Serbia V Republic of Ireland - Wednesday, 24th March 2021 - World Cup 2022 Qualifier

[paul_oshea]

Cullen and Robinson were excellent, Doherty poor again and a predictably difficult night for Travers. The rest showed well I felt.

I think it was sutts who called for Collins and Cullen. And to be fair its two good calls, collins is our main goal threat at the minute - as sad and all as that may be. If Kenny could find a way to accommodate him in the side without losing any of the other positive, it would be massive(I'd be happy enough with him in place of connolly - he still doesn't judge the runs properly into the box for the pull back or ball across goal, Collins would).

[NeverFeltBetter]

It's good to see the support for Travers in various places today, more sympathy than criticism. He's just a step out of position for one goal and his defence let him down for the others. The idea that one of the other options would have stopped that lob are extremely speculative.

This talk of why wasn't Duffy in the side drives me mad. He's been so bad at club level recently.

[DeLorean]

It's good to see the support for Travers in various places today, more sympathy than criticism. He's just a step out of position for one goal and his defence let him down for the others. The idea that one of the other options would have stopped that lob are extremely speculative.

I agree, it was a mistake of course but the chances of "the brute" Mitrovic channeling his inner Eric Cantona were quite slim. Travers had a nervousness about him anyway but to be expected.

[Straightstory]

Connolly needs to score every game if he’s to get away with gloves and that stupid haircut

And a very, very ill-matching beard. He looks awful.

[backstothewall]

Theres a habit on this forum of exaggerating the potential of our players, and with equal measure the abillity of the opposition. Where is this thing with Mitrovic, hes being talked
about like hes a class A striker? How many goals did he have in a 3 year period at Newcastle 20? The second goal was a good finish no doubt but we all know Travers should not be
getting beaten from there. So lets keep perspective here. Tadic is a good player, but that Serbia team is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Last
night I didn't see anything to be worried about from them. They're very consistent in performing inconsistently.

Mitrovic is a smashing player. He arrived at Newcastle as a 20 year old, and only got 2 seasons before they benched him, and then eventually sent him out on loan to Fulham.

He's got 52 goals in 127 appearances for them. In truth he's far to good for Fulham. If they go down he'll almost certainly move on.

What Stephen Kenny wouldn't give for a striker with that sort of record.

[shakermaker1982]

How many other speculative shots did they have?

Tadic tried a cheeky corner that nearly caught him out.

[shakermaker1982]

Just spotted the Irish Times ratings:

Coleman and Cullen 6, Molumby 5. I must have been watching another game. I thought they all did well. I thought there was a big drop off when Molumby got subbed.

I'd start the same team again against Luxembourg (keeper - see how he has reacted mentally post game). If Connolly isn't 100% then Long gets the nod.

I'm a bit gutted we are out of contention already. We'll need to beat Serbia and probably require a win against Portugal.

[paul_oshea]

Mitrovic is a smashing player. He arrived at Newcastle as a 20 year old, and only got 2 seasons before they benched him, and then eventually sent him out on loan to Fulham.

He's got 52 goals in 127 appearances for them. In truth he's far to good for Fulham. If they go down he'll almost certainly move on.

What Stephen Kenny wouldn't give for a striker with that sort of record.

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

[John83]

I'm a bit gutted we are out of contention already. We'll need to beat Serbia and probably require a win against Portugal.

I don't think an away loss to the second seed is really the end of the world. Our odds have probably lengthened only very slightly. Put it this way, if we were second seeds and gave up a draw at home to third seeds, we'd be annoyed. We almost certainly do need a home win against Serbia to qualify, short of Portugal having an utter disaster campaign, but all that's changed is that a win or a draw away to Serbia would have made a home draw with them a decent result. I doubt we'll match their results elsewhere, so I don't think we'll qualify anyway, but there's a little more positivity after last night.

[Diggs246]

Theres a habit on this forum of exaggerating the potential of our players, and with equal measure the abillity of the opposition. Where is this thing with Mitrovic, hes being talked
about like hes a class A striker? How many goals did he have in a 3 year period at Newcastle 20? The second goal was a good finish no doubt but we all know Travers should not be
getting beaten from there. So lets keep perspective here. Tadic is a good player, but that Serbia team is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Last
night I didn't see anything to be worried about from them. They're very consistent in performing inconsistently.

I think the biggest positive is Kennys flexibility. He really has now proven that he is willing to change and try different things, but still keeping the same press, high(er) line
and trying to pass the ball when we get it. The funny thing is last night, we picked the players pretty much we all wanted, he made the big calls, he realised what he needed to do it and did it.
THe sad irony here is all day long Duffy is going to win headers for you, and he would definitely not have gotten beaten twice yesterday. Had he been in there then I think the result would have been
different, but we can't blame Kenny for that. My hope is that 3-5-2 with everyone available is given another go, and see how we get from there. I'm not buying the thing of not enough time before last
night, kenny has had enough games and time to breed familiarity with a couple of formations and systems.

I liked molumby getting stuck in, on another day he probably would have been booked for persistent fouling, even though he was out of his depth physically at least and losing the
individual duals, he was getting niggly and fouling and interrupting their play. That goes a long way especially when you can get away with it for so long, we definitely lost the bite
in midfield when he went off. We had no one to break up their play through a foul or just get in their face, and they found more space. But you can't put 2 goals down to 2 midfielder.

Another positive for me last night was that we actually seemed to have some set-pieces worked out before hand. Granted the crossing and corners were generally poor, terrible the second half, we
still showed that stuff had been worked on. Coleman was superb last night, in that role, and as a leader, he was making so many decisive tackles. Robinson was the little bit of class up front, we could have
had a second from him, he kept winning frees and relieving pressure for us too. For me the boat is beginging to sail and Connollys trying to jump onto it. That peno, he should have controlled the ball before that
and come on the outside he was straight through, hes quite frustrating at times.

I think our biggest problem is we have players who do good things, followed by bad things. Before our first goal both Doherthy and Browne had given the ball away twice, but for the goal he starts and finishes it
like in his first goal for Ireland. We need players who are consitently giving us 100% and aren't so insconsistent with in game performances. THe good is always negated by the bad. That surely should be down
to focus and composure and a little experience to get yourself out of a tricky situation when it arises. IF we could get that from all 11 players on the pitch I'd be very happy and you start to see huge improvement
overall in our game.

The reality is though we had few chances again, we were still well down in the possession, 40% seems high for me, but in the last 10 mins they had shifted down through the gears so we could have made
up quite a bit there. I also wouldn't read too much into the 2nd goal we got, theyd taken the foot off the gas by that stage. THe next 10 mins we had nothing to show, and for the same period before the goal.

I feel very sorry for Travers, he just looked so nervous - forde hasn't had much time or isn't much good : D You'd hope he can help in that department. In the short term he's not just going to bounce back.
He's going to be affected by this, he needs to play the next game, and even half of the qatar one - if we are serious about giving him a chance.

I'm happy after last night to go back to 4-3-3 , if(3-5-2) its based on the doherty experiment hasn't worked, perhaps when he gets his confidence back, but he is offering us nothing and thats effectively why we went 3-5-2. Not that I didn't like it, but its mainly to accommodate our best players, and Doherty certainly isnt one of those, and never has been for us.

Im with ifk101, overall only real positive was Kenny overall, his attitude and flexibilty. We have to now push on from here and actually start dominating games and scoring, like lux, like qatar etc.

How long did this take to write!

[DeLorean]

I'm not one for stats

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

That's all for now, your Honour.

[paul_oshea]

Ha, you know what i mean, things like possession, corners/shots etc. Goals are what matter at the end of the day.

As they say in Rugby, tries win matches.

[passinginterest]

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

To be fair though, I think we'd kill for a striker with a Kevin Doyle or Mitrovic record now. We don't have anything remotely close. It's a massive step up on what we have now, all we have now is some lower league journeymen and some promising youngsters.

[paul_oshea]

How long did this take to write!

Not long i can speed type quite quickly, a few minutes!

[paul_oshea]

To be fair though, I think we'd kill for a striker with a Kevin Doyle or Mitrovic record now. We don't have anything remotely close. It's a massive step up on what we have now, all we have now is some lower league journeymen and some promising youngsters.

James COllins, great lower league scoring record, just like Mitrovic

I take the point though, and I knew that would be the counter, I'm just saying lets try and be realistic a bit more, more often here. But ya, we'd definitely jump at either of those right now.

[CraftyToePoke]

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

And how does Jimmy Collins compare Paul ?
Take us through his Prem record there. Good man. Or Robinson, or Connolly or Long.

[DeLorean]

Goals are what matter at the end of the day.

They are, and he has 38 goals in 62 internationals. And he was a sub, along with a €60m Real Madrid striker. Of our starters, only three players had even scored an international goal, Ciaran Clark the cream of the crop with two.

[pineapple stu]

He also scored 2 in his first 19 internationals, so since then (allow a starting time for developing as a player, etc) it's 36 in 43, which is phenomenal.

He's struggled in the Premier League a bit, but is clinical at Championship level. Guess where most of our players come from these days?

[CraftyToePoke]

James COllins, great lower league scoring record,

No, no he hasn't. At all.

[backstothewall]

I had a look, hes scored 14 goals in 65 appearances for Newcastle in 3 seasons, 2 of those premier league.

Hes scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for Fulham, which looks good, but you'll see that in 60 appearances in the premier league hes scored 13 goals. That's a 4.6 goal ratio. There's nothing special about that record.

For comparison Kevin doyles premier league ratio was about 4.4. Hardly a smashing player either.

He's played exactly 100 Premier League games in his career, scoring 23 goals. He averages a goal ever 289 minutes.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/aleksa...s/1?saison=ges

Kevin Doyle played 164 premier league games, scoring 37 goals. He averaged a goal every 350 minutes.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/kevin-.../plus/1#gesamt

Robbie Keane played 349 premier league games, scored 125 goals. He averaged a goal every 196 minutes

https://www.transfermarkt.com/robbie.../plus/1#gesamt

Niall Quinn played 250 premier league games, scored 59 goals. He averaged a goal every 305 minutes (Quinner is helped by dropping off a load of old First Division games for Arsenal when he didn't get too many goals)

https://www.transfermarkt.com/niall-.../plus/1#gesamt

So the stats suggest he's better than Doyle, and is between the 2 top goalscorers in the history of our national team. Closer to Quinn admittedly.

I know these terms are very subjective, but I also thought Quinner was a smashing player.

James COllins, great lower league scoring record, just like Mitrovic

Championship level:

Mitrovic. 82 games, 42 goals. Average 145 minutes per goal. Same link as above.

Collins. 79 games, 21 goals. Average 297 minutes per goal

https://www.transfermarkt.com/james-.../plus/1#gesamt

It's not even close.