QuoteHow exactly does one listen to a podcast? Is there a transcript anywhere? I'm not very good at that type of thing.
I have iTunes at home but not at my desk at work.
I hope they are one way chats and he is listening carefully!
for some reason I think we will do alrite next two games....expectation is at an all time low....might suit the players...
How exactly does one listen to a podcast? Is there a transcript anywhere? I'm not very good at that type of thing.
I have iTunes at home but not at my desk at work.
Yup. And when it all goes pear shaped he should be the one to carry the can. He's spent the last few years backstabbing and plotting against every CEO until he could finally land the prize for himself. There should be no hiding place for him.Originally Posted by Billsthoughts
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
It's just an mp3.
http://www.fai.ie/audio/fai_october_2006_1.mp3
More on the right here:
http://www.fai.ie/podcasts/
first things first: we are at an all time low (as long as i can remember anyhow) when it comes to players for our international squad. the fact people are debating about lee carsley and paddy mccarthy (who??) being left out is a sign of this.
look at the central midfield options: steven reid & kilbane (converted wingers), o'shea (converted full back), liam miller (best days were at celtic when playin in the hole behind front 2 in a 5 man midfield), douglas & quinn are still only starting their carreers and not ready for international arena.
centre backs: dunne & o'brien - dunne is quite good but o'brien doesn't even get his game and was only ever average anyway. mcshane, st ledger & mccarthy are in the same boat as douglas & quinn above.
look at whats available before the manager is slaughtered. there is also very little coming on the assembly line and there will be less in years to come. i know when i was playin underage soccer there were many players brought over to england for trials etc, much much more than there is nowadays so it dosen't bode well for the future. even when u look at the young players we have coming through they are in the main small light lads when the trend in football is moving toward big, fast atheletes.
our expectations have been inflated by the over performing of our national side for almost 20 years but now, like the northern ireland team of the late 70's and 80's, the fear has to be that we may look back on the time from 1988 - 2002 as our 'golden era'.
in fairness the only quality players we have are duff, keane, given and possibly dunne and in fairness are they true greats like giles, brady, keane, razor, whelan, lawerenson ... etc players who regulary won silverware and european cups and so on. excluding given are the others even top notch - would any of the so called top 4 teams in the premiership fight to sign them?
the above is just a thought and maybe negative but it has to be a fear. on a brighter note i hope we get 6 points in the next week and go on to prove all my mumblings above to be just pure tripe!
Last edited by galwayhoop; 04/10/2006 at 1:21 PM. Reason: more relevant
I certainly think it's negative.
Here's something I posted on a non-Ireland forum earlier as the Irish on their were overly pessemistic:
I think we've as good a first XI as we've ever had in the last decade tbh.
GK: Given - imo Only Buffon is better but nobody can argue top 3 premiership keeper. Newcastle player of the year, Ireland player of the year and Premiership keeper of the year.
DR: Finnan - I look at Mark Wilson and I see Steve Finnan. He'll go his whole career never making mistakes but rarely getting enough credit. Finnan is another player I'd have in the top 3 premiership right backs. He's Liverpool's highest rated player in the Actim Index and look at his stats here:
http://home.skysports.com/optastats.aspx?c...iverpool&cpid=8
DC: Dunne - Another very underrated player. He got motm in Old Trafford, Highbury and Stamford Bridge in the one season which shows how good he is against the best. Man City player of the year for the last 2 years in the row (including SWP's excellent season before joining Chelsea).
MR: McGeady - We know all about McGeady. The future star of the Ireland team without a shadow of a doubt.
ML: Duff - He was voted as the best left winger in the world by over a million on the FIFA website before he joined Chelsea. He should be at his peak now but Mourinho turned him into a player that forgot how to take on a man. Under Ranieri he was one of Chelsea's best players and his goals+assists almost matched his appearances. He'll get that back with a few months of freedom at Newcastle and will be back to the Damien Duff that terrorised every defence. In saying that, he bloody terrorised Sweden, Italy, Portugal and Croatia in friendlies in the past year or so so he certainly hasn't lost any of his ability.
MC: S.Reid - Since Hughes took over he has been played consistantly in central midfield and has done very well. So much so that Spurs tried to get him in the summer but he showed commitment by signing a new contract at Blackburn.
FC: Keane - Top scorer and player of the year in 3 of his 4 seasons at Spurs. His goalscoring ratio is improving every single year he scored 16 premiership goals with only Henry beating his goals per minutes played ratio.
FC: Doyle - The 4th player in our team that is the current player of the year at his club. 2nd highest scorer in the Championship last season with 18 and has started this season with 3 premiership goals. Reading's star player and Alan Shearer reckons he's the biggest bargain ever for a player of 21 at £60k.
That list of players is to try and list the spirits.We do have the players. It's far from a poor side. I've only listed 8 players there because I believe they are 8 really top players. The rest of the team is filled out with players like Ian Harte, Andy O'Brien and Lee Carsley
I agree Eirebhoy and If we had someone like Walter Smith at Scotland managing our team or Toshack with Wales I would be confident. Both Scotland and Wales have better managers than us.
In Trap we trust
So did Celtic used to play a 3-4-1-2 formation when Miller was playing?
i know what your sayin eirebhoy but in fairness look at the clubs that these boys are player of the year at: reading, newcastle, man city and who was the fourth maybe keane at spurs. in fairness these are very medocire teams IMO. dunphy (and i'm not a major dunphy fan) got it right during the WC when he said that SKY has us bluffed into thinking that the premiership is the best in the world - maybe for excitement but not for quality. you went through 8 players the other 3 o'brien, harte and carsley are definately no world beaters and how many are in the squad!
keane has buckets of ability but IMO has never delivered his true potential.
given - undoubted class.
doyle - proved to be a good championship player and looks like he may make the grade at premiership, i saw him in stuttgart and he has a lot to do before he is of international grade.
finnan - your right, mr. dependable
dunne - good player - best we have and looks to be fairly consistent of late.
s. reid - to be good at blackburn is 1 thing but if you are telling me that he is a solid international central nmidfielder at this point i don't think so but he is young and may make the grade in time - not at the moment tho
duff - again was class around 2002 - 2004 but is off the boil for at least 2 years, i hope he can return to the duffer we all knew and loved but i don't think he has been anything to write home about in a competitive ireland game since WC 2002.
Mr. McGeady - you say 'we know all about mr. mcgeady' i say he has not started a competitive game for ireland, looked out of his depth in CL v Man U and is still only a child finding his way - one for the future yes but again this is in the future and for all we know he could go same as liam millar and andy reid i.e. backwards! or dissapear altogether aka colin healy, alan lee or stephen mcphail (although i believe he is doing a lazarus at the moment).
point is we have players of average international ability all the way through our squad and i'm am not optomistic for qualification for Euro08 or WC2010. even during the late 80's and 90's we had massive players playing for massive english clubs but they were still required to perform 'greater than the sum of their parts' to excell whereas now we have fairly good players playing at average clubs so what are they going to have to do to excel? barr o'shea and finnan we have no players playing for the 'big 4' in england! this was never the case from 1988-2002 when we always had a couple at most of the top teams and maybe the odd lightweight in the 11 - now we have about 6 in each game!
under o'neill they played a 5-3-2 / 3-5-2 with wing backs, miller was in middle with lennon and petrov behind him and sutton and king henrik in front espically in european games. this is where he shone IMO. and away from home sometimes 4-5-1 with larsson up on his own
It was a Celtic forum. McGeady will not follow Miller. I'm certain McGeady will be a success unless he gets a really serious injury.
As of now I believe those 8 players would make up a top 6 premiership team. I believe that's good enough to get us out of the group. As for the other 3 spots. Man Utd have shown that you can be good team with O'Shea in your team so a few weak spots won't do too much harm.
As for Duff, his decline in form coincided with his decline in form at club level. He was our best player in the Euro 2004 qualifiers.
Last edited by eirebhoy; 04/10/2006 at 3:20 PM.
Big jack would at least explain why he made a certain decison staunton won't...big jack was able to be stubborn as he was getting the results and as a result had the backing of the fans...at the moment staunton is alienating himself from everyone...fans media etc therefore his stubborn persona doesn't wash...i agree that results are the yardstick but he speaks with an air of resignation about this group therefore he should be less stubborn in his approach so as to get the fans onside ..we a\re not looking for much just an insight into his way of thinking when he makes changes etc....
Bring back the plank
Eirebhoy While I agree that there is the basis of a very good side there the real issues are
1 - the management - Very poor at the moment, hopefully Stan will learn from his mistakes and will improve.
2 - Strenght in depth, after those 8 you have only O'Shea, Carsley and Carr playing anywhere near regularly in the top flight. Once injurys hit like now where we are going to miss 3 or 4 of those 8 we are up the creek.
eirebhoy,
my main point here is in relation to our central defenders and central midfielders, barr richard dunne, i feel we are scrapping the barrell. o'brien - crap (IMO). reid, o'shea, kilbane, millar are simply not out and out central players.
although if you had a strong influence in the team (ie roy keane, paul mcgrath etc) you will get away with one of the above with the strong natural leader / player beside them but if you have two make weights in midfield you will be unable to cut it with the good international teams. i was in stuttgart and my view is that we could hardly string 2 or 3 passes together, lacked any imagination and didn't really look like we knew what we were doing.
beside mcgrath in WC94 even phil babb looked like a quality player, beside keane kilbane looked quite good against the french (paris 04). if you think we have strong players in these ppositions you are welcome to your opinion but i disagree, for any team the core has to be strong and ours is most definately not therefore we will struggle. even with all our aiden mcgeadys, duffs, robbie keanes ... etc.
in football you need a good keeper, 2 strong centre backs, 2 good centre mids and at least one good striker to have a chance, at the moment we have 1 good keeper, 1 CB, 0 CM (IMO) and robbie is only ok at international level (when was last competetive goal against top class opposition=WC02). wingers and full backs are a bonus but without strength down the middle you are doomed to failure. maybe in a few years the reids, douglas' & mcCarthys of this world will step up but not for this campaign i fear.
When has Andy O Brien ever been crap for Ireland.
In Trap we trust
I have said it before Eirebhouy....you are obsessed with stats.
football is not a science.
I think Eirebhoy contributions to this forum are far more valuable than 99% of people including myself on this site. Just cause he is coherent and puts his point across well and does not insult or try to wind up people does not mean he is just treating it like a science. It is fairly obvious that he has a love for Mc Geady and Duffs style of play, hardly scientific players.
In Trap we trust
just for future referance(for when you play the poor mouth and accuse me of trying to "wind you up")....you replied to my post..not the other way around.....
It is possible for people to make decent points and retain a sense of humour. You should try take that on board. Stats are stats. They dont tell the whole picture. Robbie Keane , spurs player of the year last year? They were looking to off load him last January. Probably this January as well by the looks of things. All the stats in the world couldnt replace seeing things for your own eyes. they dont prove anything in football as far as I am concerned.
Where is the proof they were trying to offload him. That was paper speculation. Martin Jol said that he wanted 4 strikers and wanted to keep Robbie Keane. Something I repeated time and time again on this when he was going through a bad spell. People forget that form is temporary and class is permanent.
Again I am not making this personal rather than speaking in general terms. I was not referring to anybody in particular in the my last post rather saying that Eirebhoy gets on with the job of discussing football and not much else and I am sure he has a sense of humour outside of this forum and does not need it to get his laughs and kicks.
In Trap we trust
class is permanent alright but his poor form seems neverending.....
and there is never smoke without fire when it comes to transfers...
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks