We do not have that bad a team!!

**elroy** · 08/02/2007, 9:12 AM

Our best team in my opinion is as follows:

Given
Finnan McShane Dunne O'Shea
Duff Carsley S Reid Hunt
Keane Doyle

Now i dont care what anyone says that is not a bad team by any means, yet we are producing performances like last night and the cyprus game. The team as a whole is certainly not adding up to the sum of the parts. Irish teams in the past always were a good team rather than a collection of individuals. The reason the team are so clueless surely must rest with the manager - however much we call for his head I dont believe he will go prior to the end of this campaign. So is there anything that can be done?
Our record so far:
2 decent home performances,
1 respectable away performance
2 shameful away performances

**macdermesser** · 08/02/2007, 9:15 AM

.. just a bad manager. End of thread

**youngirish** · 08/02/2007, 9:51 AM

How easily you forget the shocking home performance against the Dutch. Our worst for half a century apparently though they've been getting worse since then.

**cheifo** · 08/02/2007, 9:57 AM

The following players would not get into a good international team.
Henderson,O Shea,McShane,Carsley,Ireland,Kilbane,RK(at the moment),Harte and all of our subs.The Likes of Ireland,Long and McShane deserve patience because of their youth.Having said that a canny manager would do much much better.

**Dodge** · 08/02/2007, 10:01 AM

NONE of them would get in anywhere. The only ones with international grade talent within the Irish set up are Keane (who's the biggest spoofer in world football), Duff (who hasn't played well in 4 years) and Given. The rest are bit part premiership/championship players.

Still should have beaten san marino by at least 5

**Jerry The Saint** · 08/02/2007, 10:11 AM

Staunton said, of Stephen Ireland, that he's been playing well for his club and he wants him to play as well for Ireland. "That's all I'll ever ask of our players, to play as well as they do for their clubs".

Wasn't the whole point that the pride of the jersey was supposed to inspire these lads to play above themselves

Dunne complained that the setup under Kerr was too similar to that at their clubs and the squad lost that little bit of magic/bulls**t that inspired them to play better for their country...

A lot of people thought that Kerr underachieved with the squad available and we needed a change. Recent results with a better squad (emergence of Doyle, Ireland, McGeady, Long, Hunt as regular top-flight players) might suggest a different view, even allowing for an obviously incompetent manager.

Hugely disappointed with Duff and Capt. Keane more than anything. Duff hasn't scored a competitive goal in 3 and a half years. He's possibly been our best player over the last while purely because "he works hard" against bad teams rather than destroying them. Such a waste of talent.

**liaml** · 08/02/2007, 10:43 AM

Best team we've got at the moment is

Given
Carr O'Dea Dunne Finnan
A.Reid Carsley S.Ireland Duff
Stokes Doyle

Subs

Kenny, McGeady, Keane, S. Reid, McShane, O'Shea, Killer

O'Dea is rapidly becoming the first name on the team sheet at CP. He'll be playing in the CL at the San-Siro in two weeks, he scores goals and is getting rave reviews. Why he wasn't give a chance is beyond me.

It'd time for Keane to be dropped (which he won't be as Stan made the idiotic decision of making him captain). Stokes with 16 goals is our top scoring top flight striker this season. Doyle with 10 is next. Keane's what - 2?

-liam

**eirebhoy** · 08/02/2007, 12:47 PM

This goes back to the point I made in the match thread, we really underrate our players because they're playing so poorly for us.

The Czech Republic are really highly rated by most people.

Given or Cech? Can't say there's much to choose between them.

Finnan or Jiranek? Jiranek said 2 years ago that he wanted to join Celtic. Celtic didn't put in an offer. Finnan's out of Celtic's league even though it's hard to admit.

Jankulovski or me ma? Jankulovski without doubt. We're very weak in that area. That said, Jankulovski is weak defensively. Milan rarely play him in defence even though it's not their strong spot.

Dunne or Rozehnal? Dunne's better, no question.

Ujfalusi or McShane? No contest, Ujfalusi. He plays regularly at right back for Fiorentina though, not ideal to be playing centre half every couple of months.

Galasek or Carsley? Galasek and Carsley are both typical holding midfielders. Galasek with a better range of passing and a lot more intelligience. Galasek wins this by a bit.

Polak or Reid? Wouldn't know a lot about Polak. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Rosicky or Duff? Rosicky it has to be atm.

Sionko or McGeady? McGeady with ease. Even Rangers fans will admit that.

Baros or Keane? Keane without question imo.

Doyle or Koller? Koller I suppose, for the time being.

The Czechs have hardly got 11 world class players. They're better than us but if they're rated as one of Europe's best then we're certainly not rubbish. Karel Bruckner's contract is up after the Euro's if we can wait that long.

**gustavo** · 08/02/2007, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by eirebhoy

This goes back to the point I made in the match thread, we really underrate our players because they're playing so poorly for us.

The Czech Republic are really highly rated by most people.

Given or Cech? Can't say there's much to choose between them.

Finnan or Jiranek? Jiranek said 2 years ago that he wanted to join Celtic. Celtic didn't put in an offer. Finnan's out of Celtic's league even though it's hard to admit.

Jankulovski or me ma? Jankulovski without doubt. We're very weak in that area. That said, Jankulovski is weak defensively. Milan rarely play him in defence even though it's not their strong spot.

Dunne or Rozehnal? Dunne's better, no question.

Ujfalusi or McShane? No contest, Ujfalusi. He plays regularly at right back for Fiorentina though, not ideal to be playing centre half every couple of months.

Galasek or Carsley? Galasek and Carsley are both typical holding midfielders. Galasek with a better range of passing and a lot more intelligience. Galasek wins this by a bit.

Polak or Reid? Wouldn't know a lot about Polak. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Rosicky or Duff? Rosicky it has to be atm.

Sionko or McGeady? McGeady with ease. Even Rangers fans will admit that.

Baros or Keane? Keane without question imo.

Doyle or Koller? Koller I suppose, for the time being.

The Czechs have hardly got 11 world class players. They're better than us but if they're rated as one of Europe's best then we're certainly not rubbish. Karel Bruckner's contract is up after the Euro's if we can wait that long.

They are one of the best teams in Europe , problem is that you are comparing them with us through individuals , which isnt fair as they have a far better team than us which is something else altogether than having good individuals

**youngirish** · 08/02/2007, 4:07 PM

Originally Posted by gustavo

They are one of the best teams in Europe , problem is that you are comparing them with us through individuals , which isnt fair as they have a far better team than us which is something else altogether than having good individuals

The manager and the coaches are responsible for turning talented individuals into an effective team.

**Fergie's Son** · 08/02/2007, 4:10 PM

For arguments sake let's just agree that this is a very mediocre Irish team.

Said team should still NOT lose to Cyprus and barely manage to squeak by San Marino.

I have been critical of the LOI on this board but a LOI XI would beat both Cyprus and San Marino 9 times out of 10.

Management is the problem.