Are we playing to keep the 1-2 !
Serbia are a decent side to be fair.
This second half has been dreadful though. Intensity no longer there & a few of the players have done some damage to their chances of cementing a starting place for the qualifiers.
Passing back to Forde happening too often for my liking.
Are we playing to keep the 1-2 !
Dunne, O'Shea, Delaney, Clark, Wilson, Pearce, McShane, Keogh, Duffy...Originally Posted by the doc
Out of favour with Strachan at Middlesbrough, didn't earn permanent move to Millwall and has been out of the team at Leicester (and look how they are doing without him).
I like the guy and wouldn't be against him being in squads but he is no huge loss and his fitness issues make it a moot point.
Serbia showed why I love watching Eastern Europeans play football.
We were awful in that second half. Maybe Wilson looked OK.
Long will look back in horror set those misses, as should Meyler.
Plenty for O'Neill to chew on.
I don't think that is fair, some of those big dinosaurs had a fair burst of pace when it suited them.
Disappointing but Serbia are a good side and all their players play for top clubs. We started with lads from Derby, Wigan and Millwall.
Most disappointing thing for me is that Coleman, McCarthy and Long are all starring at club level yet had such poor games (even accounting for Long's goal). Hopefully that won't happen in a qualifier.
Plenty for MON and Roy to ponder on. Which is a good thing, I think.
Serbia decided to play in the 2nd half, how fortunate we were to miss them in the Euro qualifiers and end up with hapless Poland.
"O'Neill clueless", "makes Noel King look like genius", in the worst display from Ireland in ages.
I expect RTE panel to wipe the floor with O'Neill tonight, in a ruthless dissection from the "comedy show".
The shortest honeymoon in Irish football history reveals a manager who just hasn't a clue.
Well, there's work to do. But no major surprise there.
As a rule, I don't put much truck in friendlies. Generally our non-competitive matches are so poor - and we're so bog awful - that it's difficult to make much from it. That was bad but whether it was worse than some of the dross over the last decade. Hard to say.
Our momentum grinding second half fall down, though, was a times hard to deal with. Not even a semblance of cohesion in attack or defence shows we're not a team and no one came off the bench to lift the crowd or team. All this tells us is we're a serious work-in-progress and we lack depth. Again, no surprises. But Keane, Dunne and O'Shea were the big winners tonight. Possibly Darron Gibson too.
O'Neill's bedding in is now over. He should have a decent idea of what he's gotten himself into and what he needs to do between now and September. There's some decent games to get things right. The aim should be to bring back our cohesion and composure while adding an extra bit of attacking threat we'll need to qualify. Over to you MON and Keane.
Ou-est le Centre George Pompidou?
A lot to learn there, we could not string two passes together most of the time.
Why take Wes off, he was the only one who completed a pass.
Oh dear, you live up to your name, TheOneThatKnocksOneOut!
Your so wrong on every point here.
Dunne and OShea are the only ones near.
Still very good friends with GS and Leic wouldn't let him go back to Millwall or go to Ipswich, Derby, to name but a few.
As many on here will tell you,
"When the Doc talks you'd best listen!"
I know my Foot ie.
i thought he faded badly. i don't think he can play for 90 minutes, which is odd and he doesn't seem to run around too much. i'd have him starting though with reid coming in for the last half an hour maybe.
disappointing but an avalanche of material for MON to study when he watches the game again. ward and mcgeady surely won't start the next match. i'm afraid the same is true of keogh but if he had a dunne or josh alongside him it might have been different.
Welcome back Doc!
Ou-est le Centre George Pompidou?
That second half was painful. The main thought for me is pushing this team to keep up the momentum for 90 minutes. I also would have to say the importance of McCarthy is clearer than ever. When he went off our midfield disappeared completely.
Longs 2 misses were horrific...Daryl Murphy showed us nothing and Walters didn't do much either.
Pilkington showed a bit more than McGeady and i think we can be comfortable enough that McClean will do well for us under MON.
With everything said, we should have been 2-0 going into the second half and their first goal should have been a free out. What it suggests more than anything is a lack of a leader on the pitch to rally the team and get them going again. We've been missing that for a very long time to be honest.
Dunphys take on that shambles should be interesting,ya its only a friendly and there are a few players to come into the side aka Dunne ,o Shea etc but nothing takes from the fact most of our squad are out of their depth when it comes to playing nations of superior technical ability,the new mgt team have some job on their hands as had the previous one,our need to keep clean sheets will be important in the Euro,s ,on this showing thats a long way off.
That is a point, pity Reid is injured at the moment
Not sure if I take such a negative view of Ward, don't think he can be blamed for any of the goals,
OK he may hoof more than some but he consequences of not hoofing are often a goal conceded.
Also I though McGeady did OK, he won a few balls for us I seem to remember, plus didn't he
score/assist the offside goal? {correction that was Whelan] I don't think we have a better alternative anyway.
Last edited by tricky_colour; 05/03/2014 at 9:56 PM.
Good first half. Awful second half. Coleman had a shocker. Seemed all over the place. Ward and Keogh not far behind him. Hoolahan has to be in the team because the side has very little creativity from midfield without him. Plus they don't bang it long as much as he always makes himself available to take the pass from the defenders. Typical Long in that he scored the difficult chance and missed the two easier ones. Good player but just not clinical enough to take the step up in his career. McCarthy and McGeady fairly quiet.
Backstothewall how can you be positive about something when its not current you can only be positive about what you see in the now regardless of who has to come back and that was very poor!!
A welsh colleague said to me if wales can keep all 11 fit and available throughout the campaign then they have a chance I say the same about us.
Previous managers have always been lucky in having at least 2 or 3 really good players. I can't think of anyone bar Coleman and he was poor today for mon and keane.
I thought we played well in the first half and there were lots of positives, but in the second half the lack of cohesion in defence really told and it made it very difficult for the team to put together any kind of sustained play. Coleman played as badly as I've ever seen him. He seems to constantly be encouraging the other defenders to pass their way out of trouble but often that just means passing your way into the corner. On the bright side, despite being trounced for much of the match, we should have scored three or four goals and won the match.
Having 2 wingers is old school, having 2 wingers and interchanging them is definitely old school. O'Neill should be spanked for trying out that one. We have been looking at that stroke for 10 years now,
McLean will make an honest effort for 90 mins, but we need something more, he's a sub option only.
I can get McCarthy coming off because he's important for his club but Wes coming off was defeatism.
I really don't get Murphy, a brainless O'Neill substitution, worse than Trap's affection for Samon. But nothing serious should be read into the performances of the players that were introduced into that 2nd half debacle.
On Whelan&McCarthy, I have heard good things about Whelan this year for Stoke but somehow for us, that partnership is anti-dynamic.
I can see why alright.
It was a good test tonight. There isn't many games ahead of the qualifiers so was an opportunity to try out players.
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