Irish Journos = Remedial Monkeys

[A face]

Are all Irish Sports Journos completely devoid of any imagination or free thinking that they all seems to continually ask ad nauseam about players who will not feature in Traps squad. I mean the dogs on the street know at this stage that there are a number of players who we wont ever see in a green shirt while he is there.

You would have to wonder, bearing in mind that the penny has been dropping all the time over the last number of months, if there was ever a penny dropped for them? Do they not have the necessary spark? Is there a motor neuron back firing somewhere to say that these guys haven't twigged yet?

We are having to read, look and listen to their stuff continually without option in alot of cases. Is it too much to expect that their little hamster isn't dead on the wheel and that they can come up with another line of questioning to give us some news on what is happening bar the players who we know 100% will not be playing for us ever? Give is a feicin' break sometime soon.

When one of those players DOES get called up THEN it will be news. Until that happens ...... it is NOT news. Please for the love of god and all that is sacred can someone flick the switch and leave these guys have a lightbulb moment for themselves.

[Crosby87]

I totally understand what you are saying but part of the issue is Trap does not close the door on certain players so naturally people think it is still open to debate. He just said recently that he would not close the door on Andy Reid for example.
If he indeed has said to Liam Brady, for example; "Andy will never be in the squad as long as I am here." Then it would do everyone well for him to say that to the press....

Just yesterday I posted wondering if it would be etched in stone that IF we make the WC Andy wouldnt be in the squad and someone replied that there would be friendlys for Trap to name Andy and reasses the situation....Which makes no sense to me. I mean if Andy could help in the World Cup surely it stands to reason he could help us to get there right now....

So I agree with you but speculation is only rampant b/c Trap lets it be that way...

[geysir]

Judging by the noise level of the table being thumped as Trap answered the questions at the last press conference, I think we will be in for Strunz like rant one of these days.

[rambler14]

Judging by the noise level of the table being thumped as Trap answered the questions at the last press conference, I think we will be in for Strunz like rant one of these days.

I'm surprised nobody has translated that video to make it seem like he's talking about Reid........y'know like the Hitler video.

[Junior]

I didnt see the press conference. Out of interest, was the Stephen Ireland question raised again? If not, does this mean the Irish Media have copped on and will be right behind the boys for the forthcoming games or is it simply that Andy Reid is the weapon of choice?

[geysir]

Not a whimper about SI.

The Andy Reid issue covers most of the angles around the shifting goalposts.

[noddy102]

The media are always looking for a story, and in modern times have always focused their attention upon criticism. They generally have nothing else to offer. The media know if they can identify the most obvious points, about the team selection in this case, then should results not go the manager's way, they will be able to apportion blame to the original selection choice made by the manager and convince the readers and listeners that this is indeed the reason why the manager has failed.

Any reasonable person can understand that S. Reid, Finnan, A. Reid and Morrison are not in the team because either they are not match fit yet, or because Trapattoni doesn't believe they fit in with his system. We must respect Trapattoni in his decisions - he has been picked to do the job and so far he has done a fantastic job.

Personally, I would have liked to see Andy Reid in the squad for France, and previous squads, but I can also accept why he was not chosen.

[Murfinator]

Poor thread, journalists write whatever muck their readers are interested in and any sport journalist will tell you that soccer fans for the most part aren't the most learned crowd. Sad fact is people reading those columns lap up SI gossip or conspiracy theories regarding Andy Reid. It sells papers.

Which is annoying since when you compare it to Rugby journalism with regards Quinlans recent omission there's far less sensationalism and most writers will say something along the lines of "I see where Kidney's coming from on that" and move on to discuss the more important things. While soccer writers are far busier writing some spin that implies Andy Reid drowns kittens or some such.

I'd love to pick up a paper that doesn't contain

a) A page on a one line comment Stephen Ireland made.
b) A skew on something Trap or Tardelli said.
c) A "boo hoo poor me" column on Andy Reid / Clinton Morrison / whoever else isn't getting a call up.
d) Whatever random guffah Roy Keane is spouting this week.

But in reality soccer fans seem to like that kind of trash, I'd wager there's quite a few "fans" out there who could tell you Theo Walcott's middle name or the name of half the wives of the England team but have never heard of Esteban Cambiasso. A lot of the journalism out there is aimed at that section of the audience.


To shorten all that up, you're wrong. The majority of soccer fans out there are remedial monkeys and the journalists are just giving them piles of crap to fling at each other.

[twoenz]

The BBC report on Duffer's injury mentions the fact that Clinton hasn't been called up! So it's spreading.

It's just Dunphyism run wild: get a point that's not going to be resolved anytime soon, and keep shouting it as loud as possible until something happens.

At the end of the day it's pretty hard to argue with an unbeaten team coached by a guy that has more medals from his coaching and playing days than the whole squad that's working for him.

[Murfinator]

The problem is soccer is a simple game on the face of it so every tom, dick and harry think they know the game inside out and whats best for any team. There's a lot less respect for a coach and their decisions than their would be for more complex games like Rugby or Hurling where you're dealing with more players and more complex rules that the average joe probably doesn't claim to know everything about.

[Mcgeady46]

how most of them got their jobs as sports journalists in beyond me.

spouting the same bull**** week after week, the kind of bull**** that belongs on a 14 yr olds bebo page and they are trying to pass it off as sports journalism - pathetic

[EastTerracer]

The problem is soccer is a simple game on the face of it so every tom, dick and harry think they know the game inside out and whats best for any team. There's a lot less respect for a coach and their decisions than their would be for more complex games like Rugby or Hurling where you're dealing with more players and more complex rules that the average joe probably doesn't claim to know everything about.

Murfinator, why do you spend so much time on here when you would clearly much prefer to be posting on www.eggchasing.ie?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion (and I understand your point above about the populist media) but you constantly post on here to wind people up or to belittle football fans or the game itself.

[Stuttgart88]

I agree with murfinator in this instance, esp wrt rugby. Everyone thinks they are a soccer know-all. I'd happily goe toe-to-toe with any ex-soccer playeer and pretty much any half-decent coach on tactics and players' abilities etc. but I wouldn't dare utter a word about a front-row forward or a wing forward to an ex-rugby player, despite having watched rugby all my life.

[elroy]

The problem is soccer is a simple game on the face of it so every tom, dick and harry think they know the game inside out and whats best for any team. There's a lot less respect for a coach and their decisions than their would be for more complex games like Rugby or Hurling where you're dealing with more players and more complex rules that the average joe probably doesn't claim to know everything about.

Good point, too many people see the style of play that Trap adopts as boring and inhibiting the team, when imo in reality its an effective system that is utilising the teams abilities very well and masking alot of its deficiencies.

I think Gilesy once said that sometimes a nil-nil tactical battle can be more entertaining to me than a 2-2 draw.

thankfully the SI thing has died down a bit recently in the papers, replaced somewhat by the A Reid story. But if your going to read red tops you will consistently get trash sensationalist and more than not incorrect journalism........its what sells their papers like it or not!

[Murfinator]

Murfinator, why do you spend so much time on here when you would clearly much prefer to be posting on www.eggchasing.ie?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion (and I understand your point above about the populist media) but you constantly post on here to wind people up or to belittle football fans or the game itself.

I didn't realise you weren't allowed to follow more than one sport at a time!

Some guy made a rather ridiculous claim that all soccer journalists mentally challenged and likened them to chimps and I'm feeling kind of wound up myself that I'm the one getting the stick for disputing that.

Whatever it is about soccer there's a sizable portion out there who view it more as a soap opera than an actual sport and are just looking for talking points and controversy rather than anything sporting. That's undeniable and a shame but I'm not going to go around berating journalists for talking about what a lot of readers want to hear.

[thischarmingman]

Thankfully the SI thing has died down a bit recently in the papers, replaced somewhat by the A Reid story. But if your going to read red tops you will consistently get trash sensationalist and more than not incorrect journalism........its what sells their papers like it or not!

Thank you, what do people expect if they're going to buy newspapers with the reading ages of 9-12-year olds? Loud noises and bangs to keep your mind of those boring old words.

[geysir]

Some guy made a rather ridiculous claim that all soccer journalists mentally challenged and likened them to chimps and I'm feeling kind of wound up myself that I'm the one getting the stick for disputing that.

He asked the question, are all journalists etc etc.
The answer is simple, not all journalists are remedial cases. But there are enough at the press conference who approach the issues of the squad selection with the understanding of a remedial monkey.
It is fair comment to call their "journalism" remedial and express frustration.

Whatever it is about soccer there's a sizable portion out there who view it more as a soap opera than an actual sport and are just looking for talking points and controversy rather than anything sporting. That's undeniable and a shame but I'm not going to go around berating journalists for talking about what a lot of readers want to hear.

The topic is about the journalists at Traps press conference.
I don't know if you have read the print articles about Traps press conference in the Examiner, the Times and The Indo. The first 2 are a good read and give a very fair account of the exclusions, the issues over the exclusions and Trap's rationale. Both articles are without an agenda. However the Indo's article by O'Donnell is poor, lazy and overly laden with conjecture.
I don't know about the rest.

[John83]

If Irish sports journos are "remedial monkeys" (a ****-poor pejorative which mostly highlights the fact that most of the apes who've posted so far don't actually know what "remedial" means), it's because the Irish paper-buying public continues to pay to read their masterpieces of flung dung.

It's kind of like Fianna Fáil - you get what you pay for.

[EastTerracer]

If Irish sports journos are "remedial monkeys" (a ****-poor pejorative which mostly highlights the fact that most of the apes who've posted so far don't actually know what "remedial" means), it's because the Irish paper-buying public continues to pay to read their masterpieces of flung dung.

It's kind of like Fianna Fáil - you get what you pay for.

I accept the underlying point here but there is a great disparity between the different writers not necessarily explained by their respective papers' demographics.

Liam Mackey (Examiner) , Emmet Malone (Irish Times) and Neil O'Riordan (The Sun) have always seemed to me to be pretty fair and balanced.

However Independent newspapers (Sunday, Irish and the Herald) do seem to have had a negative agenda in recent years personified by Dion Fanning, Daniel McDonnell and Paul Hyland. None of them ever seem to have a good word to say and you do have to wonder if this is the house policy.

[Emmet7]

We now have a squad of players who are fully committed to the cause. They are also players who accept the managers judgement.

We can't have players in the squad no matter how gifted who won't do as their told.

If discipline breaks down for one player, there is a danger it will break down for all.

You can't have one rule for one player, and other rules for other players, that would destroy team morale.

As for Stephen Ireland, do we really want a guy who will dissapear the next time his girlfriend is pregnant, or the next time someone insults him, on the eve of a major match. The guy can't be depended on.

As for Andy Reid, if he was in the squad, he wouldn't be a starter on the team. He's be on the bench all the time. I'd say anyone would get p*ssed off travelling all over Europe just to sit on the bench. And if he wasn't allowed bring his guitar or banjo he'd be in a mood.

I think Trap learned from the Saipan episode, that it's better to leave out good but troublesome players than have them disrupting preparation and going to the press to spill the beans every time they have a gripe.

And to the OP, yes, the Irish sports media, well most of them with a few exceptions are lacking in imagination.