Wafer cup tie with Airdrie going
ahead Saturday 7th Sept at 1pm.Cup quarter finals scheduled that weekend too! Presumably under 19's will play if we overcome Longford in next round.
For years clubs that qualified for Europe complained about getting no help (fixture wise) from the league.Its as if by making a complete balls up of it they are trying to deter any club complaining again ! Why the clubs involved in Europe cant play each other around the time of the early rounds, minimizing cancellations, is beyond me unless its just the league are too lazy to bother. It woudn't solve all problems but would lessen them
Wafer cup tie with Airdrie going
ahead Saturday 7th Sept at 1pm.Cup quarter finals scheduled that weekend too! Presumably under 19's will play if we overcome Longford in next round.
If the league wasn’t squeezed into 8 and a half months then there would be room for the European teams to play each other on a couple of Mondays early in the session and leave the other teams to play each other over the summer. If you go down the route of a fee for a team inconvenienced by a postponement then would that apply if a game is called off because two players are called up to an U19 or u21 squad.
Clubs just shouldn’t have game cancelled for Europe. They’re getting 200k+ a round as it is giving them such a huge advantage over the rest of the league.
Linfield go 2-1 up at home to Qarabag!
Didn't see that coming
3-1 now! Wow
Penalty at the death to make it 3-2. Could be a big goal that.
Probably would've been favourites at 3-1. That late goal swings it back in favour of Qarabag.
Linfield win last night shows that Dundalk performances in Europe this year to be poor ... It was like their were scare of the opposition and not go out and play their own game. Is the league of Ireland going backwards?
That's a fair point. The squad played like they were under pressure as red hot favourites rather than playing freely as underdogs. Qarabag showed some mental weakness themselves. We showed to much respect to Slovan, didnt take chances, and threw away an opportunity. I wouldnt be too quick on LoI going backwards based on the Linfield game last night. They have been undergoing a good building process with ambition for Europe not previously shown by IL clubs. Great result but will ultimately count for little if they dont make hay in the 2nd leg. Sustaing wins is signs of real progress rather than one outstanding result.
A few one off games is not a fair judgement on the LOI.
The margins are too fine, Rovers could have won in extra time against Appolon (who then beat Austria Vienna home and away) and be playing in final qualifying and everyone would be saying it was a good year.
Dundalk could have had a handier draw and progressed.
Cork almost had a phenomenal comeback having imploded in the home leg....i k now that is a lot of if my Auntie had ball she would be my Uncle stuff but some years the ball bounces in your favour and some it doesnt
Dundalk look to me to have mistimed their "peak" fitness, two/three weeks late. Not much point hitting it, which they are now, when you are out of Europe.
I don`t think that the mixed bag of results this year reflects too badly on the league. That Dundalk Team at their peak should be able to easily match Linfields result last night, and better. Rovers were a kick of the ball away from a great result and arguably should really have finished the Cypriots off in the first leg. Cork and Pats went as expected for two teams in the relative doldroms. Would have been interesting to have seen a Waterford with Bastien Hery in Europe. I was talking to someone who was at Windsor last night, said Hery has been running the games since he signed for them. Gives a lot of credit to Fenlon for pushing Linfield to take European competition seriously. A big crowd of then heading to Kazak for the second leg , so who knows.
They wouldnt see much out in kazakhstan.
Perhaps qarabag arent that good after all. I felt that Dundalk should have beaten them at home at that time when they tired but looked a better outfit in the away leg and expected them to kick on with a few games under their belt. That was clearly wrong.
Dundalks biggest problem looking at those results was they didnt play for a full 90 minutes and werent switche don for a full 90. They played in patches, I'm not sure that fitness related either.
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So what does Slovan beating PAOK say about Dundalk’s performances then? Linfield were beaten 6 nil by Rosenberg in the champions league qualifier this year so does that mean Qarabag are significantly worse than Rosenberg?
There’s no doubt Dundalk’s performances in Europe this year have been disappointing but judging them on another teams one off performance is harsh. But then we do live in the “hot take” era of instant judgment.
Dundalk had six games in Europe and they weren't close to wining any of them for a so call experienced team ... Them selves have being saying their geared up for Europe, well they didn't showed nothing, they were very lucky to get by Riga in fairest and were brutal against Qarabag and Slovan - it was like they knew their fate before playing the game! Fairest to Rovers, they put up a fight in Cyprus and had a great win against Brann but Dundalk were poor and Perth coming out talking crap doesn't help ... blaming the players - he's the bloody manager!
Did he blame the players? I think he speaks pragmatically, though I can see how things said could be irksome if not a Dundalk fan. self belief coming across as arrogance for example. He hasnt yet completed a season as head coach and hardly a disasterous start. If things continue ti improve on how its been this season so far there wlil be few complaints at Oriel.
No, but Dundalk were beyond abject, and it just shows what a bit of belief will do for a team (Linfield). Dundalk had no idea at all whatsoever how to break down Riga, had enough chances to win the slovan ties three times over, made Under 11's sunday league level mistakes in all three ties, and never brought their shooting boots. I keep reading that LOI teams got hard draws and 'if only' we coiuld have got an easier tie. There are no easy ties anymore. LOI sides press the auto self destruct button every year in Europe, and then all we're left with are the 'if only's' and 'what if's'. Sure, Qarabag will likely give Linfield a good beating over there, but Dundalk could have played them 10 times and not won any of them.
I’m not sure that it’s all down to the Dundalk players either. It’s as much to do with management and coaching. Perth may turn out to be an inspired appointment, but right now he’s relatively inexperienced domestically and very much so in Europe. Kenny had managed so many Euro games (more importantly, so many in single seasons) as well as what he learned in Scotland before managing Dundalk that he reached a level few managers here do. Part of our problem is that we keep appointing the same managers over and over and, being inexperienced in Euro games, some end up - I don’t know - not trusting themselves? Being risk averse?
To make progress in Europe a club needs good players, true, but also an experienced manager at that level, either as a coach or player in a better European league (e.g. Michael O’Neill and Buckley). But to attract that kind of manager a club needs to have been successful in Europe to have the profile and resources to be attractive. I know previous experiences of foreign managers have been mixed, but, really, expecting managers to achieve better results from the experience of taking charge of half a dozen Euro games spread over two or three seasons isn’t realistic. Maybe we need to expand the managerial gene pool?
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