Serbia v Rep of Ireland - Rajko Mitić Stadium, Belgrade (WCQ) Monday, 5th Sept. 2016

[Real ale Madrid]

I have no complaints with the penalty at all.

Was it similar to McClean v Italy? Minimal contact last night for me. Very soft.

[paul_oshea]

Long and Walters were brutal, we do really need goals to start coming from every player.

Serbia were atrocious lads apart from the wings. You wouldn't have spotted on tele, but they were at 6s and 7s and couldnt organise themselves off the ball at all, ivanovic has no excuse here really, before the ball was played in for the offside goal we had 3 free men, no one picking them up. It was criminal that we still stayed offside, as they had so much space and time to move around. Their keeper was brutal.

I have not seen as bad a team organised defensively as they were, or a keeper as dodgy as theirs was. It's two points dropped. Even though the pitch was bad, we never used our pace, and their defenders weren't tracking anytime we made a run.

Get over your own negativity and the talk of when did we last beat blah blah blah nonsense. The fans and the players have a brittle, weak mentality. We were screaming the stands to push out and actually get on the ball. Everytime we had space we headered it or blasted it instead of taking it down, with loads of time to do so. Anytime we attacked we looked like scoring they were that bad.

Murphy said himself for hte goal, he had so much time that its one of those you end up missing. Because you have too much time to think. I read that and thought, well why the fc*k didn't ye go and do something about it then. It happened everytime we got a quick ball into the box.

[zero]

Thought it was dive and I'd think the same if it was one of our players, even if I would be completely chuffed if we got a peno off the back of it.

My take at the time was the Serbian was hitting the floor as soon as Walters came into his proximity. Walters might have brushed his back but he was bringing his hands up, there was no decisive contact that would send a player down and the only contact of consequence came when the Serbian's right leg struck Walters' leg - when he was halfway to the ground.

We could argue that Walters was looking a bit clumsy, was rushing in late but he still has to actually foul the guy.

i haven't seen it back but i thought there was minimal contact on mcclean when he won the free kick that led to our first goal. serbia were all over us when they got the pen - who's to say if it wasn't given they wouldn't have scored a later goal giving us no chance to get back into it.

another lucky MON result as others have mentioned. it's great that we keep going til the final whistle but it we could change our mentality to try to pull further ahead THEN sit back it would stand in our favour in the long run i reckon.

[backstothewall]

Thought it was dive and I'd think the same if it was one of our players, even if I would be completely chuffed if we got a peno off the back of it.

My take at the time was the Serbian was hitting the floor as soon as Walters came into his proximity. Walters might have brushed his back but he was bringing his hands up, there was no decisive contact that would send a player down and the only contact of consequence came when the Serbian's right leg struck Walters' leg - when he was halfway to the ground.

We could argue that Walters was looking a bit clumsy, was rushing in late but he still has to actually foul the guy.

That was also my take, but that's a penalty. The Serbian guy drew the foul, as he is quite entitled to do, and Walters fell into the trap. Once the Serb got there first Walters had no business placing a hand on his back and down he went as soon as he felt the contact. You are right that the trip, which was also enough to give a penalty for in my opinion, happened on yer mans way down, but there was already enough before that happened.

It's not how things were 20 years ago. It's not how any of us would like things to be. It's bloody infuriating. But that's how things are and players have a responsibility not to make stupid clumsy challenges like Walters did last night.

The odds are that if Walters had let him run on nothing would have come of it. He was heading out towards the corner flag and posing no danger at all, so all Walters had to do was nothing.

Just for the record, it seems like I'm focusing a lot on Walters there. Given what others are saying about him I just want to add that despite a bit of a **** up (imho) on this occasion, I'm still a big fan of the guy. If it was in charge he'd be one of the first names on the teamsheet.

[Stuttgart88]

One more positive is that we seem to be a team that can score goals in most matches.

[Stuttgart88]

The Serbian guy drew the foul, as he is quite entitled to do, and Walters fell into the trap.

That's exactly how I saw it. Well phrased.

[pineapple stu]

The Serbian fella had possession, and Walters had no business running that close to the back of him. He was caught completely out of position, and either the Serbian fella was going to get a shot away or Walters would nick the attacker and cause him to go down. Daft defending; no complaints about the peno. I'm not sure how much it'd take to knock you in that situation tbh.

[EAFC_rdfl]

Long and Walters were brutal, we do really need goals to start coming from every player.

Serbia were atrocious lads apart from the wings. You wouldn't have spotted on tele, but they were at 6s and 7s and couldnt organise themselves off the ball at all, ivanovic has no excuse here really, before the ball was played in for the offside goal we had 3 free men, no one picking them up. It was criminal that we still stayed offside, as they had so much space and time to move around. Their keeper was brutal.

I have not seen as bad a team organised defensively as they were, or a keeper as dodgy as theirs was. It's two points dropped. Even though the pitch was bad, we never used our pace, and their defenders weren't tracking anytime we made a run.

Get over your own negativity and the talk of when did we last beat blah blah blah nonsense. The fans and the players have a brittle, weak mentality. We were screaming the stands to push out and actually get on the ball. Everytime we had space we headered it or blasted it instead of taking it down, with loads of time to do so. Anytime we attacked we looked like scoring they were that bad.

Murphy said himself for hte goal, he had so much time that its one of those you end up missing. Because you have too much time to think. I read that and thought, well why the fc*k didn't ye go and do something about it then. It happened everytime we got a quick ball into the box.

Thanks for enlightening us!! There was me thinking they were one of the best drilled sides I'd seen in a long time

[paul_oshea]

Long is begining to grate me a bit, chewing his gum, everyone calling for him to start for about 4 years, retire robbie and Long himself coming out saying similar to things of those effect when he would score or if he wasn't getting enough chances has he perceived it.

Well you've had your chance the last year and half or so and you aren't doing much about it.

[pineapple stu]

Thanks for enlightening us!! There was me thinking they were one of the best drilled sides I'd seen in a long time

Yup; no-one on the thread at all has commented on how bad their defending was. Sure neither of our goals were down to defensive howlers at all.

Here's the goals btw. No complaints on the pitch for the penalty award, interestingly.

[EAFC_rdfl]

I'd agree it was a penalty too, as annoying as that is given the way the Serb went down, but it's one of those forgivable ones. What he did a while after was a different case, when he flung their winger to the ground during a Serbia breakaway. The play was through the middle so it went unnoticed by the officials, otherwise it would have been at least a yellow card. It looked like Coleman was giving him a bit of a going over for it at fulltime though, pointing towards where it happened. Hopefully next day out he will be a bit more disciplined

[tetsujin1979]

Long and Walters were brutal, we do really need goals to start coming from every player.

Serbia were atrocious lads apart from the wings. You wouldn't have spotted on tele, but they were at 6s and 7s and couldnt organise themselves off the ball at all, ivanovic has no excuse here really, before the ball was played in for the offside goal we had 3 free men, no one picking them up. It was criminal that we still stayed offside, as they had so much space and time to move around. Their keeper was brutal.

Actually the tv coverage pointed that out throughout the game. But you wouldn't have spotted that on your high horse.

I have not seen as bad a team organised defensively as they were, or a keeper as dodgy as theirs was. It's two points dropped. Even though the pitch was bad, we never used our pace, and their defenders weren't tracking anytime we made a run.

Get over your own negativity and the talk of when did we last beat blah blah blah nonsense. The fans and the players have a brittle, weak mentality. We were screaming the stands to push out and actually get on the ball. Everytime we had space we headered it or blasted it instead of taking it down, with loads of time to do so. Anytime we attacked we looked like scoring they were that bad.

Murphy said himself for hte goal, he had so much time that its one of those you end up missing. Because you have too much time to think. I read that and thought, well why the fc*k didn't ye go and do something about it then. It happened everytime we got a quick ball into the box.

It almost as if a bad pitch doesn't allow you to move and control a ball at pace

[paul_oshea]

Thanks for enlightening us!! There was me thinking they were one of the best drilled sides I'd seen in a long time

I havent read all the posts on here but most that have stood out are sayig how a draw isnt a bad result and out they outplayed us and/or we were lucky to come out with a draw.

All we needed to do was show a bit bravery a few more attacks and we would have scored.

[ifk101]

Post Euros hangover? :-)

The performance was poor but happy with the result.

[SwanVsDalton]

That was also my take, but that's a penalty. The Serbian guy drew the foul, as he is quite entitled to do, and Walters fell into the trap. Once the Serb got there first Walters had no business placing a hand on his back and down he went as soon as he felt the contact. You are right that the trip, which was also enough to give a penalty for in my opinion, happened on yer mans way down, but there was already enough before that happened.

The Serbian fella had possession, and Walters had no business running that close to the back of him. He was caught completely out of position, and either the Serbian fella was going to get a shot away or Walters would nick the attacker and cause him to go down. Daft defending; no complaints about the peno. I'm not sure how much it'd take to knock you in that situation tbh.

Sorry chaps, we'll have to agree to disagree. Haven't seen it back but I didn't see a foul and this argument seems to boil do (apologies for the reductivism) 'the foul was coming/Walters was too close to him'.

Maybe I really am old-fashioned, but I still need a foul before a penalty is given. Just cause Walters is in his proximity or was late or was out-of-position or clumsy doesn't give the Serbian a licence to throw himself to the ground. Likewise, I can't see how Walters apparently grazing his knuckles against the Serb's back - as he's bringing his hands up - is enough for him to fall over.

All being fair, Walters should have been in a better position or less clumsy - but he still actually has to foul him to give away a penalty.

I reserve the right to withdraw all the above if I see the clip back and Walters kicked him in the ankles.

i haven't seen it back but i thought there was minimal contact on mcclean when he won the free kick that led to our first goal. serbia were all over us when they got the pen - who's to say if it wasn't given they wouldn't have scored a later goal giving us no chance to get back into it.

None of that is to say Serbian didn't deserve to be in front. I'm not really complaining about the penalty award, we've had plenty of soft dubious ones in recent years.

[pineapple stu]

I'll agree on not agreeing with "He had a licence to go down", and that there has to be a foul rather than clumsiness.

I just think there was more contact than there appears - not just the (small) nudge on the back, but also a potential clip of the heels.

My first reaction was that it was a stonewall penalty, because Walters did defend it very badly and got the wrong side of his man.

The lack of any real complaints and how close the referee were would all seem to back it up.

But the bottom line is still that we were blessed to come away with a point in a match where Serbia's defence in particular were so abject that we could easily have had all three.

[livehead1]

Long is begining to grate me a bit, chewing his gum, everyone calling for him to start for about 4 years, retire robbie and Long himself coming out saying similar to things of those effect when he would score or if he wasn't getting enough chances has he perceived it.

Well you've had your chance the last year and half or so and you aren't doing much about it.

Especially that dreadful goal he scored against the world champions that kept us in with a shout of qualifying for the Euro's...

[OwlsFan]

I regard the penalty decision as irrelevant as a second goal was on the cards anyway. As least it came early enough for us to fight our way back in to the game. We were just blessed they didn't score a third.

Nor do I agree that the "game was there for the taking" against a team who enjoyed far more possession than us and created more chances than us and who could retain possession.

p.s. Randolph has been taking penalty saving lessons from Given.

[DeLorean]

Accuse me of lacking ambition but I'm very satisfied with a draw. Being realistic it's going to be a very tall order to qualify for this World Cup but that is the kind of start that gives us a chance at least. It puts us in a position where we we can take four points from our fixtures with one of our direct rivals, obviously a lot of work to do to achieve that but you'd have to be hopeful that we can beat them at home. A defeat would have been a disaster really so my overriding feeling is relief that we avoided that, much like the Sweden game in Paris, despite them being "there for the taking" also.

The performance was desperately poor but we all know we can do better in that regard. It's still very early in the season with fellas trying to work up to full fitness. We were very poor in Georgia this time two years ago and diabolical in Kazakhstan in the campaign before that. This was a much tougher fixture to start out than what those should have been really.

O'Shea, Coleman and Walters, in particular, must be well short of 100%. Of course that begs the question of whether they should have started at all but obviously O'Neill felt they were too important to leave out for this one. I think the pitch and the early lead gave a few too many of our players an excuse to refrain from doing the right things and just pump it long in an aimless fashion, Whelan and McClean the biggest culprits, but probably slightly unfair to single them out when it was such a poor showing overall.

Long also struggled to make an impact but you'd have to feel for him, a thankless job chasing balls that weren't even aimed in his general direction. I can imagine O'Neill seeing the pitch and telling the players not to take any chances. He often laments our sloppy ball retention and lack of bravery in possession but he was setting his stall out with the exclusion of Hoolahan from the starting line-up.

To Serbia's credit, they made light of the conditions in that respect and continued to do the right things throughout, in our half at least. I thought Tadic looked a class above every player on the pitch last night.

Six points from our next two games are essential but will set us up nicely for Vienna if we can manage it. As for whether or not the other teams (namely Austria & Wales) will pick up results or not in Belgrade remains to be seen. Austria won all their away games in their last campaign, scoring eight goals in wins in Sweden, Russia & Montengro, so they'll have no fear of the trip. Who knows though... maybe an Austria win might be a better result for us anyway in the long run. Wales will have unpleasant memories of their 6-1 humiliation in Serbia a few years back, but they're a different proposition now.

[marinobohs]

I regard the penalty decision as irrelevant as a second goal was on the cards anyway. As least it came early enough for us to fight our way back in to the game. We were just blessed they didn't score a third.

Nor do I agree that the "game was there for the taking" against a team who enjoyed far more possession than us and created more chances than us and who could retain possession.

p.s. Randolph has been taking penalty saving lessons from Given.

Not sure I could ever buy that a penalty (especially one that was converted) is irrelevant but fully agree that we were outplayed and getting a point was a good result.
Irrespective of how poor they were (and God they were) we were worse. Shocking display from all and we should be thanking our lucky stars we got a point. Ironically the peno seemed to waken us up. didn't think it was a penalty but ref seemed a bit of a homer in the cards he dished out and Walters gave him the opportunity with very clumsy defending.