League of Ireland in Europe 2019

[nigel-harps1954]

If you insist on Ethan, at least play him in his normal position

-------------Manus-------------

B Gannon Grace Kavanagh
---O------------------------------
Finn Y McEneff Towell O Donnell Byrne
----L----------------------------
E ​------------Maguire

[sbgawa]

Is the Rovers game on TV anywhere?

[D24Saint]

Is the Rovers game on TV anywhere?

I heard it should be on a ppv channel in Cyprus so should get it on skorlive.com

[CorribsideSteve]

Had a look at Qarabag's ground there. 3 sided. Capacity of around 6,000. Will be like a Tallaght away from home (away from home) for Dundalk! Unless it's being played in the Tofiq Bahramarov, which seems unlikely.

[Ezeikial]

Had a look at Qarabag's ground there. 3 sided. Capacity of around 6,000. Will be like a Tallaght away from home (away from home) for Dundalk! Unless it's being played in the Tofiq Bahramarov, which seems unlikely.

It will be play in the Dalga Arena - it appears to be 4 sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddcsVPHoZ94


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalga_Arena

[Ezeikial]

Manus
Gannon Grace Boyle Kavanagh
Finn McEneff Towell O Donnell Byrne
Maguire


Best 11 Rovers DFC last few years....possible new thread (EZ is banned )

In a spirit of detente I proposed the following alternative eleven, naturally dominated by Rovers players over the last 3 years. A couple of token dual Rovers / Dundalk players are included

Tomer Chencinski

Ethan Boyle | Roberto Lopes | Ally Gilchrist | Luke Byrne

Darren Meenan | David McAllister | Ryan Connolly | Darren Clarke

Michael O'Connor | Gary Shaw

[CorribsideSteve]

It will be play in the Dalga Arena - it appears to be 4 sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddcsVPHoZ94



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalga_Arena

Cheers. I had assumed it would be played at the three sided Azersun. Seems as though they have a choice over a few Stadiums in the city of Baku. Early start vital for Dundalk. Not absolutely necessary, but the earlier to get at these guys and let them know it won't be easy would be lovely to see.

[pateen]

33 deg Wednesday, nice

[ontheotherhand]

Rovers are constantly improving along with Bradley as a manager. The gap is closing but not at a rate that has Dundalk fans really looking over the shoulders yet. A couple of shrewd signings in the close season could change that quickly. I'm sure I will be reminded of saying this if we throw away this league title!!!

There is an unprecedented level of depth of squad probably ever in LoI. But with that even in mind we had 7 midfielders out injured early/'mid' season and a number that were long term. Flores and Murray were not fit and had reoccuring injuries as a result. We have played a left fullback and a central defender in midfield as a result and a right full back in right midfield. That we have yet to put in a really good performance is an indication of the disruption to the squad, players out of position, and players being risked - playing injured with no other choice. It's worth considering the importance of the players that were out of games also - Benson, McEleney, McGrath, Murray, Flores, Mountney, Shields for 3 weeks(?) so a good few games with this fixture list, Folan, Dummigan from trying to get match fit and so on. With different but significant combinations granted. All of Benson, McEleney, McGrath, Murray, Flores, Mountney, Shields have had to play rushed back from injury. Murray and Flores never got the chance to get match fit.

Murray now is looking like he is getting both injury free cuurently and is nearly fully match fit. He looked a real talent at Watford in the Champonship but dropped down to Colchester in League 2 and then to to a newly promoted Dutch side where he made just 11 appearances. Dont get me wrong, I am a big fan of his, think he will become one of the top player in the league so not just flashy as bringing in a lad who was starting from watford sounds.
Flores hadnt played in a few seasons after a serious car crash. So its still a bit of a work in progress for these lads. I'm not suggesting the Dundalk midfields v Rovers were 'weak' but it was far from full srength or even in good form. This isnt meant as a wind up but especially the games in Tallaght Rovers were on top of their game but by comparison Dundalk were not in form but ground out results. Rovers reliance on a small core of players will mean mean luck with injuries just the same as it was for Dundalk with so many players out. Now that these players are becoming available were are much better equipped for injuries and suspension than anyone else.

Each to their own on the quality of the current European opposition as time will ultimately give some sort of better indication.

Would agree with all of that. As Michael O'Neill was fond of saying, it's a 14 man game and Dundalk have the stronger 14. For the first time in this era of Dundalk dominance I think the two strongest 11s are close enough with the obvious difference being up front and that's cost us plenty of points.

As you say, a few shrewd signings could swing things. If we signed 2/3 of the type and calibre of Gannon, Duffy and Hoban we might catch you but until then I think you'll dig out games even when you don't play well while we drop points when our game plan doesn't work and we have no bench to turn to. It's a bit better now with O'Neill and Farrugia to come in but it's not a patch on the depth of Dundalk's. Frightening to think you might be adding Elbouzedi and it sounds like Bolger won't be with us next season.

Very worried about the game this week if Joey O'Brien doesn't recover from the knock he picked up in Cork. We ended up with Ethan Boyle playing at left back in that game as well.....proof right there of the different squad's relative depth. You brought in new faces and beat Pat's, we played close to our best available 11 and drew with Cork.

[oriel]

33 deg Wednesday, nice

It will 'drop' to 25c at kick off at 9pm local time, will be dark then also, still hot though, but Dundalk trained twice in Spain this season, that should help.

Interesting to note that a 4th sub was allowed in Riga for the ET period, this must be a new rule for european games in ET.

[nigel-harps1954]

It will 'drop' to 25c at kick off at 9pm local time, will be dark then also, still hot though, but Dundalk trained twice in Spain this season, that should help.

Interesting to note that a 4th sub was allowed in Riga for the ET period, this must be a new rule for european games in ET.

That rule was introduced last year, if not the year before that.

[Ezeikial]

It will 'drop' to 25c at kick off at 9pm local time, will be dark then also, still hot though, but Dundalk trained twice in Spain this season, that should help.

Interesting to note that a 4th sub was allowed in Riga for the ET period, this must be a new rule for european games in ET.

Vinny Perth believes his Dundalk players will cope with conditions in Baku - having acclimatised in Spain.
Temperatures in Azerbaijan are in the mid 30s by day and will drop into the 20s by kick-off tomorrow.



But Perth reckons the team’s warm weather training camp in Spain during the mini summer break will stand to them.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soc...-baku-18796822

[pineapple stu]

That rule was introduced last year, if not the year before that.

Came in last season - first instance was Champions League pre-qualifying (which was actually before the World Cup knock-out rounds, where it was also allowed)

[swinfordfc]

In all honestly, Dundalk are going to it very tough tomorrow evening, it they can hold out to half time cause they going to really be up against it, then it might get interesting. Think they will lose 2-0 tomorrow night.

[Asterix]

Is the Rovers game on TV anywhere?

€5.99 for the live stream.

https://shamrockrovers.ie/livestream...LPD9NBX4vJyygE

[oriel]

In all honestly, Dundalk are going to it very tough tomorrow evening, it they can hold out to half time cause they going to really be up against it, then it might get interesting. Think they will lose 2-0 tomorrow night.

I don't think you'll find anyone who will disagree with this ! Toughest match since away to Zenit, and polar opposities too in the conditions, quite literally, it was well below zero that night at kick off.

I think Dundalk will score, hopefully it will be at a key time of the game, keepinf them scoreless for as long as possible, and for more than 4 mins this time would be nice !

[pineapple stu]

APOEL and Slovan easily winning this evening, and they'll play Dundalk if they win/lose tomorrow respectively

[Buller]

I think the heat is gonna be a massive factor for both games. Going to be seriously tough. Forecast to be 29C at 8pm in both Limasol and Baku.
Its incredibly hard to play a match in anything over 20C...

[sparky12345678]

"They are a very strong team. I think they have a higher ranking that AC Milan in Europe so that just shows you what kind of class they are".

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2019/0730/1066102-mcgrath-confident-dundalk-can-cope-with-qarabag/

weighing in on the debate. Qarabag > AC Milan

Also Tel-Aviv (16.00) have been knocked out by much lower unseeded Cluj from Romania (3.5); who in the previous round were also unseeded against the Kazakhstan team, Astana, who seeded at 27.5 are also higher than Qarabag (22.0)...

[pineapple stu]

Couldn't resist checking that!

Level with them in the coefficient club rankings, though only because Milan have only been in Europe twice in the past five years. Mad drop off from being in the knock out stages of the Champions League six years ago.