable to keep up with the pace towards the end. Get him out of the team.
Walters, out of position, kept coming inside to the centre and looked very uncomfortable on the right. His substitution was inevitable, but putting Cox on, barely played this season and out of position Simon Cox, was a travesty. Trap has the worst substitution sense of any manager I have seen lately. Nothing changed when they came on, when things needed to change.
Up front, was disgusted with Long. I used to think he was the great prospect for Ireland, but that opinion has been slowly eroded away to this low point. Wasteful, slow on the ball, and smiling away with ten minutes to go like Ireland were a few goals up. That chance lateish on, when Keane was waiting to be picked out with a simple cross goal pass, was shocking. Long ballsed it up unforgivably. Cox, Walters, Sammon, Doyle, whoever. Get them in that position over him.
Keane, well, I’ve criticised him a lot over the last few years, but was impressed tonight. He fought hard for his goal, made himself a threat and just never seemed to stop urging the team on, which is what you want from a captain. Nicking the ball off the keeper, spinning after he hit the ground and then getting up to smash it home, which was brilliant.
I said I had mixed feelings. I thought that, in the first half, we looked as potent and threatening as we ever have done under Trap, far more than we did in any game in Poland. I was confident we could get something. Numerous players were having great games.
And then the second half, with the turgid long balls, the pathetic substitutions, and the whimper of a finish. So sad to see. Maybe Sweden were just too good for us tonight, but I refuse to believe that this is the best that we can expect Ireland to play with the players that are available to us.
Asking whether Trap is to blame is the wrong question I think. Asking if someone else could do a better job – could beat Austria at home, get four or even two points off Sweden, could be at least competitive with Germany – is a more pertinent question. I think someone could. To see him claim that Ireland have done “a great job” is baffling to me.
I’m sure people will defend him still, and point out the increasingly narrow number of scenarios where Ireland snatch a play-off spot, but this campaign has just been one long game of “When will he be sacked?” to me, sometimes anyway. I suspect he will be allowed to see out this campaign. After that, we start again.
Also, can we retire George Hamilton already? The guy was writing Ireland off with 25 minutes to go, with enough hyperbole to fill the stadium.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Strange analysis. No one claims that Keane has the same finesse and technical ability as Ibrahimovic; they're totally different types of striker. Keane got a good goal tonight and would have had two if Long had played a simple pass to him.
Long was utterly awful tonight. Whelan a complete passenger. Tactic of long hoof ball was all we showed. Players ran away from our defenders instead of showing for it. Brady and Hoolahan left on the bench. Abject rubbish in a nutshell. Manager has to take the rap. 3 full campaigns without a decent home performance, maybe Italy at Croker excepted but even then we were second best most of the time.
I don't agree with Never Felt Better at all. I've seen Eastern European minnows play much better than Sweden. I honestly don't think I have ever seen an international match so lacking even one midfielder on either team capable of doing the midfield basics right. Larsson impressed me in the second half, but I think they just twigged after 30 minutes or so that we had nothing but long balls to offer.
Amazing how quickly the game turned after we went 1-0 up. We'd played some lovely stuff up till then, kept possession around their penalty box well in particular, carved out a couple of chances, got the goal - and then Long picked up that injury, and it all went downhill very quickly. For most of the second half, we were rudderless and toothless, relying on long balls into the box.
What on earth happened?
Why were we playing with ten men for so long (including when the equaliser went in)? Was it just a case that the ball didn't go out of play so there wasn't a break for Long to come back on?
After Long went off for treatment, we hardly had a single shot on goal. We still have no midfield worth talking about. Long had some great touches - including the assist for the goal - and yet twice he had a great chance to put in a low cross across the box and he didn't manage it. When Keane retires, we'll have the same problems but with half the goals.
Is it head-to-head that decides teams level on points? I think that means if Sweden beat Kazakhstan on Tuesday and we don't win in Germany, we're out regardless of other results.
Are Armenia still the best team Trap has beaten in a competitive match (taking the Paris game as a draw?)
We'll get worse before we get better, I think.
I didn't hear the commentary, but I don't see a problem with that if it's what he said. It's no different to what you've said in your post. "Turgid", "pathetic", "long balls" - very easy to write us off watching that.
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