FAI...Spring friendlies for Interim Manager - Belgium/Swiss

Started by Cúig huaire, November 19, 2009, 01:34:00 PM

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GalwayBayBoy

Topping the group is almost out the window I'd say. The Russians have 4 of their last 5 games at home.

Between us and the Slovaks for the play-offs. 6 points from the next two games against Macedonia would come in useful for a start.

muppet

We qualified for one European Championships ever.

Granted there are more teams in the Finals now, but do this lot have the quality to achieve what far better teams failed to?  A central midfield of Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella seems like a dream now, never mind Keane and Townsend or Townsend and McGrath. Ronnie Whelan, then Captain of Liverpool, couldn't always get in as a central midfielder.

The only player with a current 'big' club is John O'Shea and he isn't a nailed on starter for United. Compare that with the days of Keane and Irwin at United, McAteer and Babb (no laughing) at Liverpool, McGrath and Quinn started at big clubs, and remember a decade ago when Harte, Kelly and Robbie were at Leeds who were a 'big' club.

Even our journeymen were quality players like John Sheridan. Compare him with what we have today.

Why do people expect us to make it? Is it unreasonable to demand qualification from players who inhabit the bottom of the Premier League table and lower?

Will you be surprised when we don't take the expected clean sweep of points from the 'minnows'?
MWWSI 2017

stephenite

The amount of continentals and others playing in the top tier of English football has increased considerably since the days of Euro 88, Italia 90 and USA 94. Perhaps this influx has had more bearing on what club our players are at as opposed to it just being down to a deterioration of the quality of players?

Ireland have only ever a handful of world class players. Liam Brady, Roy Keane and Paul McGrath being the ones that spring to mind, the others were handy support players, but would a man with Andy Townsends abilities play in todays Premier league?

ballinaman

Anybody watch the webcast interview with the 3 boys in the studio??

Liam Brady didn't know that James McCarthy still can play for Scotland because he hasn't been capped for Ireland in a competitive game...FFS like!!

sammymaguire

Quote from: The Real Laoislad on October 12, 2010, 10:49:04 PM
Stokes?
Ahead of Doyle?
Wow........

I totally forgot about O'Shea, certainly in there at centre back or holding midfielder and yeah, Stokes looks like the real deal waiting to happen and Doyle just does not score enough goals for a striker  :-\
DRIVE THAT BALL ON!!

omagh_gael

Jaysus Sammy that's awful harsh on Doyle. No Irish striker has a significantly better goal scoring record and Doyle sets up loads of goals and is now widely considered as a top quality premiership striker. He has to be the first striker on the team sheet, Keane place is where the questions marks should be??

Shamrock Shore

No competitive matches until the end of March 2011. Thank God.

It's a struggle watching this shower. I know silk purses and sow's ear and all that but if I could have reached into the telly and given Robbie Keane a root in the hole I would have.

Roll on the O'Byrne Cup.


lynchbhoy

Quote from: Shamrock Shore on October 13, 2010, 09:19:15 AM
No competitive matches until the end of March 2011. Thank God.

It's a struggle watching this shower. I know silk purses and sow's ear and all that but if I could have reached into the telly and given Robbie Keane a root in the hole I would have.

Roll on the O'Byrne Cup.
fairly obv that keane was not at the races in the last two games and Doyle worked hard for nothing last Fri. The style of play doesnt suit him at all. Yes he can get on the end of long balls to flick on - but whats he point !
Surely Big Cillian Sheridan would be better suited to that kind of game.
I'd also start Shane long as his pace and work rate are superb. Robbie keane seems to fcuk things up. Hes a great servant to the team, but needs 5 chances to score 1 and gets the harder ones and misses the easy opportunities! imo

Id like to see stokes getting a run with Celtic and then hopefully on to the Irish senior team.
Long, Doyle or Stokes competing for the front two positions, with keane also - if he gets back on form.
Soccer in general has become very slow and boring. Even the top countries now play the cautious approach which bores the life out of you. Spain or argentina are the only teams that include a bit of flair some times that I can think of.
We dont know how lucky we are to have Football and Hurling to watch most of the year - imagine having only soccer !  :o
..........

AFS

Quote from: muppet on October 13, 2010, 12:47:48 AM
Is it unreasonable to demand qualification from players who inhabit the bottom of the Premier League table and lower? Why do people expect us to make it?

It's not particularly unreasonable. Every two years several countries that inhabit our tier of world football are able to find their way into major tournaments. Despite not having playing resources significantly superior to ours, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark were able to find their way into this summer's World Cup finals.

Croí na hÉireann

#415
Roll on the O'Byrne Cup is right. Missed opportunity, should have sneaked the win & prob would have if Robbie brought his boots. Awful touch to bring it around the last defender, I'm surprised he didn't try to blame it on the pitch. As for the penalty, well it couldn't have been at a nicer height for the keeper. Thought Fahy & Long did well, someone needs to teach McGeady how to cross and O'Shea needs to be center mid, disaster area.

Edit: Anyone see the news last night where the fans on the trains were gushing in their praise for Floppy Delaney for forking out for the takeout on the train? It must have cost him a fair chunk out of his €430,000 salary  ::)
Westmeath - Home of the Christy Ring Cup...

muppet

Quote from: AFS on October 13, 2010, 09:58:40 AM
Quote from: muppet on October 13, 2010, 12:47:48 AM
Is it unreasonable to demand qualification from players who inhabit the bottom of the Premier League table and lower? Why do people expect us to make it?

It's not particularly unreasonable. Every two years several countries that inhabit our tier of world football are able to find their way into major tournaments. Despite not having playing resources significantly superior to ours, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark were able to find their way into this summer's World Cup finals.

We are demanding qualification up of just our lowly lot. Pointing to a few bottom feeders who have qualified out of all the bottom feeders isn't really an argument.
MWWSI 2017

AFS

Quote from: muppet on October 13, 2010, 01:00:33 PM
Quote from: AFS on October 13, 2010, 09:58:40 AM
Quote from: muppet on October 13, 2010, 12:47:48 AM
Is it unreasonable to demand qualification from players who inhabit the bottom of the Premier League table and lower? Why do people expect us to make it?

It's not particularly unreasonable. Every two years several countries that inhabit our tier of world football are able to find their way into major tournaments. Despite not having playing resources significantly superior to ours, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark were able to find their way into this summer's World Cup finals.

We are demanding qualification up of just our lowly lot. Pointing to a few bottom feeders who have qualified out of all the bottom feeders isn't really an argument.

Qualification for every tournament is obviously asking too much of a team of Ireland's stature, but we should be pushing hard more often than not and should be making hay on occasions when we're drawn with weaker than average top seeds. The teams I mentioned are not bottom feeders. They are Pot 2 and 3, mid level teams. There is room for 4-6 of these mid level teams at every major tournament. Given this, I'd suggest that qualification for every third, or at least fourth, tournament would be about breaking even for a mid level team. It could be argued that, with a solitary qualification on the record, Ireland have been punching below their weight for the last 15 years.

Croí na hÉireann

Was just reminded of this and in light of recent events I thought it was quite apt...



This is the sort of mindset we need to move into after our push over
performance yesterday:

(my favourite is the Archie McShitt story)

This was actually posted on the Sheffield Wednesday Website.

"I'm feeling all angry about these modern day footballers, I know why they have gone all soft - It's because of poncy names. That's what it is. Remember in the old days, when foot players kicked a f**king ball made out of ten pound of clay stitched inside a steel-reinforced leather shell with laces made out of piano wire?

Well, in them days players could only survive the rigours of the game because they were called things like Albert, Arthur, Bert, Harry, Bill, Eddie, Bob, Jack and Tommy. F**king tough names for tough men, them was.

And what do we have now? Jason, Wayne, Dean, Ryan, Jamie, Robbie. F**king tarts' names, they are. Great big f**king puffs. No wonder the ball's like a f**king balloon and shin pads is like slices of bread. In the old days you never saw a Len Shackleton or a Billy Wright with a puffy little Sondico piece of paper down his little thin socks. F**king shinpads in them days was made out of library books, and socks was like sackcloth.

Same with the jerseys. F**king shirts with holes in now so they can breathe. Yes, so that little Jody's hairless chest can breathe and he doesn't get a chill. F**k off. Stanley Matthews used to dribble round Europe's finest wearing a f**king tent and shorts cobbled together from the jacket of his de-mob suit. Aye,he f**king did. No wonder players fall over all the time whenever an opponent comes anywhere near them.

And they never used to show their arses at one another either. Can you imagine what might have happened if Don Revie had flashed his ring at Nat Lofthouse during a City-Bolton Wanderers game? He'd have got one of them size 10 hobnail f**kers up his bastard chuff.

F**king therapy for stress my arse! Stan Collymore slaps his missus about and he takes three seasons off with stress counselling. What the f**k is that all about? In the old days it was expected for footballers to belt the old sow about a bit, specially after a bad defeat. And the women used to
expect it, and so they should have. They was lucky to be married to footballers.

Ha! Trevor Morley got a kitchen knife in his back off his wife and was out of action for three month. Soft twat. Archie McShitt of Port Vale got run over with horse and cart one Friday night and he still turned out against Bradford the following day. And he scored two goals. That's cos his name wasn't "Trevor". Good old Archie. Broke his hip, both his legs, murdered his wife and buried her under the patio and still made the England team for the Home Internationals. Did he have any "stress counselling"? Did he bollocks!

And drugs? There was none of that in the old days. Oh, no. In them days it was a quick shot of morphine before kick-off and you was lucky if you got that. By half-time it had all but wore off so they pumped you full of laudanum. None of this cocaine sniffing and shooting up class A
narcotics.

Goal celebrations? Don't talk to me about goal celebrations. Crawling on the floor and thrusting their hips at the crowd. Huh! I'd like to have seen Cliff Bastin do that after a run down the left flank and crossing for Alex James to fire home a winner. Handshakes...and that was all you got. That and a w**k in the showers afterwards. But it was a proper w**k...all man stuff. None of these puffy w**ks between blokes that you get nowadays with players like Greame Le Saux and Stephen Gerrard. Allegedly. In them days,there was nowt wrong with it cos it didn't mean nowt. They used to say there was a "gay atmosphere" in the dressing room after the match. But it didn't mean owt mucky. Just a bit of harmless spanking the plank among healthy young sportsmen. Aye. I know. Me dad told me.

Sixty grand a f**king week! Ha! I wouldn't pay 'em tuppence. Two bob Tommy Lawton used to get...a month! And Tom Finney still worked as a plumber four days a week when he was playing for England. It's true, you know. F**king is. Players had to work them days just to make up their money. Not like today.

Stan Pearson had to clean sewers and doubled up as Old Trafford shithouse cleaner. He had to go off during one game because some c**t had built a log cabin and blocked the U-bend. And that Eddie Hapgood was a male model...though he never liked to talk about it.

So I say we start calling kids real male names again. If you're having a kid, don't even consider puffy names and shite names like what people call their kids these days. Otherwise what we gonna get in twenty years' time?

The England team full of players called Keanu, Ronan, Ashley and f**king Chesney. F**k that! Call your kids Alf, Herbert, Len, Frank, Fred and Wilf.

And let's get the puffs out of the game once and for all
Westmeath - Home of the Christy Ring Cup...

The Real Laoislad

Just read the FAI laid on a train for those supporters who booked the hotel in the city where the fixture was to take place,also Delaney paid for drink for all for the train journey.
Fair play to them and him,credit where credit is due.

I'm sure someone will have a moan about it though.. 
You'll Never Walk Alone.