Such a Crawford sub. Dominating the second half and he takes off Emakhu for Adeeko and immediately we lose momentum. Can’t understand it…
I’d take off Healy and Moran now and bring on Vata and someone else, Kenny, Umeh or O’Mahony
It made absolutely no sense.Originally Posted by elatedscum
Its really not that complicated!!!
Don’t think that’s offside by the rules. Both Turkey players make an intentional attempt to play the ball.
Hodge is so good at this level. He really needs to start doing it at club level
Its really not that complicated!!!
Great goal - You’d love to have Phillips on the bench now to replace a knackered Healy.
Make a change Jim. Waste some time
Massive result. Need to finish the job on Tuesday
Great result. We were excellent in 2nd half, totally dominated until we scored and then we sat back a bit too much. Türkiye hit the post close to the end but we more than deserved that win
Its really not that complicated!!!
That's a great result. I'd have been happy with a draw over there before kickoff, it would have been a point Norway didn't get. Now we have three. Should get the win at home to Latvia now and that will put us in a really decent position ahead of the last two games.
Not sure what result would be best for us in the Norway v Italy game, best if Italy win and we just focus on second place?
It really was a very good performance. Superb control of the game for most of the second half. Substitute was a bit of a backward step but maybe justified seeing as the lead goal came after. Looked a bit shaky after the goal and Turkey were just throwing everything at them but felt like the result was deserved. Great chance to go and win the group now. Best performance I’ve seen from Abankwah in a good few games.
Crazy group, no? 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss - when really we threw away at least three points from winning both those games, 2-1 up against Norway with 20 left to lose 3-2 with the daft Emakhu sub. And a harsh penalty against them.
Then conceding a 96th minute equaliser against Italy when you’ve still got subs to make to kill time if you want to.
It’s hard to be critical of Jim when you win the game and he can rightly say they’re on course to be top after 8 games - but today could have been a carbon copy of the Italy game. They were knocking on the door once we scored and all through extra time and it seemed obvious to me, just take off Moran and bring on Umeh or Vata - will kill a minute and the fresh legs will provide relief, like when Moran ended up going to the corner flag, fresh legs win you a corner from that position. If you want to replace Healy with Adegboyega as well just to add an extra centre half to deal with all the long balls in those last few mins, then do it.
I really think that not having Phillips on the bench instead of Furlong or O’Neill or whoever was a real mistake. Healy and Hodge were tiring, especially Healy - and there were no midfielders on the bench. He also would have helped us recover the ball a bit better - we were just defending for our lives in those last 10 mins including injury time.
Thought the first half was poor. They were the better team, dominating possession with the number 10 dictating although we restricted them to shots from distance - equally did we even have a shot, bar maybe that Armstrong header? Defenders and keeper were all very good. But really we were just hoping that the physical attributes of Armstrong and Emakhu would get us something on the break.
Second half we were much better. Hodge in particular started to take control. We looked sure to score. Thought taking off Emakhu for a midfielder set us back for about 10 mins. In the end, the wing backs had to do a lot of heavy lifting in an attacking sense - the dodgy offside goal was Roughan driving past two players, and ultimately scoring and the goal was Curtis making a really good run to get into that space and Hodge finding him.
You could argue that’s validation of Crawford’s tactics and the 5 at the back. You could also argue, it’s not optimal that Curtis and Roughan who aren’t the most attacking of defenders end up having to be your attacking outlet.
Anyway… On to Tuesday! Not sure if doing Tallaght and Lansdowne is really feasible
I also thought Garcia Macnulty had an excellent game - he looked like he could read the game and very calm in possession.
Hopefully we see him push on and start challenging for the senior team in the next couple of hours. I'm biased towards a left footer CB. Eiran Cashin another but could honestly see him going his whole career without a senior a cap.
On of the few times I’ve watched an Irish team play out from the back and look genuinely comfortable every time. Credit to the defenders and the keeper on that. All three at the back had good moments, using the ball well and stepping into midfield at times. It was good to see.
Might be able to make both kickoffs on Tuesday if the traffic is light
I've been trying to do the maths on this and considering our H2H with Norway there's a strong argument that it suits us more for Italy to win. A draw is probably the worst result. Part of my logic is that we have two critical games in October and if Norway pick up points on Tuesday then it's all to play for. Needing a win away against Italy does not bode too well with out history of handling pressure badly.
If Italy lose to Norway and we beat Norway then Italy can't catch us in the final game. Which could and should be enough for one of the three automatic qualification spots as best runner up. That's without even playing Italy.
All we should be focusing on is winning our remaining home games and not worried about who can do us a favor.
It will be, but because Italy play Norway before we do there's inevitably going to be an interest in that game and whether the result suits us or not. An Italy win is probably best in terms of us coming top 2 and getting a playoff (or an outside chance of an auto Q for second place). If we're looking at winning the group a Norway win is probably better, but it seriously increases the risk that we end up in third. A draw is probably the worst possible result - keeps Norway in touch and Italy at arm's length.
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