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That depends if it's football, Gah or Pitch and Putt. So not a lot on either.Originally Posted by geysir
I think that the new man is picked already, which disappoints me.
I'd like to think that the new manager would have a look at the FAI database of eligible players (or Tets) and decide to either pick the best 11 players and mould a formation to suit them, or pick the best formation and then the most suitable players for each position. Such as a left-back at left-back. A winger on the wing, or a right corner-forward at right-corner forward. Then when you find yourself 60m into the wind, a sharp punch into the back of the green sets up the birdie chance.
I feel sorry that it has ended the way it has, but in another way I don't feel sorry for Trap one bit. Pilkington was poor last night, and to put him in with the last night and starting yesterday is a slap in the face to Brady. It looked like Pilkington wasn't comfortable with the (limited) movement of his teammates, something that comes with time and familiarity.
Wilson was atrocious again, and he's a good player generally but he's been dodgy at best. Left-back is a problem position for us, as was right back before Coleman was trusted.
Something that is really sticking in my craw now though, is the punditry. It's clichéd, ridiculous, camp-ish, and horribly narrow-minded.
People say we don't have the players, or we're limited. I call bull-sh1t.
Just because club managers in England (the same ones ridiculed on a daily basis, by the same pundits/analysts) decide that our players are at a level, doesn't mean that is the case.
Fahey, McGeady, Brady, Hoolihan, Coleman are technically sound players. Gibson has proved doubters wrong (I was dubious to say the least) since moving to Everton. McCarthy is a young player, but far from a child, and is taking time to adjust to responsibility, but often he is trying to do the job of two, or worse, of three.
Maybe some of our fans don't know what players we have coming through the ranks. We have talented players in the underage teams. They are yet to break through to the senior sides in their clubs in nearly every case, but at this stage, what does it matter?
Personally speaking Euro 2012 means nothing to me, as my Dad died a few days beforehand, so I don't have any drunken nostalgia over hearing the anthem at the finals before a good sing-song and a walloping. Was I proud we qualified? Hell yes. But there is a fine line between brilliance and pure luck, and the luck that we missed out on in WC2010 qualifying was repaid in Bucketloads during EC2012. We were extremely poor against Russia home and away, we were shockingly bad at home to Slovakia and Armenia. We got the only team we could definitely beat in the play-offs before being comfortably the weakest side in the competition. It's not that we were beaten out the gate by teams definitively better than us, it's that the brain's trust didnt' attempt to put in a formation that would have us counteract what we were going to face. Russia showed what a three man centre mid would do to us, yet no different formation were forthcoming.
I said it here, but I would not have renewed after the Euro playoff. To then give an extended contract was head-wrecking. He should have been removed after the German game, which would have allowed us 18 months to at worst prepare for the Euro 2016 campaign, if qualifying could have been salvaged. Sweden were ****-poor, Austria worse, yet both times this last week we looked miles behind tactically. It wasn't Ibrahimovic who wrecked us against Sweden, it was Ekdal. He controlled play moving the ball left/right, diagonal etc.
Tl; dr: No to O'Neill. Give a Communist a few quid and airmiles to Britain.
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