Ireland V Russia

[Snatch]

Missed the game last night.

How did we play? What were the goals like? How did Healy fare?

[joe]

Healy got the MOTM award for his 45 minutes and did not look out of place. McCarthy made 7 substitutions at half-time, another 3 with about 20 minutes left, took Roy off about 8 minutes to go and brought on Quinn in injury time, making it 23 players to have played for Ireland in the match.

Doses anyone else think that Robbie Keane had a stinker - apart from his goal of course

[pete]

Originally posted by joe
Doses anyone else think that Robbie Keane had a stinker - apart from his goal of course

Was only watching bits of the game but Robbie Keane whilst making a brave decision to move to Italy made a bad one moving back to Leeds. I keep remembered the quote from Marcelo Lippi that he was amazed a players such as Robbie Keane had such bad positional sense. Two years in Italy would have thought him more than he'll learn in next 5 in england but you can see how it was hard to pass up 1st team football. He hasn't played well for Ireland for last 2 years anyway.

Did anyone else notice how utterly useless Carsley is? Makes me wonder how he ever got a cap. He supposed to be a defensive type midfielder but he doesn't seem to tacle anyone until they nearly in the box plus it annoys me like hell the way he always looks to pass the ball back or maybe sidewards before even considering the forward pass.

Eventhough Russia had most of the possession they weren't exactely deadly in front of goal & to beat a strongish russian team 2-0 with maybe 1/2 our first eleven is promising.

[Éanna]

carsely got a cap cos he plays in england DUH! robbie keane has always been vastly overrated in my opinion.

btw, on the subject of crap players- i saw the line up for the norn iron u-21s against germany the other night- 4 or 5 of them were no-leage- 2 with morecambe or someone! god help them!

[Neil]

Russia star blasts 'dirty' Harte

Friday 15th February 2002

Russia midfielder Igor Titov has blasted Republic of Ireland defender Ian Harte after the midweek friendly in Dublin.

"Sometimes they were rough in defence," he said. "(Valery) Karpin was injured during the match after Harte struck him. I remember this defender from Spartak matches with Leeds. He is a dirty footballer, although his free-kicks are dangerous."

Titov launched the bitter attack after goals from Steven Reid and Robbie Keane gave the Irish a 2-0 victory at Lansdowne Road. Harte came in for similar criticism following Leeds' trip to Spartak in last season's Champions' League.

As well as condemning Harte, Spartak playmaker Titov suggested that Uefa's choice of an English referee gave the home side an unfair advantage.

"It is the equivalent of our game against the Irish in Moscow being refereed by a Belarussian," he said. "The English referee, especially in the second half, clearly favoured Ireland and on lots of occasions he blew against us."

Despite his grievances, Titov admitted the game represented a valuable scouting mission against a side Russia will face in their Euro 2004 qualification campaign.

"We were given a lesson for the future," he said. "It looks like Ireland are stronger than Yugoslavia. I have to admit that we didn't tune in for that match properly.

"We didn't think the opposition would be so good. We faced a powerful team supported by filled terraces."

Russia striker Vladimir Beschastnykh added: "We were opposed by a strong rival. We conceded two early goals, then took the initiative. Had we scored one goal, the game would have been different."