Originally Posted by
Kingdom
I've not liked the narrative that's been around the ONeill tenure in the last few hours. "Best ever performance at a Euro's" - wrong. "Denmark defeat turning point" - wrong.
The turning point was the first game of the World cup qualifiers. The spin coming out of Euro2016 was that we were back, we are playing good football, and are ready to march again. As ever with football, there are asterixes beside all the opinions whether its an amateur opinion or a pro opinion. We got the ideal start away in the type of fixture that we've always struggled in. This time we were playing a team on their knees confidence wise, and we buckled. We buckled because despite the ****e that's been thrown about in platitudes in the last 12 hours, we were never encouraged to do the basics in football and retain possession. It's broken out on occasion, but generally it's been route one. Don't forget having played two of the tough games in the group and come away with 4 points, we were leading the group coming out of 2016. Everyone seems to have lost sight of that, and focussed on the Denmark game in Lansdowne. It unravelled in the Spring and summer, when with a nice run of games, we completely shut down and capitulated. Wales, Austria and Serbia at home were three of the worst home performances by an Irish side in a long time. The win away to Wales was super, but it wasn't a masterclass or anything like it. We defended deep, gave Wales no space in behind, and snatched our only real opportunity. You have to respect a defensive performance when it's required, but what we did away to Wales, and what we did in those German games, was what we've always hated from weaker teams doing to us, showing no interest in engaging in football and stifling the opposition and hoping for a lucky break.
I would have no problem in doing that against a much superior team, but the problem is that has become our norm, our standard, so that when faced with teams who are not superior, that when we have to take the initiative, we are unable to do so. That this hasn't been highlighted seriously bugs me, as if crowd numbers should be the deciding point on a managers tenure. Irish sports "fans" are fickle mofo's. Generally it's all about the event. Ask me b
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