3-1 to Israel on penalties - Wright, Ferguson and Devoy all fail to score in the shootout.
Kept on eye on this game tonight, thought Ireland were set-up way too defensively in the first half, when they came out of their shell in the second Israel looked really vulnerable, they were there for the taking with a bit more of a forward-thinking mindset. Azaz an exciting looking player. Never like teams accepting a shoot-out during ET, that what it seemed like to me tonight. Penalties dreadful, suspect little work was done on the training ground before hand to prepare for them, and you can't get away with that in 2022.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Shocking penalties. Maher needed to save the first one, could have set a different tone. Poor selection and tactics from Crawford. Time for a managerial change. Big missed opportunity.
Wilson and Fergusons particularly bad,hate just hitting and hope penalties….
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Desperately disappointing way to go out.
In fairness there's nothing wrong with choosing to go down the middle, but I think when you do so you really have to hit them with power, get a good bit of speed so that if the keeper gets a foot to them they might just go in anyway. Israeli keeper looked well drilled for the shoot out.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
Didn?t see much of the game cause I was travelling to Lansdowne road - but i think Crawford has to go, pretty sure he?s out of contract.
Team selections were incredibly negative in both games against a very average side. We could easily have ended the tie in Dublin.
Shambles that Ebosele only got 5 mins or whatever it was across the 2 ties. How many minutes did he get across the 12 competitive games?
Connolly isn?t someone who?s ever really played as a lone striker. He was always going to be isolated without one of Ferguson, Odubeko or Kayode up with him?
Over the past couple of years, we?ve forgiven poor performances cause some important results have arrived but I think all the conservative decisions have really come back to haunt him.
- Playing Maher when injured, never really developing a credible alternative.
- selecting Lee O?Connor no matter what, sometimes ahead of Lyons when LOC was really really struggling, sometimes ahead of Ebosele in a 5-3-2
-Playing a midfielder out of position as a winger repeatedly when we were loaded with talented wingers (Smallbone, Tierney, Noss, Watson)
So on, so on. He talks a decent game but I think it?s time to go?
Decent squad available for the next campaign:
These lads have already been called up to the 21s
1. Danny Rose
2. Sam Blair
3. Festy Ebosele
4. Anselmo Garcia McNulty
5. Bosun Lawal
6. Sean Roughan
7. Tayo Adaramola
8. Joe Hodge
9. Killian Phillips
10. Andy Moran
11. Ollie O?Neill
12. Darragh Burns
13. Dara Costelloe
14. Armstrong Okoflex
15. Evan Ferguson
16. Mipo Odubeko
17. Sinclair Armstrong
18. Jonny Kenny
19. Ronan Boyce
20. Josh Keeley
Plus a interesting bunch of lads who were called up the 20s:
1. Mazeed Ogungbo
2. James Furlong
3. Kian Leavy
4. Tom Hill
5. Dej Sotona
6. Tom Cannon
Plus some other lads who look like they could be good:
1. Arlo Doherty
2. Jack Henry-Francis
3. Tony Springett
4. Cian Hayes
Plus anyone from 2004 or 2005 (Abankwah seems an obvious one)
The likes of Paul Nebel, Louie Barry and Liam Delap would be incredible additions to the selection pool if possible
Last edited by elatedscum; 28/09/2022 at 2:57 AM.
That looks a much weaker squad than what we had this time. Very little senior football played across that group. Will be a big challenge to get back to the playoffs again next time.
Delap scored for England's U20s last week so I don't see him changing international allegiance at the moment
we lost this tie at home and i knew that walking away from tallaght last Friday.
we were far too conservative in the first leg particularly when they went down to 10 men. we should have thrown the kitchen sink at them for the last 10 minutes as going over there with the scores level was far too big a risk in itself. instead we were still passing it across the pitch when we needed to be a lot more direct. their keeper was very good in the first leg and it was just so obvious that they would do better in the pen shootout as a result. we just shouldn't have let it get to the penalty shootout scenario though.
very disappointing as a number of those players involved have put their heart into it over the last two campaigns.
If Crawford doesn't get a new contract, though he likely will because he got to the playoff but promoting Tom Mohan from the U19s would be a better option. The U21s won't play another game for around 12 months and the current U19s finish next July at the latest.
He's already worked with all those players listed above and the only window he'd be unable to fully take the U21s would be next March because of the qualifiers for the U19s but U21s last year played a double header against Wales which might happen again. Someone could step in and take the training camp in March and there'd be no clash between U21s and U19s for June.
And the difference in tactics was shown in the 2 legs, even when Israel came to Dublin playing for draw they clearly had a game plan to do so, we had no game plan last night, this was a MON style of defensive performance where we just put everyone behind the ball and hope for the best. It was a cowardly approach that got the result it deserved at the end.
A suggestion.
Give Kenny the U-21 coaching job within a wider, overarching developmental role in which all the underage sides are made play a progressive possession-based brand of football, all using a similar system as set out by Kenny, who'd also have a say on grassroots improvement etc.
With a bit of luck Crawford gets the Bohs job.
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