England V Republic of Ireland - Thursday, 12th November 2020 - Friendly

[geysir]

Iceland concede twice in injury time in Hungary to be knocked out of the Euros.

That'll be geysir taking a day off from the site anyway

I have already offered worthwhile input on this site today.
It was the most painfull defeat in Iceland's football history. But one cannot say they didn't take it to the wire or give their all and it probably marks the end of this most remarkable chapter in world football history.
But as is said here, "never give up".

[Charlie Darwin]

I've put it back on because i'm a gluten for punishment.

This is as bad an Ireland performance as i can remember since the dog days of Stan. England should be much further ahead.

I'm not calling for his head yet, but that day is getting closer.

You must have missed Gibraltar home and away, Georgia home and away....

[Charlie Darwin]

The worst Ireland team in living memory losing 3-0 to the best England team in living memory in a game that shouldn't even be happening is no reason to sack the manager.

Our expectations are bonkers.

[elatedscum]

I find that quite concerning. One thing we would never have done under previous managers was let the our heads go down and not give 100%.

Guess you weren’t in the stadium for that game against Germany under Trap

[Bielsa´s irish]

iam watching the match on espn taped, Ireland played ok for 16 minutes, grealish is a rat. Dont know if it was said but Maguire goal was a clear foul on Duffy from behind by Maguire

[MancIrishWolf]

Another humbling performance in what should serve as a watershed moment in severing ties with the worst generation of players we’ve had in 50 years.

All three mistakes from senior players. Duffy, Hendrick and Christie are only 28 and the inevitably anonymous Hourihane 29, however questions must be asked how long we persist with such a mediocre generation.

O’Shea was faultless, Molomby at least tried to run and show for the ball and Idah has gained invaluable experience playing against top centre halves. This generation need to be blooded immediately. Knight and Molomby are the future of that midfield, so whack them in now. Collins is playing at a higher level than Duffy so should at least be in the squad and if Parrot, Connolly and Idah are our future front three, we might as well stick them in now, as we score buck all goals anyway!

As for Kenny, I want to give him time, however he needs to learn fast. This turgid passing style is a lethargic Tika Taka pastiche which is simply not direct enough. Leicester didn’t win the league by out passing the opposition, but by using the resources available to them. A resolute defence, width and pace working on the counter attack.

As it is, we have an abundance of centre halves who are prone to errors as a flat back four, barely two good centre midfielders (let alone three), young strikers with pace in Connolly, Idah and Obafemi who could spring an attack and the two best wingbacks in the country not utilised in their proper position. The team is crying out for a 3-4-3 formation, however his insistence in playing a 4-3-3 is as stubborn as his usage of mediocre ex-league of Ireland players in a parochial tip of the hat to the FAI.

[Olé Olé]

I was a little disappointed with the selections. I thought Molumby deserved a start on recent showings and that was borne out in his substitute appearance. And I don't know how Kenny thought it was a good idea to play Christie against such quality opponents. In that case, I'm starting O'Shea all day long. Christie was under ferocious pressure in possession and out of possession. He was actually worse in possession because he consistently turned back to Randolph or Duffy and invite the English press right down our throats. I don't think O'Dowda should have started either but maybe that is informed by his terrible performance and hindsight being 20/20.

Getting back to Molumby, I'm actually very disappointed he didn't start. England were completely underloaded in midfield with Mount and Winks. That was where they were most vulnerable and that was demonstrated by some surging runs by Browne and Idah when he came a little deeper.

That aside, the game was much in line with my expectations. I thought we would be beaten handily and we probably were. 2 of the goals could have been avoided but would England have scored others? Sancho's goal was great.

It's disappointing to sacrifice the unbeaten record v England but I think when this fixture was announced, the FAI had to have known that they were forfeiting that. The chances of us getting a result with us at a low ebb and England having an abundance of options was absolutely miniscule.

I'm not going to dwell on that. I know Robinson is out for the rest of the games. Is Connolly too? I think he is? If so, that's my greatest source of disappointment so far in this international break.

[Olé Olé]

Daryl Horgan of Wycombe Wanderers has become a fixture in our side. Let that sink in. And I think that just about sums our whole situation up at the moment.

What is to be achieved by this course of action? Is Horgan good enough? No. Is he likely to improve? No. Does he improve us as a side? No.

It smacks of Kenny running for cover by picking a player he knows, and is the one player he can call upon from whom he will, presumably, command automatic respect.

Hardly the brave new world some promised.

Surely McClean and, especially Knight, were better options? Even Harness and Curtis would probably offer more.

Collins, our only goal threat on current form, was left on the bench with Curtis, a winger, coming on instead. Again, I struggle to see the rationale.

We don't have the players to play the style of football Kenny wants to play. Our goalkeeper isn't particularly comfortable in possession and our defenders aren't good enough on the ball. And yet we continually attempted to play it out from the back whilst being pressed high up the pitch.

We aren't technically good enough to beat teams like England on their own terms. Even most eastern European 'minnows' are technically far more proficient than us, with a head start on us of decades at playing that kind of football.

We look toothless, defensively shaky, and even a lot of the old grit and fighting spirit that even at our worst you used to be able to take for granted, seems to have been knocked out of us.

I fear a long period in the wilderness awaits us.

Calm down. Has Horgan started two of Kenny's 6 games in charge? That's hardly evidence he "has become a fixture in our side." We have been missing a lot of attacking players. Let that sink in maybe?

You are hardly making compelling arguments when referring to McClean, Harness and Curtis as potential starters before him. And Knight tends to play deeper- left of a 3 behind the striker when he's not playing centre mid.

And you follow all your points about Horgan by stating Collins shouldn't have been left on the bench. Have you not seen him play at international level before?

Try a little balance.

[jbyrne]

i am not going to be critical of kenny at this stage given the dreadful luck with covid and injuries that has deprived him of many a central player, sometimes only a couple of hours before KO, since he took over. I also think the performance against slovakia (the game that really mattered) was a 7/10 and a natural goal scorer would have made all the difference i believe. we were unlucky that night.

its incredible though that previous managers who eeked out some superb results were slated at the first opportunity and it was argued that our, lets call it, pragmatic tactics were outdated and would get us no where. MON was blasted even after superb wins against wales, germany (think about it.... we took 4 pts off the world champions), austria, italy and bosnia. incredible results when you think of it now but it counted for very little with many fans at the end. MMcC had about 8 games and a defined brief to get us to the finals....... two of the performances were very good (georgia H and denmark H) and we managed to squeeze draws at home against a much better swiss side and away to denmark. some of the football was poor to watch but we almost pulled it off. qualification is what ultimately matters.

its completely naive and deluded to think that we can out-football many of the teams at our level (rankings) and especially those ahead of us. teams like us, with their limited resources, have to bring something to their tactics that maybe better footballing teams lack. I like the way we hold onto the ball at times at the moment but we just don't put the opposition under enough pressure to throw them off their own stride and we need to reintroduce that back into our game. look at some of the tackles that went in against italy in lille...... it put italy under savage pressure from the start that they couldn't really cope with it. we also used the ball well at times in that game and the build up to bradys goal was quite direct but also involved very good use of the ball. that match is the blue print as to how we need to play...... a good mixture of our traditional getting stuck in along with decent retention and use of the ball

[paul_oshea]

You must have missed Gibraltar home and away, Georgia home and away....

At least we kept going till the end there. My biggest concern and worry now is how limp, facile we are. Even pfizer wouldn't get us up.

Really smacks of a lack of belief in themselves and the system they are playing. For all SKs superlatives I'm worried about actual buy in.

[paul_oshea]

iam watching the match on espn taped, Ireland played ok for 16 minutes, grealish is a rat. Dont know if it was said but Maguire goal was a clear foul on Duffy from behind by Maguire

I said this at the time on a group chat. Thought it was a clear free to be honest.

[livehead1]

I said this at the time on a group chat. Thought it was a clear free to be honest.

You had a group chat to watch that 🤭

[bennocelt]

Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch

speak for yourself, Diego, Roger Milla, Valderama, Schillaci and Baggio, the style, the tackling, the songs............its easy to look back in anger but it was a world cup that people will remember.... José Mourinho soon put a stop to that tiki taki

[paul_oshea]

You had a group chat to watch that ��

Nah a WhatsApp football group

[Fixer82]

Calm down. Has Horgan started two of Kenny's 6 games in charge? That's hardly evidence he "has become a fixture in our side." We have been missing a lot of attacking players. Let that sink in maybe?

You are hardly making compelling arguments when referring to McClean, Harness and Curtis as potential starters before him. And Knight tends to play deeper- left of a 3 behind the striker when he's not playing centre mid.

And you follow all your points about Horgan by stating Collins shouldn't have been left on the bench. Have you not seen him play at international level before?

Try a little balance.

And yet he was the one who looked most likely to create something.

I've no problem with him making the team on last night's showing.

[pineapple stu]

Haha Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest. It was only exciting because we were there. Barcelona 2011 was great to watch

England was a horrendous game. Egypt has never been out of the archive room since (I know someone posted a link to it here recently, but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it)

The other three games were all very watchable though (having rewatched them during lockdown, and ignoring the last 10 minutes v Holland of course). In the Italy game, it was the Italians who spent most of the second half abusing the backpass rule.

[Fixer82]

Actually watched England game when it was on TG4 during summer and thought it was a good game. Thought we were overall the better team but they looked like they could score at any given opportunity also.

[Diggs246]

Christe and hourihane are terrible players. Even with our limited resources they should have been watching that on the tv

[livehead1]

Nah a WhatsApp football group

was worried for a moment!

[brine3]

speak for yourself, Diego, Roger Milla, Valderama, Schillaci and Baggio, the style, the tackling, the songs............its easy to look back in anger but it was a world cup that people will remember.... José Mourinho soon put a stop to that tiki taki

as I wrote:
"Ireland at Italia 90 was an absolute snoozefest."