Quotereid kavanagh..its our best hope
I dont think we can qualify with a midfield with O'Shea or Kilbane but do we have any other options?Is McPhail worth a chance?Apart from Gibson(Man utd) and Garvan(Ipswich) who are both too young we dont seem to have anybody coming through.
reid kavanagh..its our best hope
The guy who said that Staunton should have had the balls to start McGeady on the right from the start is spot on. Steven Reid is one of the best central midfielders in the Premiership, yet we elect to put him on the right hand side in favour of an over the hill Everton reject in Kilbane and a downright embarassment for a football player in natural left back John O'Shea. Unreal. Liam Miller, Stephen Ireland, Graham Kavanaugh and Andy Reid were all better options in my opinion than either Kilbane or O'Shea.
I don't think we're going to get an ideal balance in centre midfield for a while because we are so short there. But I do think Steven Reid is a better option than either Kilbane or O'Shea. I think that Duff might be better in the centre as well because then he'd be more involved - Alan O'Brien could take his place on the left wing.
The more I think about it, the more McPhail appears to be an option.He plays in a division where you don't have a lot of time on the ball, and yet his decision making and distribution is superb.He is a changed man.
either a. reid or s. ireland should play centrally v. cyprus.
zombie/thread killer..
Steven Reid should be a dead cert to start there. He plays central midfield week in week out. Play your best players in their best positions. We're not spoiled for central midfielders at the moment, so to play our best one on the wing is criminally stupid.
As for who should partner him? I'd say Stephen Ireland or Graham Kavanagh. We can argue about that, but surely everybody agrees that Steven Reid should be in the centre.
Stephen Reid was useless on the right of midfield. Never seen him excel for Ireland even in the centre but people keep saying he great at club level.
I personally thought he was as bad as Kavanagh against Holland. He does seem to be a great all round player though and just needs a decent holding midfielder in beside him.Originally Posted by pete
i thought reid was good last night when he was finally moved into the centre of midfield
100% agree with Pete. Reid was also very poor when captain against Holland before the injury. I don't watch the Premiership, so I don't know if he is outstanding when playing for Blackburn, but for me, he certainly hasn't done it for Ireland in quite a while - and when he has it was as a winger.
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I feel that due to the lack of holding midfield players that Stephen Reid should be used in this role. Kilbane, O'Shea and Kavanagh have all failed to impress in this role. We have more creative midfielders than defensive midfielders so moving Reid into a more defensive position shouldn't be a problem. Stephen Ireland, Andy Reid, Stephen McPhail are all players I believe would do a good job in that role. I also think it would be worth trying in centre midfield in some capacity( I think he would be classified as DCM).
McGeady and Duff should be the two wingers. Kilbane never impressed me and I have always thought that he was rubbish. All Alan O'Brien has done has gone on one run vs Holland. He hasn't done anything to prove that he will be an option in the future. In fact I thought that the run he went on against Holland proved that he is not ready for international football as he showed lack of awareness as there was two better options to either side of him.
i have honestly not seen much of mcgeady, but a lad i know who watches celtic week in and out swears by him. when i heard he was in the running for the team, i checked out some vids on youtube. granted highlight vids hardly tell the story, but based on what i'd seen i was well looking forward to seeing him in action. staunton fooked that up. cant comment on o'brien - never seen the kid in action. i think mcphail, andy reid, and stephen ireland are "birds of a feather" and any one of them would add a liam brady type creativity to the team - someone that can play a killer ball - fook it even to play the simple ball and keep posession would do at this stage. would love to see one of them paired with either kavanagh or stephen reid in the middle against the cypriots. being an exile (tampa, fl) it was dieheartening to see all those brilliant fans let down by a bunch of prima donna's. oshea needs to start producing - enough ****e about what he could/should add - he's a man utd player for long enough to know how to win a header (in either box!0 and hold and pass a ball. alex fergusone should sue royal antwerp for negligence for schooling him!!!. shay given, dunne, doyle were at least reasonably proud to wear the shirt. real pride is not a hug for all the players for the camera's before the match, kicking a water bottle on the sideline, or a grimace of determination when the camera's are on. real pride is putting your nut on the ball in the box, stepping up and burying the fookin ball in the back of the net like kevin moran used to - and o'shea has 4 inches on moran at set pieces! - moran would gobble him up. give mcgeady a run - 2/3 games, then lets judge him on that , (there's a lad over here that excels or dallas every week- Ronnie o'brien and he's beter than kilbane by a texas mile. give us some hope for the future. give the young lads a shot in the next 2 years and figure out a plan for some long term hope to see a major championships in the next 4-6 years. it is a sad thought when you have players talking about 'having to get something" out of the next game when its Cyprus away!! how times have changed. we need to do cyprus 2, 3 nil, and based on last night, Its hard to see us creating much for keane and doyle (or whoever) with a midfield of kilbane and o'shea!
Mc Geady on the right, take some pressure off Duff on the left, who for the last 4 years has been relied upon to create everything. Stephen Reid as the holding midfielder and andy reid pulling the strings, o'sh@@ and Kilbane should never play for ireland again
A midfield of
Duff, Ireland, S.Reid and McGeady
My only concern is that the 2 centre backs could do with a ball winner in front of them neither Reid or Ireland are really that type of player, in theory O'Shea should be but in Practice I'd rather see Pierce O'Leary come out of retirement than see O'Shea in an Irish midfield again.
Maybe my opinion on O'Shea's performance is based on how he started the game rather than how he finished it but I think he did well. Kilbane's distribution was far worse than O'Shea's. I thought O'Shea did the bread & butter stuff well for the first half and found his team mates with simple passes and helped contain their midfield.
My preferred choice of central midfield is S. Reid and A. Reid, or maybe Miller. It's a bit speculative but we can't go on with Kilbane playing CM.
No other game will be as tough as Germany away and I'd like to see a proper user of the ball in there in future.
The last time I can remember one of our front two actually being played in by a pass from the centre was Morrison running onto a Keane pass early in Paris.
I can understand Staunton wanting size & strength in the middle but for the remaining games I want to see him trust our creative players and hope that what they offer in an attacking sense outweighs any perceived negatives defensively. I still think we've every chance of 6 points by mid-October which'll be fine by me.
In my opinion what we lack is a real creative midfielder in the centre. You can sense Keanes frustrations at times and can understand why he feels the need to drop back into that 'pocket' and pick the ball up.
OShea, Kilbane , Reid etc are all solid enough and get the work done but there is no one who will run at the defence and commit some of the opposition. The few bright moments of our attack was when someone took the ball forward and ran at the germans forcing them onto the back foot. We picked up numerous freekicks in dangerous areas where they deliberately pulled down our players because they couldnt cope with it. Frings must have fouled four or five times without a card.
What I would like to see is someone else in the middle who can create. Is RK the answer ? In the last few months he has been playing in this kind of role for Spurs with great effect. Should we go 4-5-1 and give him a free role in the centre ?
Something else that has disappointed me is our lack of skills in the dead ball areas. We used to be good at this and one of our strengths was the height and power we had from free kicks. I counted at least 10 times where we had either a corner or free from wide positions and with the exception of Dunnes last minute header over the bar , I could not remember us making anything of them.
Alan O'Brien can't even get onto the pitch at Newcastle. He shoudln't even be in the squad.
JOS definitely needs to go. He again was seen to be solely lacking on saturday and was by far Ireland's worst player. How many chances is he going to get? If we replace him with Andy Reid, Joey O'Brien or Stephen Ireland (if he starts to get his game more regularly at City) then I think we'd see a dramatic improvement immeditately. I'd probably try McGeady on the wings with Duff also (or Andy Reid if he doesn't play in CM).
O'Shea would not be in my starting XI. But I can't say he was the worst on Saturday. I thought Kilbane was the one who stood out as being a square peg in a round hole despite, as usual, putting in a good honest shift.
I really do think though that our best midfield for the next 2 games will contain two out of A. Reid, Miller and McGeady. I wouldn't be unhappy with A. Reid RHM with Miller centrally.
We simply can not continue having no proper ball user in central midfield.
What needs to be done is MIDFIELDERS PLAYING IN THEIR POSITIONS!!! MIDFIELD FOR FLUCK SAKE!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS TO WORK THAT OUT!!!! But then again Stauton is a CLOWN (Dunphy Quote) And i tend to agree with him!!!
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