That’s why we’re targeting 4
I’d rank ourselves as on a par with Sweden, and inferior to Italy and Belgium. So one point is the expected return. We might have got 3 from Sweden but we didn’t.
I think Clark’s failings have been shown up. We all knew he can be a bit impetuous and rash, but at the same time his nuts & bolts defending has been good. The OG was quite similar to Iceland’s against Hungary, the difference being that Hungary were more certain to score i.e., 100%. Is the Icelandic bloke being hung out to dry?
The Belgium game was gone by the time Clark – exposed by earlier errors – erred badly by taking neither ball nor man. I’d drop him but I wouldn’t crucify him.
Roy Keane nailed it for me. Although there were individual errors the players lacked courage to seek the ball. I’d add that they lacked courage carrying the ball too. We weren’t always being pressed against Belgium. There were many occasions, and against Sweden too, where McCarthy or Whelan had the ball at his feet with space to attack and yet they did nothing positive with it. We expect that from Whelan who arguably has other merits (he defended very well in “ordinary” play in both games) but McCarthy just wasn’t at it in either game. Hendrick attacked the ball and space in each game. He did it well in game one, poorly in game two.
I do think management failed somewhat too though. Walters is key to their plan A and Plan B. Without him there was no Plan C. The squad contained two or three selections I wouldn’t have agreed with. I’ll reserve judgment until after tomorrow (or later
) but it looks to me like we still have to move decisively away from Trap tactics. On occasion we are less Trap-like than Trap was but only when we face similar standard opposition, or worse.
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