Ignore them. Last, last warning.
Few bits.
1) McClean is still 34, no matter how many times you say he's 35 (after being corrected).
2) Here's a clip of McClean playing against a L1 team a few weeks ago. I watched it to see Luke McNicholas who makes a great save at the start of the video. McClean came on after 60 mins. He can be seen in the last 4 clips (starting at 0.50). Still honestly think he's at League 2 level? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M99GDfmBhw
3) You obviously think Sean Roughan deserves his place in the squad. What I can tell you from watching a lot of him and a lot of the 21s is that Roughan would be out of his depth at senior level. Curtis might even do a better job stepping right into that team. Lawal, McNulty, Hodge, Armstrong - those are the lads who are closest to being ready and none of them are knocking on the door. All of Keeley, Curtis, Roughan, O'Riordan, Healy, Adeeko, Gilsenan, O'Neill, Okoflex - they're years from making the step... Putting them there now, in Roughan's case, costing us goals, it'd be really detrimental to his development. He'd get two caps, he'd look a disaster, way off the level and he'd be back with the 21s with his confidence crushed...
My 2 cents on this, for whats its worth is, that McClean has been a great servant to us, but he was also blessed to have gotten 100 caps. Had this conversation with another poster outside of here last week about him, he was right in saying to me that in other eras McClean may not have gotten 5 Caps. Steven Finnan only has 53 caps, and I dont think theres any comparison between the 2 of them.
I dont particularly understand the need for a celebration of his career against NZ. He got his 100th cap only a few games ago and there was a lot of celebration around that, it would have been different if he hadnt played for us in a couple of years. Right now for me its still a little bit too raw that he was at fault for the Dutch goal in Dublin for me to celebrate him again. He got his 100th cap, took a payday to move to L2 and that should have been the end... but when its the most pointless game in living memory I suppose they have to create some sort of narrative around it for marketing purposes.
In regards to who his best replacement is, I dont know. We have a big problem in that position and we have to hope that someone emerges between now and next September when our next competitive game is.
Its really not that complicated!!!
jayzus... having to wait til next Sept for a competitive game.
McClean deserves a moment in a meaningless game against meaningless opposition at the end of a long and somewhat meaningful international career.
Are testimonial games gone out the window for Irish international players? Most footballers make so much money now it seems silly, but even as a charity thing?
Also speaking of send offs it's interesting to see what Coleman will do between now and next September. If he'll announce his retirement and get a send off next March or June. He's older than McClean and McClean is probably our fitness player going.
If you're good enough to be in the squad and you're the best option for that particular role, you should be in the squad regardless of who you played a few games for. Who would/was he keeping out of the squad that would feel aggrieved? Simple as that really.
Tets, please move this to a more approriate thread if there is one. We've discussed play off chances before, but I can't remember where.
The play off semi-finals have been announced
Path A: Wales/Finland vs Poland/Estonia.
Path B: Bosnia-Herzegovina/Ukraine vs Israel/?Iceland.
Path C: Georgia/Luxembourg vs Greece/Kazakhstan.
We needed no more than 2 teams lower NL ranked than us to qualify directly. 4 did: Albania, Romania, Turkey and Slovakia.
I think Norway was next in line for a play off spot, then us.
I see Estonia got a Path A play off spot. They got a meagre 1 point in proper qualifying!
On that, if we'd done worse in Kenny's first NL campaign, say losing to Bulgaria. We'd have ended up in a nation's league C group with Gibraltar, Georgia and Macedonia. Win that and we're in a playoff with Luxembourg followed by Greece/Kazakhstan in March. It's the weird anomaly of the Nation's League, if you put us in any of League A, C or D - we're almost guaranteed to make the playoffs - whereas we're less than 50/50 to get a slot in League B
Also we would have inevitably ended up in an easier qualification group than we got...
Last edited by elatedscum; 24/11/2023 at 2:28 AM.
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