time to stop using that joke now crosby - past its sell by date nowOriginally Posted by Crosby87
Share with us, Sean.
time to stop using that joke now crosby - past its sell by date now
The Harlem Globetrotters?
Yeah well he more or less plays that role for Derby, although they have more of a 4-5-1 shape with one out and out holding midfielder. I think Hendrick is a good player to help out defensively but it shouldn't be his primary function. I agree that the options aren't bad at all from the bench and even the likes of Duffy, Whelan and Walters could be useful squad players I'd add to your list.
that's exactly what I was trying to do, clutch at some straws.
The only straw worth clutching at is that we have far better players to come back in. That's a pretty big straw though in fairness.
Far more insightful viewpoint than some of the previous posters who are already having a go at Martin O'Neill.I think two or 3 players are becoming indispensable, including both our first choice full backs.
Kerr made a very good point last night. We don't need to be able to stand toe to toe with the likes of Portugal. Qualification depends on being better than Scotland and Poland. With our best players available we do still have enough quality to have a good chance of doing that.
Anyway, off the top of my head here's my squad assessment after these 4 games:
Goalkeepers: we can only hope the confident Forde of Stockholm and Cologne turns up, or Westwood gets properly fit again.
Full backs: Coleman and Wilson indispensable. Kelly not good enough, Ward positively dangerous. A real shame Clark never got a run out at left back.
Centre backs: O'Shea a shoo in. Dunne likely to be needed. Delaney has secured his place in the pecking order. SSL must get a good club. Wilson needed at LB. Clark still has much to prove. Pearse has time to improve. Keogh is game but will be exposed by good opponents. McShane still deserves a place on the bench if fit.
Midfield: McCarthy is main man. Meyler and Hendrick benefited from these games. Gibson likely to enhance options. Whelan has gone sideways in the pecking order, maybe a step back (does he do anything else?). Wes is essential. Reid will also have something to offer.
Wide men: McGeady is playing well under O'Neill and is a nailed-on starter. Pilkington is a find. McClean is what he is, and will remain close to the first XI. Brady has everything to play for.
Forwards: I think Doyle was the clear winner. Long must fight hard. Robbie will be a bench option in the main. Cox and Sammon will struggle for selection. Walters to remain as a sub. McGoldrick might have a chance.
System: 4231 with Wes in the team seems better than 442.
Manager: hard to tell. It'd be ridiculous to start asking questions. He's trying new players and new things. The qualification results will be the evidence.
Agree with almost everything you say here Stutts in terms of player evaluation. Coleman and Wilson are indeed locked on at full back position and indeed have to be played, simply because the alternatives are quite quite poor. Defence is the achilles heel of the team right now because we are leaking goals like there is no tomorrow. Dunne and O'Shea will probably get the nod for the starting game in group but Pearce and Clark or Delaney / Duffy will need to be introduced along the road.
Hoolahan is worth his weight in gold at this point and Hendrick and Meyler both had fine games against the Portugues despite the result. Robbie Brady has to come in for McLean and I firmly believe that, strange at it sounds, Stokes is a better all round attacking option (and one who should partner Brady) than Long, Walters, COx or Doyle.
All to play for in September.
Can somebody explain to me why they think Wilson is a lock at full-back when he's played a grand total of about 40 minutes there under O'Neill, and then only because Ward was on his holliers?
I think O'Neill will have seen Ward's limitations. I have yet to watch the rerun of the Costa Rica game but the reports were that Wilson was very good there and his departure was a game changer. With decent options at CB that suggests to me that Wilson must now be the top choice for LB.
I think in general more players may well have played their way out of O'Neill's plans than played their way in. I have a feeling Ward may have played himself out. Others have yet to be seen, such as Clark and Stokes, probably Reid and dare I say it, Stephen Thingy.
Today's Guardian ran a piece saying that only a handful of countries at the WC will have a good left back, just as an aside.
Well the game changer was McClean going to left-back, not Wilson going off. He played OK and supplied the cross for the goal but I wouldn't have said he was outstanding. Ward is the man in possession of the shirt unless there is evidence to the contrary. Wilson is first choice CB alongside O'Shea is how all indicators are pointing.
I watched the game in its entirety last night and, don't shoot me now, but I thought we were brilliant in patches. I'll qualify that by saying our ball movement from the back was brilliant - with Hoolahan at the heart of all that was good. Of course when we got to the final third we were very limited, and that has been a problem for quite a while now. Having said that, our defending seems to get worse with the passing weeks.
Right now, I would be looking at Forde, Wilson, Coleman, Dunne and O'Shea in defence and McCarthy, Hoolahan, Hendrick (both were very good last night) and Gibson in a 4-4-2 or Gibson in midfield and Hoolahan further forward in a 4-3-3.
As I say though, apart from all the negativity of last night, Ireland actually showed signs they can keep the ball on the floor and move it out of the back quite well. Kudos to O'Neill if that is what he's trying to get them to do. That result last night won't mean a jot come next September.
Wilson is only the first choice as the current alternatives are so poor. And sadly mark12345, Stokes doesn't appear to be the answer.
Even more inconsistent than Long/Doyle IMO.
His consistency cannot be questioned but it's his finishing that we require. Long isn't the answer there. We have been starved of goals without Robbie. Doyle is making a decent shout again for the one-up-front role.
Completely agree with Stutts' and mark12345's summations.
I think the main reason for this is because Ward is poison at LB.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Some lads are out tying their colours to the post already, the ones who were particularly anti-trap or post-trap/pro oneill, and their agenda seems to be that for the duration of the campaign without seeing any reasoning.
CD is spot on about wilson and the left back and centre back positions, but im hoping last nights performance might sow some doubts in his head...he(oneill) also mentioned that a player can play in a certain position given the circumstance for a game, but not for a duration of a season or a campaign as i read it - point in case quinn last night. SO i dont see him playing wilson there because he is not a left back, i hope he does after last night but up until last night he wasnt going to. And cd think about your post, draw the conclusion, wilson going off not the porblem but mcclean going to left back? its one and the same, wilson was good in possession against costa rica, good at linking and far better than mcclean defending so its all the same really.
And last nights performance was atrocious, the players were atrocious generally, and hendrick and meyler were not oustanding or anything close, they were decent in patches, with meyler getting far more involved. Its funny how people come out saying its an end of season friendly and all this when it suits. 5-1 in a friendly is probably worse than anything else, because in a friendly no one is going at full hog.
I see people finally see this about ward and are agreeing we need to be long shot of him, a little later than it took trap to cop on, now also the forde problem.
Stutts Forde of Germany and wherever else you said, he was the same, he made a great reaction save yesterday, thats what he is able to do but he is also able to do the other, we never had those moments against germany or those types of scenarios but if we have them again more than likely its the same. The thing is you never really know waht you get with him, but he is able pull off a couple of expectant saves of a decent keeper per game. I@m happy there is doubt, i hope Oneill sees this too because last night he said before the game he had been excellent. I didn't see it.
Another thing fleming and others i noted on here saying how we were good in possession and trying to pass it and looked good(he changed his tune after a while realising it wasnt working), anyone can look good in their own half strining 15 passess together over and back but not penetrating the opponents half. We were very limited yesterday, and a few times caught out trying to play the triangular passes.
I worry for keane/dunne and hoolohan to a lesser extent, because exactly what he said about keane and a few other things in that q & a section was how he played it the last few games.
Last edited by paul_oshea; 11/06/2014 at 5:35 PM.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
Looking back on the last few friendlies I think there were more negatives than positives but Id be confident that MON will learn from the negatives.
We need to find a win from somewhere to give a boost in confidence I think but at least we have a decent run of games coming up.
The negatives are mainly that most of the players thrown in are not good enough, but at least we can be positive that there wont be stupid stuff like under Trap that he will stick with the like of a Liam Miller for a couple of years when he clearly wasnt good enough just because he showed up.
Keogh, Ward, Kelly are definitely not good enough. Keogh should go way down the pecking order because we have plenty more options ahead of him. Kelly and Ward are probably next in line still just from a numbers point of view so we need to find more fullbacks.
Forde will probably keep his place for the time being but I would hope that we get another keeper playing regularly soon because he just isnt good enough.
I think under the positives we actually are playing good football at times. We didnt create a huge amount of chances last night but I think we showed in other games that we can be very dangerous at times and if we were more clinical in front of goal we could have won a few of the games. Hopefully that will come.
If we add Coleman, O'Shea, Dunne, Wilson, Delaney, St Ledger(if he ever starts playing club football again),Clarke, McCarthy, Gibson, Brady and Reid to the squad suddenly things look a whole lot brighter again.
Hoolihan, McGeady, Long, Doyle, Pilkington, McClean, Meyler, Hendrick,Quinn and Duffy have played well at different times on tour so hopefully we can be optimistic going forward.
Too early to make an assessment on MON, so good some bad but we wont know anything until the real stuff starts in September
Last edited by Razors left peg; 11/06/2014 at 5:35 PM.
Its really not that complicated!!!
Thats the positive(positive-optimist) take on my negative(negative-realist), pretty much nailed on there.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
Im usually optimistic when it comes to football.... usually means I lift myself up for a big fall though
Its really not that complicated!!!
The "realist" thing bugs me. Which of razor's observations - which are essentially the same as mine - aren't realistic? They're certainly not wildly optimistic.
You can't say people are selective in when they read things into friendlies. Don't you? You use a bad performance to confirm your view that we're rubbish but ignore a good performance that might contradict it. It's just the other way around you don't like!
I think the only reason people aren't getting too carried away with negativity is because that back 4 was nothing like the back 4 we'd put out in a competitive game. Come the real action you'd hope that up to ten better players will be available. That's "real".
As for Forde, one thing that did impress people in several of his earlier games was the confidence with which he took high balls. Better than Shay ever did. So, he's starting to look ropey and flappy now. Let's hope he recovers his best form which, by all accounts, has been good at club level.
Did I imagine it but on Setanta last night, in O'Neill's assessment of the squad pre-match, did he hint at looking at Given again? He said something like we may have other options, some old, some new.
I'm trying to recall exactly what O'Neill said in that Q and A we were at. I think he questioned Keane's ability to put in the hard shift up front which strongly hinted at a bench position. Regardless of what he said I really would be surprised if O'Neill didn't see just how important Wes, or a player of his style, is for this team.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 11/06/2014 at 6:15 PM.
I see Paul's soothsaying was top-notch yet again.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Does that presume O'Neill is planning to have a Qual campaign without Dunne as 1st choice?
I think the rumours that O'Neill was/is thinking along these lines are unfounded. If Dunne is up and running for the coming season, then i'd say he will be our 1st choice with O'Shea. The pressure is on O'Neill to win games when it comes to the qualifiers, he'll play Dunne if and when he's fit and good enough and not worry about his international longevity.
Wilson has had ups and downs at LB for us, but overall he's a bit better than Ward there. If Dunne and O'Shea are available then I'd say Wilson would be first choice for LB.
No doubt O'Neill is partial to Ward, it's hard not to be as he's a dedicated character, and when he was stuck for this game he called Ward back from his holiday to fill in.
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