QuoteAny updates on his injury, by the way?
Whatever about Green coming on against Spain (and that is the manager's discretion to make such a decision in light of prior commitment demonstrated by Green), Gibson wasn't even a dead cert to make our Euros squad in the first place. What about Stephen Kelly and David Forde? Should they just pack it in as well or would they be less entitled to have such a high opinions of themselves?Originally Posted by Colbert Report
I'm not angry at Gibson or demanding that he shows up for us; he can do whatever he wants. I just think he's a petulant fool who's made a staggering error of judgment, although that's assuming his international future means anything to him...
Is it more prevalent though? What players are you referring to specifically? There's no lack of interest of epidemic proportions, or is there? And I'd imagine things are no worse than in past times. Plenty of players have pulled out of friendlies for us due to slight (to be undoubting) injuries over the years. Suspect commitment to international friendly fixtures and the like is nothing new.
They did mind. The IFA were busting Sepp Blatter's balls about Gibson a few years ago. The NI faithful even dedicated a lengthy chant to Gibson at a game in which he wasn't even featuring last year!:
Any updates on his injury, by the way?
Trap warns Gibson that others are queueing up to take his squad place for good: http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/inter...tional-future/
Peculiar reasoning if that's genuinely the only reason Trap didn't give Gibson game-time against Italy. I'd imagine Gibson's main issue was with Trap favouring Green from the bench against Spain, however. I'd have been more interested in Trap outlining the reasoning behind that decision. At least he and Gibson conversed over the phone, mind!Giovanni Trapattoni has warned Darron Gibson that there are plenty of other midfielders queuing up to take his place in the Republic of Ireland squad should the Everton player decide to prolong his international exile.
The Republic begin their World Cup qualifying campaign on Friday when they visit Kazakhstan.
But they will be without Gibson, who has made himself unavailable for the game, and for the friendly against Oman four days later.
Shorn of Keith Andrews through suspension and injury victim Paul Green, Trapattoni was thinking about slotting Gibson in to his midfield, but the 24-year-old refused a call-up as he is still suffering from the disappointment of Euro 2012.
Gibson put in a series of fine displays since moving to Everton in January, but he was left disillusioned with Trapattoni and the Republic set-up when he did not make it off the bench during the dismal Euro 2012 campaign.
Trapattoni said he respected Gibson's decision, but also insisted that the Republic would cope without him.
"In the past we were frightened about missing players, but now we already have a squad," Trapattoni said.
"He can think about it or we go with other players. We have David Meyler, Marc Wilson, then there is Glenn Whelan, James McCarthy. All can play (in midfield), and coming back we also have (Keith) Andrews. When we come here, if there are players who are not coming, we build the other team.
"We have been watching also new players, maybe we will discover a new Irish player. He has to decide whether he wants to play or not."
...
The midfielder, who was born in Northern Ireland but opted to play for the Republic, told Trapattoni he would not like to be considered for the upcoming international fixtures during a telephone conversation on Friday.
"I spoke with Gibson for a long time," Trapattoni said. "He explained to me that he was disappointed. I understood but I said to him that we were all disappointed after the defeats in the Euro campaign, but I said that this is a time for a new opportunity (for the Republic)."
Trapattoni defended his decision to overlook Gibson for the entire Euro 2012 campaign, claiming that he could have played the midfielder against Italy in the final group game but did not want to make it look as if he was making changes to favour his home nation.
"It was impossible to change," the 73-year-old said. "With 20 minutes to go in our match Italy could have gone out and Croatia could qualify. If we changed it and we lost it would have looked like I favoured Italy."
Also, Trap clearly sees Wilson as being able to fulfil a midfield role if needed.
FFS. Instead of giving players like Westwood, Gibson and McCarthy competitive playing time against Italy Trap worried about how any changes would be viewed. Incredible stuff. I'd love to hear Jack Charlton's and Mick McCarthy's views on these comments. No wonder Gibson is calling a halt to this nonsense.
It's very poor reasoning.
Indeed. Essentially, Trap placed a concern for his own reputation above a team selection decision. Does this justify Gibson's sense of aggrievement? I think perhaps. Although, opting out of World Cup qualifiers still isn't the mature way to deal with it.
I suspect Trap just didn't trust him and is using this as an excuse. In which case I think Trap's judgement is flawed.
Gibson should have had some game time in Poland. He didn't. He should get over it and realise he's got a hugely privileged life and try to prove Trap wrong.
We were eliminated prior to the Italy game, it was a glorified friendly and irrelevant who he played. Nobody was entitled to play in it as some sort of appeasement for not being involved in the actual important part of the competition. Same with coming off the bench against Spain, our campaign was over at that stage too. The only significant selections were the starters for Croatia and Spain which bar Cox was identical to the squad that qualified. People need to stop getting hung about who played in the trivial parts of that campaign, playing anyone at that stage was an empty, trivial gesture that doesn't deserve any stock to be placed in.
We played 135 minutes of meaningful time in the Euros. v Croatia and the first half against Spain. You can spot the joker fans a mile off who believe our problems were in the irrelevant 135 minutes we played in the second half.
Irrelevant to what? Every minute of every game is important.
Exactly. Italy had still to get to the knockout stages and it was an ideal match to play the likes of Westwood, Gibson and McCarthy in a competitve game against a serious side with something at stake.
Certainly. And then there's the other argument to field your strongest side available in order to achieve a result to benefit our ranking. Not necessarily saying that one or the other is correct, but no match is ever irrelevant. However, letting a fear of how a team selection decision might be interpreted by the rest of Europe influence the making of such a decision isn't justifiable. Maybe I'm overplaying Trap's comment and such a fear didn't really colour his thinking. He could well have been using it as a convenient excuse to appease those siding with Gibson.
I don't think it had anything to do about ranking points.
I forgot about that Trap reason for playing the/his first team against Italy. It makes obvious sense. He did mention it before the game, so it wasn't a post-game excuse of convenience. Though changing one player for Gibson would hardly have fired up the masonic conspiracies.
Anyway, that's a side issue. It isn't a valid reason for Gibson to put a pause on his international duty.
Which reason are you referring to specifically?
the song refers to hating gibson and in a match we were involved in they had a banner proclaiming to the fai to hands off their players but to keep gibson!
I saw that banner and it was clearly tongue-in-cheek. To claim they'd otherwise be uninterested in Gibson were it not for his decision to play for us simply doesn't add up. Gibson was the first player from the north to play for us with whom the IFA took serious issue. They evidently cared quite a bit as his switch to us was used to help launch the IFA's issues with the eligibility of northern-born Irish nationals to play for us into the public spotlight before they eventually used Shane Duffy as another media scapegoat and took Kearns to CAS: http://www.irishexaminer.com/archive...uad-41159.html
The level of vitriol directed towards Gibson by certain NI fans would suggest they feel some sense of entitlement with regard to dictating for whom he should play and bear him ill-will for not choosing to play for them. They dub him "turncoat", "defector", "traitor" and so forth. If they didn't mind him switching, they'd have simply ignored him and gotten on with their own business.
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 02/09/2012 at 10:55 PM.
If that's the only issue you take with my post, I'll cede it to you!
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
Gibson has turn his back on Ireland and if i was manager, he would never play for me again. You cant have that in your set-up, its a shame cause he is playing well but he is acting like a spoilt child!
When all the emotion over Gibson's rash decision has settled down, the question needs to be asked would the Irish squad be stronger with him and even Stephen Ireland? For me the answer is yes, and Trap's reasoning as mentioned above plus Long's supposed 'injury' suggest me that he is not really communicating effectively with the players.
A really good manager will recognise when a really good player is acting like a child and accommodate them in a positive way. I think Trap is doing that with Gibson. He could exclude him completely and alienate him for good, but he has made all the right noises so far to keep him in the fold.
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