Brian Maher - hadn't a whole lot to do. His restarts are very good. He was solid under the high ball, but at the same time, didn't look convincing either. couple of times he really was stretching to get the ball under control. Very vocal throughout. No chance with the penalty and didn't really look convinced he was going to save it either.
Lee OConnor - thought he was excellent throughout. He made a couple of really sloppy passes at bad times but they were clear lapses of concentration. Was an outlet for a lot of what we did well. I can’t for the life of me understand why he isn’t playing higher up. He’ll be a senior squad regular by the end of this campaign. I couldn’t tell if it was him or McEntee that jumped in to give away the penalty. It was hard to see if it was a penalty, but it was definitely a rash challenge and stupid whoever it was. The one thing that would make me question is whether the player went to ground before any challenge was made.
Second caveat is that I’m pretty sure O’Connor started the move that lead to penalty surged forward with the ball into space aggressively.
On the other side, Bagan was unremarkable. Didn’t do anything and nothing happened down his side. Lost possession a couple of times, but in the main just recycled the ball sufficiently. Can't really recall him offering much support to Ferry in attack either. Wouldn't be inclined to be pushing him for the senior team just yet.
Of the two centre-halves, there's a lot of meh there to be honest. I simply don't rate Oisin McEntee. He's not bad, but I just don't think he's going to be at the level required - but that said he was good against Bosnia, but this was flatter I though. Pretty sure he gave away the penalty. O'Brien isn't aggressive enough for the size of him. he is very composed on the ball - sometimes it looks like he's mawdling a bit to be honest, but how much of that is down to his languid long stride I don't know. Highly rated at Palace, I dunno, he looked a bit vulnerable at times yesterday.
Ferry was disappointing in the most part. Frustrated a lot of the time, he finally came into it only to be substituted and had a really good 2/3 mins just before being hooked. Wasn’t happy about it either. To me, he looks like he’s reached his ceiling. He didn’t play well at lb the other night and he only had a small burst yday at Lw.
Overall, some really good link up between Coventry and Kilkenny, they are both very comfortable on the ball. I actually thought Coventry was the better of the two overall - he was certainly better when Luxembourg had the ball, and I'd say his passing was more decisive, and crisper on a poor pitch, whereas Kilkenny was better in the close exchanges. He danced his way through 3 Lux players in a very tight spot early in the second half (I think), but having made the space for himself brilliantly, the pass went back to McEntee rather than wide to Wright where we'd an overload on. You can see how his winger/dribbling skills help him in tight situations. Coventry is an excellent communicator. Always available and always talking to those around him - it was impressive to hear, absolutely captain material.
Wright was our main threat again, but his penalty was poor. He has a running battle with their wingback and centre half on his side. he's a fully fledged beast now, and he looked pretty ****ed off at the treatment he was receiving, not protected from, and penalised when he showed any attempt to give it back. But until the substitutions, he was central to any threat that we had. He'll get close to our senior squad at some point I think.
Took too long for Devoy to get into the game, but when he did he was good, looking to move forward and receive forward rather than the lateral and wide passes of the first half. Thought he looked a little leggy to be honest, whether it was tiredness, the heat, or something else. I’d nearly say he didn’t look as athletic compared to Gav & Conor, and he doesn’t have that sudden acceleration they have with the ball, but is better in close control than either of the other two. I would say that the same failings in the senior team midfield over the past few years were evident yday with the 21s, there isn't enough short, incisive forward passes, and few enough occasions when a player would advance slightly looking for it. Having two sitting and one slightly advanced (how it looked to me) probably doesn't help, the reverse would have been a better option in the circumstances. That said, Lux were narrow, and happy for us to go wide it seemed, until the substitutions...
Sad to say but the overwhelmingly most disappointing performance was Evan Ferguson. It was not a good performance, it was bad. The hall didn’t come to him, but he didn’t show for it either, in fact I was quite surprised by how little he moved. He looks to me like a guy who needs to be allowed to move more freely, and the rigidity of Cf doesn’t suit him. That being said, we were absolutely ****e at getting the ball to him and ensuring he was involved, Fand midfielf let him down in that regard, but he didn’t help himself either. Honestly, it looked a little too soon. But there’s a caveat to that below in his defence. He looked upset afterwards and was not in the changing room with the majority of others, but over the side of the pitch with his Da and someone else.
There was a such a difference when Whelan and Moran came on that it was remarkable. The most worrying thing for me, was our rigidity to the 433. Ferguson had two spare men around him all the time, and as mentioned was adrift. We should have put someone up alongside him, or tweaked our formation slightly. Even when we made the substitutions, it wasn’t a huge change to the system, Whelan went up top but a little withdrawn, and Moran went left but drifting inside a touch. And it worked almost instantly. It gave space to attack into, and Wright became more prominent, with OConnor exploiting the space behind him as an option. The two channels between the the Wing-backs, and the two channels between the wide cb and stopper all saw action. The goal came from such a move.
Colm Whelan is a funny one. He looks chubby, has a massive ar$e (I say that with pride as holder of a massive ar$e even when I was skinny and I mean massive in the context of how a young wan from Crumlin would say it) and the total opposite to Kayode (who didn’t make it off the bench). But this lad is a bit of craic. His movement immediately was an improvement, and the touch, shift of body and precision of his shot for the goal was a thing to behold. It really was. Even in the last minute he collected a clearance in the centre circle and just ran at the three cbs. He had Wright chasing frantically to try and support, and my initial reaction was that he’d lose the ball attempting to do what he was doing , and we’d be hit on the counter, but he beat one, beat two, and was just at the box before being taken from behind. If anything I thought he could have shot when he turned the second defender, as he’d a few yards and spade to swing the leg.
Noß and Johansson both came on, for Devoy and Coventry respectively. I thought it was a poor decision to take off Coventry, rather than Kilkenny, but it might have been fitness. As it happened they scored immediately afterwards.
Johansson, not a lot to say. He moved the ball well, but I was surprised by the lack of urgency in his play when they equalised, and he didn’t move around the pitch as effortlessly as I’d have hoped for. He almost stole it at the end, a small toe poke after a scrambled corner just went the wrong side of the post. D have two concerns. The first is that he has the air of a fella who looks like it’s just going to happen for him - like it’s predetermined or something (little qualifier below). The second is that I thought for a brief cameo, he took himself into some stupid positions, and by the time play had moved on it took too long for him to realise. Thinking about it after the game, I sort of understand why he may have moved so many times already, and why he’s not later for Sittard yet.
Noß’ movement (again in his cameo) is superb. He has a spark about him, and he will be interesting to watch in the next two years. He’s a tough boyo too - he took one disgusting tackle that had me concerned. But he was up again after a moment and right back involved.
It was great to be able to hear the interaction between the referees team and the players. The ref rode us every opportunity he could. He had perfect English, as had the linesman on our side, and they were constantly bullying the Irish players - sounds ridiculous but that's what they were doing. I saw a reference elsewhere to cyncial Irish fouls - trust me on this, the cynicism was from the Luxembourgish. Coventry, Kilkenny and Noss all had potential leg-breakers done on them. To compound this was the fact that two of them were given as Luxembourg freekicks! There was a lot of off-the-ball fouling and dragging being done to the Irish players.
Finally, this is the first time I’ve looked at an underage teams setup and thought, nah, this uniform formation has its drawbacks. We should have won that game - they were poor, they were absolutely filthy, and they had the conning the ref to a tee. They also are a tee of European immigrants from what I could see, gone are the days of the Luxembourgish exclusively being the first 11.
Think that’s about it, apart from the Toyota hybrid CH-V being a stinking noisy hunk of ****. 😅
Originally Posted by CSAD
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