Czech Republic post match thread

**geysir** · 11/10/2006, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Donal81

McShane got the stick for the Czech goal. I thought that it could easily have been prevented if John O'Shea had tracked back. That said, the replay wasn't great, I'm open to correction this.

Nothing to correct.

**Qwerty** · 11/10/2006, 10:40 PM

They need to repeat tonights performance game in game out. There is no excuse.

The real lesson of the Cyprus game is that Ireland cannot play open fluid football and expect to beat anyone. If we had a midfield in Cyprus ( we played 3 wingers and player who prefers to play in the hole ) we would not have lost, our defenders were constantly exposed because there was no protection whatsoever.

It was unfortunately a very embarrasing and costly lesson for Stan to learn, and I hope he has learnt it.

McShane, Douglas and Kelly showed the kind of grit you expect from an Irish player. I expect nothing less.

**Stuttgart88** · 11/10/2006, 10:41 PM

I thought JOS was stuck on halfway line after the (good) foul. No fault McShane though.

**brine3** · 11/10/2006, 11:14 PM

you get the feeling given would have saved it and held on to it... but that's the difference between league 1 and one of the best keepers in the world for you

**billybunter** · 11/10/2006, 11:30 PM

I am proud to put my hand up and say ' that was fooking good irish performance. I didnt even wash my jersey after saturday. I wore it again, and insisted i;m exorcising the ghosts of nicosia past. thankfully, i not only banished those ghosts, i think paul mcshane may even have stuck his boot up one their ar$es on their way out. we battle on. good oul ireland. I knew she would'nt let me down.

**Neish** · 11/10/2006, 11:40 PM

Good display against one of Europes top teams's. McShane was great, so was Kilbane and Carlsey. Kelly & Douglas also very good.

Still a lot of work to be done but if the squad put in same kinda effort that was given vs The Czechs tonight and we don't suffer any more severe injury problems, this time next year we will be up there fighting for a place in Euro 2008.

Still not overly convinced about Staunton, hopefully he will prove me wrong.

**keenanboy** · 12/10/2006, 12:01 AM

I think at lot of lessons were learned tonight.
Mine were
a) Passion and sheer balls can compensate for other inadequacies
b) The players respect the manager and responded accordingly
c) There is something rotten in the squad
d) That something is the journeymen of the likes of Clinton Morrison, who frankly doesn't care and never has.
e) The manager and the squad are on a learning curve...but they will only improve

**pineapple stu** · 12/10/2006, 12:11 AM

Much, much better than last Saturday. I'm delghted to be E50 down.

McShane was immense. For a lad on his debut playing First Division football making Jan Koller - a superb player - he was immense. Fair dues.
Kelly was superb, I thought. One passage I remember when he won the tackle, then prevented it going out of touch, and then won the throw. Much, much improved on the Chile performance.
Duff was much nearer his best. He's now gotten the assist on all three goals this campaign.
Thought Henderson could have done better for the goal - thought he was too near his near post - but did well overall.
Superb finish from Kilbane.

Overall - happy, I suppose. (Still want Delaney out thought...)

**Closed Account 2** · 12/10/2006, 12:27 AM

I think McShane shows the benefits of leaving a big club, going to a smaller one, but playing week in week out in a proper position. Just wish the likes of O;shea and Miller had done what he did

**Soko** · 12/10/2006, 12:39 AM

I'm delighted that Robbie Keane thought it fitting to give the crowd a good ol' fist pump after our slightest ambitions for 2008 had been extinguished following his open goal miss with 2 mins to go. Nice to see Mick Byrne cheering after we drew at home to a Czech team which is nowhere near as good as their predecesors.

Happy with most of the performance, not happy with the result. O' Shea - I never want to see again. Stephen Kely did well but he's extemely limited. What has happened to Steve Finnan?

Andy Reid looked ****ed after the warm ups. What a pile of ****

Ah well, there's always 2010

**livehead1** · 12/10/2006, 12:43 AM

andy o'brien....
if your reading this...
I, and every other true Irish fan is 100% behind you. You are living out our dream by playing for our country. Everyone makes mistakes, yours is a job like any other, you can't get everything perfect. I've watched you over the years since you were a centre-back at Bradford. you have masses of ability that i believe this country will thrive on for the next 7 years. Those who doubt you now, ignore them, because one good performance later and you will be the best centre back in the world. Just keep your chin up, keep training hard, and the good form will come again, and I for one, am looking forward to seeing you turn it on for Ireland, and watch these doubter's come crawling one by one.

**Donal81** · 12/10/2006, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by geysir

Way off the mark those slating Keane, first time I have seen him do effective closing down, performance had to be compromised to achieve result, he suffered for that more than most and battled to the end.
An averagely confident Ireland with a secure manager would have won. Only getting a draw hurt.
Plaudits to Kilbane, left free of main defensive responsibilities he will run through a brick wall, if only he could pass.
What remains though is what Stan makes of it all. Lee isn't just for Christmas.
McShane, he's the Kenny replacement, intelligent and articulate.
I've never seen Brady so alive and energetic on RTE, like he had woken up after a 5 year slumber.

I'll stand by my criticism of Keane. One chance in a game which came in injury time is not good enough for a professional striker. He ran a hell of a lot but that's just not good enough.

**Billsthoughts** · 12/10/2006, 1:03 AM

eh thought we played as well as we have in last few years.good game. mcshane played well. some of the tackles were great. begs the question why not all the time? but still only complaint was equaliser. fair play to understrength team. delaney and your poxy stewards **** off and die.

**mountie** · 12/10/2006, 3:36 AM

McShane,without doubt the best performance by a debutant since Liam Brady. Might have been the occasion, but he sure took his chance. A definite starter along with the honey monster. Douglas also took his chance and deserves to hold onto his place. Henderson could have done better on the goal, but at least he was very cool under pressure and IMO looked confident in himself. Kelly did ok , still needs to mature and gain confidence in himself. Playing first team football at Birmingham will do him the world of good. Cannot understand the critism of Andy Reid on this site. I understand the perception of him being overweight, but in reality he is not. Gazza was IMO heavier when he was regarded as the player of his generation and Rooney is at least the same weight (and younger) is regarded as world class. Martin Jol said he was one of the most talented players he has worked with,but, according to my Spurs friends Jol had no choice to sell him cause he is injury prone.I thought whenever Reid got the ball something would happen for us, similar to whenever Liam Brady got the ball. Reid just needs a consistent season without injury. Keano huffed and puffed badly needs a goal to get his confidence back. Duff was excellent badly needs a finisher along side him to really make him world class. Overall a good performance, but how I hate the term morale victory, as was bandied about tonight. Shoulda,coulda, and woulda is no longer good enough. When at home beat we must win, don't care who they are...

**Kingdom** · 12/10/2006, 6:43 AM

right this will probably be a long one! Lots to think about after the game. Bare in mind I've only seen the game in the flesh no replays or any of that.

First thing has to be we're out of the running? No qualification for us this time. We had to win tonight for that to happen. Without trying to upset anyone here, with 15 mins to go, does it matter whether we draw or lose? By drawing we've gained nothing on the top two. I was dissapointed that Alan O'Brien came on for Kilbane. I really am. I've seen nothing from him that merits being in the team. I'd have liked to have seen the second forward on, be it Morrison or Lee. I feel the Czechs had settled for the draw and were happy to allow us hoof ball after ball towards Keane and Alan Quinn. Duff got the ball three times in the second half and three times got the ball into the danger area, leading to one goal, one astonishing miss and another good effort.
The crowd upped the ante tonight. Excellent everybody. Not that Staunton or Delaney should take the crowds exuberance as a measure of the collective feeling for them, rather an outpouring of support for OUR team. I was on the East Bucket level with the 18yd line at the North end. All of the fans around me stood from start to finish and sung whenever prompted, oldies and cripples included. Fair play nobody sitting down or hindered by height disadvantages complained. Stewards initially started to tell people to stand down, but one look at the mass of bouncing Czechs in the North Terrace told them where to go.

Many positives and still a few negatives from the game. The positives.
Our tempo was impressive throughout, bar a 15 minute spell midway through the first half.
I thought we might adopt a 'kick-them-off-the-park' approach and it wasn't far off. Douglas, Carsley, Kilbane, McShane and to a lesser extent Kelly all were robust on several occasions. Which is what has been missing. It is kinda ridiculous when certain tackles last in your mind (i.e. showing up that we haven't consistently got into teams over the last few years), Kav on Gilberto against Brazil was a stand out one. Tonight there were several. Kilbane absolutely creamed Ufjalusi and Polak in quick succession just before his goal while Carsley caught Koller with a peach mid air.
We got about them and the crowd responded, which the players responded too in kind. To resort to a old tactic, we put em under pressure. There did seem to be a team ethic. If someone made a mistake there was nothing but pats on the back or re-assuring words by the looks of things.
In other words the passion was back. Our set-pieces were good. Which is crazy cinsidering we were up against giants. McShane will be an excellent foil for Killer and Dunne offensively.

As for the bad things. When I heard the team I will admit I was disappointed to hear Stephen Kelly name on Tuesday. I thought he was dire. Has no sense of being able to read the game. Caught out many times. Is a hard tackler but seemed to stand off his man quite often and allow his pace get him out of trouble. I wouldn't be troubled if he doesn't get near the team again. I still believe Killer can be a great full back for us.
Our use of the ball. Terrible. Terrible. Once Reid went off everything went airborn. When Killer went off it still stayed in the air. Once again no through balls for the CF to feed off. Our finishing. We could easily have had 3 goals before our actual goal. Douglas should have scored. As should Duff (when we could have been awarded a penalty).
John O'Shea. Shown up by his junior partner and one wonders if John O'Shea wasn't such a puff and put it up to Fergie a year ago like McShane did last season, would the waterford man actually have a tangible career to talk about in a few years. He doesn;t seem to have an aggressive bone in his body and I'm afraid if he doesn;t have one then I'm not sure what he can offer to this team. I felt that deoending on tonight one of himself and Killer would be dropped. It won't be Killer I'd hope.

Henderson - 6. Poor positioning I felt for the goal. Had nothing to do apart from one fumbled effort in first half.

Finnan - 6. Not composed last night. Needs to have a regular slot in team and have a regular partner in front. A player who needs the arm round the shoulder, I wonder what has Carr's recall done for his confidence.

Kelly - 5.5. Poor imo. Cannot pass, doesn't offer anything offensively. Hasn;t and doesn't look like an international player.

O'Shea -5. At fault for the goal, as gave away free which led to goal and then lost concentration for the goal itself. Should be dropped against San Marino.

McShane - 9. Man of the match. How a player of 5'11" continually beat Liberty Hall in the air amazed me. Did everything right from actions to talking, passing was top notch also. Here to stay.

Duff - 8. Played well, albeit didn't see much of the ball. Control is second to none and crossing with both feet excellent.

Douglas- 6. Lots of bite, won great header which started the motions for the goal. Needs a few games but has potential. Should have scored.

Carsley- 7. Did everything that was expected. If he'd been in the squad last week, I think we'd be 5 points better off. Composed the middle 4.

Killer- 8. The occasional pass stray pass aside, back to playing the way for which he won so many caps consecutively. No player, not one, matches his commitment, effort and industry. If you put a scanger Dub accent on him he wouldn't get half the abuse.

Reid. - 7. Needs to work on the finishing as the goal opened up 5/6 times for him. Technically the best player in the squad, unfortunately he seems never to get fit enough. Is there room for a player who we can get 50 mins out of in the first XI? Fraid not.

Keane. - 6. Poorly marked purely because he didn't get much ball. Ran the boll*x out of himself and rightly so as he's captain. One clear cut chance, and should have scored. Some people think he's world class, I dont. If he's world class he'd take the chance.

Subs. Neither did anything when they came on.

**shakermaker1982** · 12/10/2006, 7:08 AM

I think you lads are being harsh on young Kelly. Personally I thought he was excellent, good in the tackle and covered a lot of ground.

**macdermesser** · 12/10/2006, 7:27 AM

From our friends on youtube

Kilbanes goal

Tribute to Kilbane

**Emmet** · 12/10/2006, 7:45 AM

Originally Posted by Soper

Also, Alan O'Brien did nothing tonight.

He came on in the last ten minutes and only got the ball once I think ... what were you expecting?

Overall, it was a good battling performance ... a lot more than I was expecting to be honest. The key question is will we be able to sustain that sort of effort against all of the teams especially the 'lesser' sides. Keane's miss at the end was a shocker but he worked very hard all night closing down. Duff seemed to be given more licence to move around the pitch and was a lot more effective because of it.

**Calcio Jack** · 12/10/2006, 7:51 AM

So we put in a strong pasionate performance... regretfully the motivation for it seems to of being caused by the "hurt" Stan and the players felt after Saturday. For me that is so typical and sums up why Staunton should be fired... a half decent manager who knew what he was about wouldn't of let Saturday happen in the first place.Indeed we'd of won on Saturday if we had a professional at the helm , instead of our sulking schoolboy of a manager banished in the stand due to his own childisness. Also a decent manager would have the team tuned properly so that (yet again Stan) we wouldn't concede within momnets of scoring.

So today we should be looking 6 points on the board not "une pointe" and a genuine chance of competing down to the wire for second spot and qualification.

So Yes it was good to see some pride restored... but I'm in the Roy Keane camp on this one...last night we failed to take the 3 points that were on offer so nothing to celebrate there !!

Finally, is it me, but I'd also like to see Mick Byrne gone... having to enjure the sight of him coming on the pitch at the end of the game and kissing the badge on his track suit and generally acting as if he had just played/scored made me want to vomit.... what that's all about .... oh yes I forgot , he's another of Stan's so called brilliant cunning tactics and his job is to act as some sort of overpaid "cheerleader" for the "boys".... genius Stan.