Republic of Ireland v Finland - Wednesday, 14th October 2020 - UEFA Nations League

[paul_oshea]

but no goal poacher. finding one would be a game changer imo.

I disagree slightly, without us accommodating one that is, we'd need to change our formation/setup. We require all our front players to be busy in the current system and formation. If we had 3 finishers in the top 3 of which mcg/robinson/odowda/connolly(not yet anyway) are not then we wouldn't be on a 5(yes bulgaria) game barren run.

[geysir]

Much ado about Kenny. He's done okay with the hand served to him. Imo the goal in the NL was not to get relegated and that's still realistic.
Finland are clearly a better organised and together team than us and yet we could make it a 50/50 game, but lost out to a gifted goal.

[jbyrne]

every manager that had us at least got us to a playoff over the last 15 years.

stan and kerr didnt

[paul_oshea]

Ya sorry, memory letting me down a bit hte last week. Slight exageratioin.

[ontheotherhand]

Are we in 2022 already? I was sure Kenny has only had control for 5 games now. This idea that he has free reign is a tab premature no? Should we judge him when he has had the chance to qualify for something? Or does he immediately get the sack for losing the playoff against Slovakia?

Not sure Stan got us to a playoff. Mick's last run at it would have failed if not for the rules change to the Nations League I think?

Bit of patience.

[Fixer82]

To be fair, we did start ten premier league players, plus Duffy on loan from a PL team, against Slovakia

Yes but how many of them are vital to their teams in Premiership?

Randolph is warming the bench most games.

Defensively we have very good players. Egan, Duffy, Doherty, Coleman and Stevens all top quality (ps who replaces Stevens if he gets injured??).

Midfield - Hourihane not essential to Villa. Hendrick playing with Newcastle. Not sure if he'll be there in two seasons.
Molumby coming through and looks good but still young.
Brady not always starting for Burnley.
McClean playing Championship football.
McCarthy is probably a big player for Palace when fit.
Arter playing Championship.
O'Dowda in Championship.
Horgan in Scotland.

Forwards wise I'd say McGoldrick is essential to Sheffield.
Robinson has started well with West Brom.
Connolly seems to start most games for Brighton which is good.
Long rarely starts for Southampton.
Idah...is he playing regularly for Norwich these days?
Parrott is on loan in Championship.
Maguire playing Championship.

[pineapple stu]

Mick's last run at it would have failed if not for the rules change to the Nations League I think?

We came third in the group, which is what got us to a play-off for Euro 2016 (which we won)

So it was just a different way of getting to the same thing

[Trequartista20]

Not sure you understood the fairly simple point so here you go - managers sometimes start poorly as they try out players etc. Cant judge anyone until theyve had time to build. Lads are on here doing the usual pining for managers of times gone by. Mick had it far easier with friendlies and world class players in his team. Kenny was dropped into a ****storm of pressure and it only got worse with half the squad decimated over 3 games. Im not a fan of kenny but he needs time like any manager.

I see you referenced McAteer later on...christ....ill leave you to it so.

I understood your point and countered it fine, in my view. It's entirely unoriginal and made by many. And if Kenny hadn't have resorted to the tried and failed, eg favouring Wycombe trier, Horgan, over Obafemi, Knight, et al, your argument would've carried a great deal more weight. As it is, he didn't.

McCarthy was a young manager in his thirties learning on the job in his first couple of campaigns; making a great many mistakes, yet still keeping us competitive when it mattered. Not the ideal figure to hold up when trying to make a positive case for Kenny.

What is it about McAteer, as a professional who played at the highest level, that negates his point?

[Trequartista20]

Yes but how many of them are vital to their teams in Premiership?

Randolph is warming the bench most games.

Defensively we have very good players. Egan, Duffy, Doherty, Coleman and Stevens all top quality (ps who replaces Stevens if he gets injured??).

Midfield - Hourihane not essential to Villa. Hendrick playing with Newcastle. Not sure if he'll be there in two seasons.
Molumby coming through and looks good but still young.
Brady not always starting for Burnley.
McClean playing Championship football.
McCarthy is probably a big player for Palace when fit.
Arter playing Championship.
O'Dowda in Championship.
Horgan in Scotland.

Forwards wise I'd say McGoldrick is essential to Sheffield.
Robinson has started well with West Brom.
Connolly seems to start most games for Brighton which is good.
Long rarely starts for Southampton.
Idah...is he playing regularly for Norwich these days?
Parrott is on loan in Championship.
Maguire playing Championship.

Horgan is playing for Wycombe rather than in Scotland.

In your defence of Kenny, to make your point stick, what you really have to effectively argue is that we have greatly inferior resources, playing at a lower level to Finland. I don't think you have done that.. Nor to Bulgaria and Slovakia for that matter.

[youngirish]

I do worry about Kenny. His 'so called' nice football seems to me to be the worst type of nice football. Passing it around for no other reason than just to keep possession. It reminds me of Arsenal at their worst during the last year or so of Wenger's reign whereby they almost needed to pass it into the net to score. There is no urgency when we win possession in the opponents half to quickly break forward.

We are often all too happy to instead play a sideways or backwards pass and on numerous occasions I noticed the ball going all the way back to the central defenders or goalkeeper from promising positions when we won possession. Any sniff of a chance is then long gone.

He also has to take some responsibility for persisting with Hourihane for every game when I can't think of anything constructive he has done other than a few nice touches in the initial Bulgarian game. Since then he's been anonymous.

Anyway he's had a shocking start as far as I'm concerned but we need to give him the next campaign and see how it goes. The LOI heads defending Kenny to the hilt need to remember that Finland recently lost 5-1 to Poland and their best player is a journeyman striker who has been playing in the lower leagues of Europe for his entire career. Think a Finnish Daryl Murphy and you wouldn't be far off.

[Trequartista20]

Does anyone remember our possession stats against England in Stuttgart? Or against Italy in New York?

[eekers]

If in the event the November internationals being cancelled because of the second wave in Europe. And if the world cup draw goes ahead as scheduled December without any further internationals then:

A win against Finland will get us guarantee us 2nd seeds:
Ireland (21st) would be on 1482.44 points, the most Slovakia(20nd) currently on 1,476.9 points would be able to get by beating Israel is 1,481.49.

A Draw for both Ireland and Slovakia would put Ireland on 1474.94 and Slovakia on 1,473.99.
In the case of these two draws. Only Iceland could overtake both Ireland and Slovakia by beating Belgium at home leaving them on 1,475.76.

If both Ireland and Slovakia lose. Ireland would be on 1467.44 ahead of Slovakia on 1,466.49.
But Northern Ireland could finish on 1,473.54 by beating Norway away.
Iceland could finish on 1,468.26 by drawing with Belgium at home.
Romania could finish on 1,470.28 by beating Austria at home.

Good news lads. Israel just came back from being 2-0 down to beat Slovakia 3-2.
Northern Ireland, Iceland and Romania all lost too.
We are now the 20th ranked UEFA nation.
So as it stands we are second seeds going into the World draw with the November international still to come before that.

[ontheotherhand]

I'm still not sure you did but we can move on from that. It was a very basic point around judging any manager too rashly over 5 games and specifically judging Kenny vs McCarthy when they both started poorly. It's probably unoriginal because people have to keep bringing it up!

You're saying he resorted to the tried and failed? Can't agree with that at all. Did you not see the matchday squad get torn apart in the space of a week? Did you not see Knight, Molumby, OShea, Connolly, Idah, Curtis etc getting involved? You're posting as if Horgan was his first choice and you mention Knight who actually played today. This Obafemi nonsense has to stop as well. He's a young kid, completely unproven at international level and he did nothing for the 21s yesterday. He will get his chance when he is ready.

Who would you have picked today out of interest? What is he specifically doing wrong? Personally I think his subs were iffy but otherwise probably got the teams right.

On McAteer - it's that despite playing the game at the highest level, he's also a clown who says things to stay relevant without doing any real thinking.

[irishfan86]

I think we really need to see more dynamism and interchanging from our front three. We are far too static in terms of the movement up front.

A lot of the criticism here is on the midfield and like many I’m skeptical in particular of Hourihane’s contribution from open play.

That said, the front three are not mixing it up enough. We need to at times have two or three of the attackers overload to one side to create more 3 v 3 or 2 v 2 situations. The wide attackers also need to switch positions at times or run directly across the back line, dragging their markers with them.

This destabilizes the defence if fullbacks have to follow their mark to the other side of the pitch. Alternatively if defenders try to hand off markers, sometimes a gap in communication occurs and that player is now unmarked, even briefly.

In brief, the movement from our attacking three remains too predictable and that needs to change.

[geysir]

We came third in the group, which is what got us to a play-off for Euro 2016 (which we won)

So it was just a different way of getting to the same thing

That's complicated, requires a bit of untangling.

[paul_oshea]

Good news lads. Israel just came back from being 2-0 down to beat Slovakia 3-2.
Northern Ireland, Iceland and Romania all lost too.
We are now the 20th ranked UEFA nation.
So as it stands we are second seeds going into the World draw with the November international still to come before that.

Nice, some good news, we seem to do better at things when its taken out of our hands

But the playoffs for the other teams in the Euro playoffs can push them ahead again. Lets hope for no november internationals

[paul_oshea]

I do worry about Kenny. His 'so called' nice football seems to me to be the worst type of nice football. Passing it around for no other reason than just to keep possession. It reminds me of Arsenal at their worst during the last year or so of Wenger's reign whereby they almost needed to pass it into the net to score. There is no urgency when we win possession in the opponents midfield to quickly break forward.

We are often all too happy to instead play a sideways or backwards pass and on numerous occasions I noticed the ball going all the way back to the central defenders or goalkeeper from promising positions when we won possession. Any sniff of a chance is then long gone.

He also has to take some responsibility for persisting with Hourihane for every game when I can't think of anything constructive he has done other than a few nice touches in the initial Bulgarian game. Since then he's been anonymous.

Anyway he's had a shocking start as far as I'm concerned but we need to give him the next campaign and see how it goes. The LOI heads defending Kenny to the hilt need to remember that Finland recently lost 5-1 to Poland and their best player is a journeyman striker who has been playing in the lower leagues of Europe for his entire career. Think a Finnish Daryl Murphy and you wouldn't be far off.

We showed urgency twice today, but that was the first i'd noticed over the 3 games ,one was the quick free kick from hourihane and another was a quick throw. I could not fathom in the slovakia game why we kept slowing things down when we were winning frees and throws giving them a chance to gegroup. its clearly a tactic and it doesnt make any sense to me.

Ya Arsenal became very uncreative during that time.

[pineapple stu]

That's complicated, requires a bit of untangling.

Welcome to UEFA!

Mick didn't get a play-off spot because of the Nations League changes. He did what MON did the previous time to earn a spot (ie come third in the group)

[Bottle of Tonic]

Being against the manager is the safest position a supporter can adopt. No matter when you adopt it you will almost always be proven right in the end.

I wouldn't listen to scatter brained, self absorbed hurlers on the ditch like Paul o shea in this instance. And associated whingers gone blind or amnesiac to the utter dross we witnessed the last 4 years where we scored phuck all while creating nothing in the line of chances against beaver homes league level Gibraltar and Georgia.

I'm certainly no tiki taka man, never have been, and despise the trend of keepers passing it short no matter what but bloody hell if you cannot see that we are playing more football now than ever and are creating clear cut chances that we never did before then you are a blind man, and that's the polite description.

As a caveat I will say I am generally a mix it up merchant who is inclined towards percentage football and I have no skin in the loi game so no biased in that respect either.

[EAFC_rdfl]

Being against the manager is the safest position a supporter can adopt. No matter when you adopt it you will almost always be proven right in the end.

I wouldn't listen to scatter brained, self absorbed hurlers on the ditch like Paul o shea in this instance. And associated whingers gone blind or amnesiac to the utter dross we witnessed the last 4 years where we scored phuck all while creating nothing in the line of chances against beaver homes league level Gibraltar and Georgia.

I'm certainly no tiki taka man, never have been, and despise the trend of keepers passing it short no matter what but bloody hell if you cannot see that we are playing more football now than ever and are creating clear cut chances that we never did before then you are a blind man, and that's the polite description.

As a caveat I will say I am generally a mix it up merchant who is inclined towards percentage football and I have no skin in the loi game so no biased in that respect either.

Well said sir. Good to see someone cutting through some of the BS posted tonight