Player by Player rating of the lads this campaign.

[Emmet7]

Just to emphasise the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kDXSfzzE4w

[Predator]

Emmet, anyone can miss a chance, it doesn't mean they aren't a good player or valuable to the team.

Just to emphasise the point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y_FD...eature=related

[Emmet7]

The Irish strikers are not clinical.

The French strikers are clinical. The Spanish strikers are clinical. As are the Italians who had only about 3 proper chances against us over the two legs and converted all 3.

That's the main problem I see going into the Euros and in my view if we don't qualify it will probably be the reason why. It's pointless owning the ball as we did in Paris for long stretches and dominating the French and creating lots of chances and not scoring them.

Against the Georgia's, Macedonia's and Cypruses of this world, you can get away with missing chances because another one will come around in a few minutes.

Against France, Spain, Germany, or the big teams one of whom will be in our Euro qualifying group, you have to take every chance and you also have to score more than one goal to be sure of winning.

[SwanVsDalton]

Would Nicolos Anelka have tried to round the goalie in that situation, or Henry?

That's the difference, these guys know how to convert every chance they get.

Anelka had half a chance in Dublin and was able to put it in the net with the help of a deflection. The Gallas chance was only a half chance in Paris, but they scored.

The French only need one or two half chances. Torres only needs one or two half chances.

The Irish forwards and wingers got 4 - 5 chances in Paris and converted one. That's the main reason we aren't going to South Africas. And yes it is a case of ifs/buts/ands.

The whole campaign was thrown away because Robbie Keane tried to be fancy. His stats throughout the campaign are pointless now.

If I was Trap I would be going balistic at Robbie and telling him to cut the fancy sh*t and stick the ball in the net. There was no way the goalie would have had time to react given that Robbie was so close to the goal. It was one of the easist chances I have ever seen.

He wasn't unlucky, he was just crap and finishing the chance. If Torres, Drogba, Henry or Anelka had that chance, it would be a certain goal.

And I stand by the assertian Robbie needs lots of clear cut chances to score one.

As for his goal against France and also in Bari against Italy, both were put on a plate for him by Duff and Folan.

Let me get this straight - if the team fail to score, it's Keane's fault. If he misses one chance he's crap. If he scores, it doesn't count because it was on a plate anyway. Assumptions, speculation and contradiction all rolled into one neat argument. Impressive.

No one would put Keane in the same finishing bracket as Henry, Anelka or Torres (except you, it seems). But, still, he's proved his ability regularly. Keane has scored a lot of goals for Ireland. Important goals, meaningless goals, screamers, tap-in's, penalties, jammy ones, headers, volleys, rounding the keeper, lobbing the keeper, great finishes, off his knee scuffed into the net - he's scored them. And no one else has. And no one else has even looked like scoring them.

And no one would point so stringently to one chance - one 'OH BUT IF ONLY!' chance - and say that's what blew it. There are a million incidents like that in a qualifying campaign, it's daft to single one out above an other. 'If only' is a fool's game.

Interestingly I agree with a kernel of your argument - Ireland should take their chances. Absolutely right imo. But it's a team - eleven men - contributing to an attacking effort. If Ireland are to qualify for future tournaments it'll be because the team mange to raise their game to a higher level, and perform consistently. Not because Robbie Keane's tried to round a goalie.

[SwanVsDalton]

The Irish strikers are not clinical.

The French strikers are clinical. The Spanish strikers are clinical. As are the Italians who had only about 3 proper chances against us over the two legs and converted all 3.

That's the main problem I see going into the Euros and in my view if we don't qualify it will probably be the reason why. It's pointless owning the ball as we did in Paris for long stretches and dominating the French and creating lots of chances and not scoring them.

Against the Georgia's, Macedonia's and Cypruses of this world, you can get away with missing chances because another one will come around in a few minutes.

Against France, Spain, Germany, or the big teams one of whom will be in our Euro qualifying group, you have to take every chance and you also have to score more than one goal to be sure of winning.

No one's disagreeing with this. In fact I think everyone (and their granny, and their granny's dog) has been saying this for years. It just doesn't compute with blaming Robbie Keane, when Keane has actually, you know, scored a load of goals.

[Junior]

Duff missed an easier chance in my opinion - time to steady himself and pick his spot. O'Shea too had an easier chance. Both failed miserably. Keane wasn't trying to be 'fancy' he was trying to score, he over ran it, it was a mistake but Its obvious you have an axe to grind with Robbie and hence have highlighted that one chance as the crucial one.

Whelans chance in the first leg was point blank range, no 'fancy' trying to round the keeper - He just hit it low and hard as you seem to be suggesting Robbie should have done, the outcome? yep thats right a great save by Lloris.

Using Anelkas goal as some kind of example for clinical finishing is ridiculous. If I could be ar$ed looking on youtube, Im sure we could find examples of poor finishing from all those stars you have quoted. Despite which, I dont think anyone here is saying we have a striker of the class of Torres or Drogba - we don't but Robbie is the best we do have and Im grateful that we do have him.

Also, just to state that I have never been a big admirer of Robbie in terms of club football, I think he does have his limitations and as you have suggested he doesn't always make the right choices which can be frustrating but the to lay the blame at his door (which is basically what you are doing in this context) is plain idiotic.

[Emmet7]

Let me get this straight - if the team fail to score, it's Keane's fault. If he misses one chance he's crap. If he scores, it doesn't count because it was on a plate anyway. Assumptions, speculation and contradiction all rolled into one neat argument. Impressive.

No one would put Keane in the same finishing bracket as Henry, Anelka or Torres (except you, it seems). But, still, he's proved his ability regularly. Keane has scored a lot of goals for Ireland. Important goals, meaningless goals, screamers, tap-in's, penalties, jammy ones, headers, volleys, rounding the keeper, lobbing the keeper, great finishes, off his knee scuffed into the net - he's scored them. And no one else has. And no one else has even looked like scoring them.

And no one would point so stringently to one chance - one 'OH BUT IF ONLY!' chance - and say that's what blew it. There are a million incidents like that in a qualifying campaign, it's daft to single one out above an other. 'If only' is a fool's game.

Interestingly I agree with a kernel of your argument - Ireland should take their chances. Absolutely right imo. But it's a team - eleven men - contributing to an attacking effort. If Ireland are to qualify for future tournaments it'll be because the team mange to raise their game to a higher level, and perform consistently. Not because Robbie Keane's tried to round a goalie.

My point has been clear all along. Keane needs at least 3 good chances for every one he scores. That's not a ratio that will serve us well going into the future, and it's a ratio that will cause us the same problems in the Euros.

In fact, I know how the Euros will go.

If we play at the level we did in Paris which we are well capable of, we will create lots of chances. But we will only convert 1 or 2 per match. That might help us beat Cyprus, Albania, etc. But it won't help us beat mid ranking teams like Bulgaria or the big teams.

We probably won't win the group because of the inability of our forwards to convert chances. We will probably end up in a play off against another big team and it will go the same way as it did in Paris.

I wish it was different, but I see the inability of our forwards to score as the main concern for the Euros.

The main problem here is losing teams and losing supporters end up saying if only. Winning teams and supporters end up celebrating the accuracy of their strikers.

If you want to tolerate mediocre and poor finishing and tell us how great Keane is that's fine. If you want us to actually qualify for major championships, then you need to focus on the weaknesses in the team and fix those weaknesses. We don't have any world class finishers, that's one of our main weaknesses. Until we get that right, we will always struggle to put teams away.

[Emmet7]

Duff missed an easier chance in my opinion - time to steady himself and pick his spot. O'Shea too had an easier chance. Both failed miserably. Keane wasn't trying to be 'fancy' he was trying to score, he over ran it, it was a mistake but Its obvious you have an axe to grind with Robbie and hence have highlighted that one chance as the crucial one.

Whelans chance in the first leg was point blank range, no 'fancy' trying to round the keeper - He just hit it low and hard as you seem to be suggesting Robbie should have done, the outcome? yep thats right a great save by Lloris.

Using Anelkas goal as some kind of example for clinical finishing is ridiculous. If I could be ar$ed looking on youtube, Im sure we could find examples of poor finishing from all those stars you have quoted. Despite which, I dont think anyone here is saying we have a striker of the class of Torres or Drogba - we don't but Robbie is the best we do have and Im grateful that we do have him.

Also, just to state that I have never been a big admirer of Robbie in terms of club football, I think he does have his limitations and as you have suggested he doesn't always make the right choices which can be frustrating but the to lay the blame at his door (which is basically what you are doing in this context) is plain idiotic.

The goalie was right on top of Whelan when he took the shot and Whelan tried to lift it, he couldn't have done any more and he had no space to work with, with a defender and goalie closing on him.

Keane was on his feet, had plenty of time, all he had to do is pick his spot at the far post and hit it, really that simple. Going around the goalie onto his weaker left foot was always going to be the wrong decision.

And that's essentially the problem, bad decision making.

[Emmet7]

Anyways, I'm not going to continue this debate, because they tend to end up running for weeks on end.

I've said what I've said about Keane. The partnership with Doyle as it stands is not producing enough goals. He has a habit of pushing Doyle wide with his passes, hence the reason Doyle ends up out the wing so much and out of harm's way. Keane is very selfish, he chose to shoot from 25 yards in Paris on one occassion, when he could have had a 2 on 1 situation with Doyle as the other player.

As I said earlier, he'd rather try a shot from an impossible situation than set up another player. When you think of it, we could have had 2 or 3 more goals in all these games if Keane passed to other players in better positions rather than try the impossible.

And when he gets in one on one situations with keepers he gets cocky and tries to show off.

All of this is at the expense of the team. And if he isn't criticised and merely clapped on the back, he will just continue with his old traits and bad choices and that won't help the Ireland team in the future.

[SwanVsDalton]

You haven't answered why this lack of finishing is all Keane's fault, as you've already indicated. No one is excusing poor finishing or saying Keane's great, just pointing out it's a team problem not an individual one. Also quite how you 'get right' not having 'any world class finishers' is another strange one - do we kidnap Torres and rename him O'Toole maybe?

Poor finishing is indicative of poor composure, confidence and experience in a limited group of players. You give them belief - as Trap says - and it grows from there. Finishing comes after that. Hysterical finger pointing and what if's don't come into the equation.

[Emmet7]

You haven't answered why this lack of finishing is all Keane's fault, as you've already indicated. No one is excusing poor finishing or saying Keane's great, just pointing out it's a team problem not an individual one. Also quite how you 'get right' not having 'any world class finishers' is another strange one - do we kidnap Torres and rename him O'Toole maybe?

Poor finishing is indicative of poor composure, confidence and experience in a limited group of players. You give them belief - as Trap says - and it grows from there. Finishing comes after that. Hysterical finger pointing and what if's don't come into the equation.

Who is doing the hysterical finger pointing? Where others see a great player, I see major flaws. I see a player who'd rather shoot from 25 yards than bring it closer and then pass. I wouldn't mind if he had the ability to shoot from 25 yards but I've never seen him do it before for Ireland, or indeed ever score from outside the box for Ireland. So he thinks he will start doing it on that night.

In my view Keane is a limited player. There, I've said it, live with it.

I expect the knee jerk patriotic I love Robbie brigade to come streaming out of the woodwork now and tell us how Robbie is a world class finisher, when clearly he is not nor probably never will be.

But we really do need a world class finisher, there's no getting away from that.

[SwanVsDalton]

As I said earlier, he'd rather try a shot from an impossible situation than set up another player. When you think of it, we could have had 2 or 3 more goals in all these games if Keane passed to other players in better positions rather than try the impossible.

And when he gets in one on one situations with keepers he gets cocky and tries to show off.

All of this is at the expense of the team. And if he isn't criticised and merely clapped on the back, he will just continue with his old traits and bad choices and that won't help the Ireland team in the future.

You only have two examples of this, both in the most recent games. Ridiculously selective and hardly outweigh the other points (his scoring record) you have failed to engage with.

Off topic I know (so mods tis up to you), but I just find this attitude so infuriating to be honest. Keane wouldn't have to put up with this kind of intense, and contradictory, scrutiny if he didn't have more talent than most of his teammates. Instead of applauding his undoubted achievements, he is slammed for his few mistakes. If the rest of the team could perform as consistently and with as much composure as Keane, we'd be at the World Cup next year IMO. This isn't to say I think Keane's the last word in football - he has serious flaws. But he takes a barracking for the slightest things.

If he fails to score it's not good enough. If he does he's still rubbish anyway. Seriously, this campaign he has matured into a much better all round player and captain but, still, this is not enough for some.

[Emmet7]

Is this a Robbie Keane Congratulation thread or a thread to identify the weaknesses in the Irish team?

If we ignore the mistakes of the Irish team, we will just repeat them in the future.

[SwanVsDalton]

Is this a Robbie Keane Congratulation thread or a thread to identify the weaknesses in the Irish team?

If we ignore the mistakes of the Irish team, we will just repeat them in the future.

I agree. And no one is ignoring them at all. And no one is congratulating Robbie Keane at all. As for how we got away from the team, eleven men, and on to just one, well...

Keane blew it in Paris, it really is that simple

As for the 40, many of them were penalties which even you would have a good chance of scoring. Many of the rest were scored against the likes of San Marino, Georgia, Albania, Cyprus and so on. Harly top notch opposition.

As for Keane, with the game in the balance he started looking for the fancy goal...go around the keeper when he should have stuck it wide of him, try for a 25 yard screamer when he could have played Doyle in. Same old story with Keane.

The whole campaign was thrown away because Robbie Keane tried to be fancy. His stats throughout the campaign are pointless now.

He wasn't unlucky, he was just crap at finishing the chance and in my opinion showing off which he is prone to do. If Torres, Drogba, Henry or Anelka had that chance, it would be a certain goal.

[SwanVsDalton]

To get back on the team in general -

I've already said somewhere that composure is the key and I stand by that. Our defending has been dreadful and finishing poor on key occasions and both these elements stem from a lack of belief and composure. It's not to be surprised that a team full on inexperienced internationals playing football at lower Premiership level (having emerged from the lower leagues) will lack for belief. With the result we've had in France I believe we can become a much tougher unit at the back, with better concentration, and a more potent attacking force in front of goal.