Portugal V Republic of Ireland - Wednesday, 1st Sep 2021 - 2022 World Cup Qualifier

[DeLorean]

We were quite streetwise last night overall. It's a long time since a home crowd have felt the need to boo us, other than our own!

[weldoninhio]

I appreciate your sympathy. The Hungary and Portugal performances show progress imho. We certainly showed nothing like them in O'Neill's last year in charge.

O'Neill got us a draw away in Poland and home and away vs Denmark in his last year and beat the USA. Kenny hasn't gotten anywhere near a result like that. Take off the LOI tinted glasses. Kenny is massively out of his depth. Our next match is make or break as to if we finish bottom or second bottom in the group. Progress!!!

[weldoninhio]

Ronaldo pushed O'Shea's shoulder. O'Shea clutched his head and looked as though he was about to fall to the ground. If an opposition player did that, we'd be outraged at the cheating and gamesmanship.

If it had gone to VAR, it is likely that both would have gotten a yellow, and then O'Shea's lunge where he did himself would have been his second and we're down to ten for an hour or so.

[Stuttgart88]

O'Neill got us a draw away in Poland and home and away vs Denmark in his last year and beat the USA. Kenny hasn't gotten anywhere near a result like that. Take off the LOI tinted glasses. Kenny is massively out of his depth. Our next match is make or break as to if we finish bottom or second bottom in the group. Progress!!!

In all honesty, I'm not looking at it through LOI tinted glasses. But I'm generally inclined to give a guy some credit for what I think is a project that might just belatedly be taking shape. I said that I appreciated a lot of what we did last night and SK deserves credit for it. That's all really. For balance I thought Lux was a sh1tshow and I'm not forgetting that. Serbia was good in parts.

By all objective standards O'Neill's last year in charge was just awful. I hated every minute of it. Poland away had some merit I agree, but so too did Slovakia and Finland away under Kenny for example.

[jbyrne]

If it had gone to VAR, it is likely that both would have gotten a yellow, and then O'Shea's lunge where he did himself would have been his second and we're down to ten for an hour or so.

or more likely he wouldn't have made that later lunge knowing he was on a yellow. not even sure the "lunge" was a yellow. reply showed a touch of the ball first imo

[weldoninhio]

In all honesty, I'm not looking at it through LOI tinted glasses. But I'm generally inclined to give a guy some credit for what I think is a project that might just belatedly be taking shape. I said that I appreciated a lot of what we did last night and SK deserves credit for it. That's all really. For balance I thought Lux was a sh1tshow and I'm not forgetting that. Serbia was good in parts.

By all objective standards O'Neill's last year in charge was just awful. I hated every minute of it. Poland away had some merit I agree, but so too did Slovakia and Finland away under Kenny for example.

Slovakia and Finland are a level or two below Denmark and Poland

[paul_oshea]

One of the main positives for me that I meant to add earlier was clear improvement in Idahs strength and hold up play, he addressed it before as an area they'd focused on at club level and in preseason and it was evident there last night. Hopefully he can identify the other areas and work on them too.

[John83]

whoscored do heatmaps for internationals - https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/15...rtugal-Ireland

Great resource. For the sake of conversation, here's a comparison of the various full/wing backs last night:


Noticeable how much more involved in the game Doherty was than Coleman.

[John83]

The three centre halves. (O'Shea excluded)

Dias's is similar to Duffy's, except it has a peninsula into midfield where he got on the ball more, which is a function of Portugal being on the front foot, but also shows the value of an elite ball-playing centre half. Pepe's is much quieter - more like Omobamidele's than Duffy or Egan.

[John83]

Here's our three midfielders.


Hendrick was all over the pitch, with Cullen on his left and McGrath covering much less ground than either and staying relatively strictly on the right.

[John83]

Here's the various strikers.

Interesting how confined Rafa's role was. Jotta put in a huge shift, too.

[Stuttgart88]

Slovakia and Finland are a level or two below Denmark and Poland

The Poland XI wasn't their first choice XI so the comparison is fair. We were dogged but utter rubbish with the ball against Denmark in the NL.

[DeLorean]

Slovakia and Finland are a level or two below Denmark and Poland

While I agree, interesting that Slovakia beat Poland and Finland beat Denmark as recently as the Euros.

Anyway, pointless comparing that pretty much nothing Poland friendly to a Euro playoff in Slovakia.

Last night was good, only an idiot could see it as anything other than a step in the right direction tbh.

Now, remains to be seen if we can keep moving in that direction.

[Supreme feet]

In those last games under O'Neill, the players looked fearful, timid, hesitant, and confused as to their roles and gameplan. Extremely passive. Worse than when things were going off the rails under Kerr in '05 and Trap in '13.

Last night, despite being on this horrible run, the players looked encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go. The young lads repaid the faith and stood up manfully. Cullen showed why Kenny has persisted with him despite some iffy performances in the NL. McGrath was a brave call that paid off. We could have picked a more experienced CB like Lenihan to sit on the bench, and left Omobamidele off to play for the U21s - instead, we saw a 19-year-old step up and make a name for himself, possibly showing his club manager that he's ready for the Premier League. We played some good football under intense pressure. Credit where it's due.

We've been mostly poor under Kenny so far, but that's what happens when you've had five years of players retiring, stagnating and declining, and literally no-one in the now-24-28 age-group coming through to replace them. We've had to throw in young players to sink or swim, and there was always going to be a difficult transitional period.

Kenny will get more goodwill - and deservedly so - if we get two good performances and results in the next week, and more again if he keeps picking the young lads and moves away from the likes of Collins, Hendrick and McClean.

[brine3]

O'Neill got us a draw away in Poland and home and away vs Denmark in his last year and beat the USA. Kenny hasn't gotten anywhere near a result like that. Take off the LOI tinted glasses. Kenny is massively out of his depth. Our next match is make or break as to if we finish bottom or second bottom in the group. Progress!!!

Oh yeah O'Neill did a great job against Denmark

[Kingdom]

In those last games under O'Neill, the players looked fearful, timid, hesitant, and confused as to their roles and gameplan. Extremely passive. Worse than when things were going off the rails under Kerr in '05 and Trap in '13.

Last night, despite being on this horrible run, the players looked encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go. The young lads repaid the faith and stood up manfully. Cullen showed why Kenny has persisted with him despite some iffy performances in the NL. McGrath was a brave call that paid off. We could have picked a more experienced CB like Lenihan to sit on the bench, and left Omobamidele off to play for the U21s - instead, we saw a 19-year-old step up and make a name for himself, possibly showing his club manager that he's ready for the Premier League. We played some good football under intense pressure. Credit where it's due.

We've been mostly poor under Kenny so far, but that's what happens when you've had five years of players retiring, stagnating and declining, and literally no-one in the now-24-28 age-group coming through to replace them. We've had to throw in young players to sink or swim, and there was always going to be a difficult transitional period.

Kenny will get more goodwill - and deservedly so - if we get two good performances and results in the next week, and more again if he keeps picking the young lads and moves away from the likes of Collins, Hendrick and McClean.

Testify, brother Supreme Feet!

[paul_oshea]

The three centre halves. (O'Shea excluded)

Dias's is similar to Duffy's, except it has a peninsula into midfield where he got on the ball more, which is a function of Portugal being on the front foot, but also shows the value of an elite ball-playing centre half. Pepe's is much quieter - more like Omobamidele's than Duffy or Egan.

Where exactly is this data coming from? Are they wearing GPS throughout the game and that data is freely available to 3rd parties?

[weldoninhio]

In those last games under O'Neill, the players looked fearful, timid, hesitant, and confused as to their roles and gameplan. Extremely passive. Worse than when things were going off the rails under Kerr in '05 and Trap in '13.

Last night, despite being on this horrible run, the players looked encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go. The young lads repaid the faith and stood up manfully. Cullen showed why Kenny has persisted with him despite some iffy performances in the NL. McGrath was a brave call that paid off. We could have picked a more experienced CB like Lenihan to sit on the bench, and left Omobamidele off to play for the U21s - instead, we saw a 19-year-old step up and make a name for himself, possibly showing his club manager that he's ready for the Premier League. We played some good football under intense pressure. Credit where it's due.

We've been mostly poor under Kenny so far, but that's what happens when you've had five years of players retiring, stagnating and declining, and literally no-one in the now-24-28 age-group coming through to replace them. We've had to throw in young players to sink or swim, and there was always going to be a difficult transitional period.

Kenny will get more goodwill - and deservedly so - if we get two good performances and results in the next week, and more again if he keeps picking the young lads and moves away from the likes of Collins, Hendrick and McClean.

And yet under O'Neill in those last games we got 2 points from Denmark. Under Kenny we've 0 points. Is there an "encouraged, brave, spirited, organised and willing to have a go" table that might qualify us for anything?

[Kingdom]

The three centre halves. (O'Shea excluded)

Dias's is similar to Duffy's, except it has a peninsula into midfield where he got on the ball more, which is a function of Portugal being on the front foot, but also shows the value of an elite ball-playing centre half. Pepe's is much quieter - more like Omobamidele's than Duffy or Egan.

John, thanks for bringing this up, because I feel like I'm a broken record on it.

It was the first thing I examined when tets provided the link. We are well accustomed to backs-against-the-walls performances, we do it quite well, even if it rarely produces victories.
It's probably the biggest gripe i have with Shane Duffy playing for us. He's too willing to get sucked into that mindset. I'd point to some of the times particularly in that final 20 mins, where some of his choices were unusual (albeit effective), and maybe just shows that he's not such a composed defender despite being very resolute. I think of one clear incident were he dived to head the ball no more than two foot off the ground, missed the header and the ball hit him on the shoulder, before he narrowly avoided landing on it, and a sure-fire penalty. That bit of composure is a big difference between where are we are, and where we could be.

Not a requirement for an elite ball-playing centre half, but an ordinary one.

[Kingdom]

Where exactly is this data coming from? Are they wearing GPS throughout the game and that data is freely available to 3rd parties?

they have those water-weight ducks in the stand, pressing down on clickers.