Quote from: tonto1888 on April 04, 2024, 01:39:37 PMQuote from: yellowcard on April 04, 2024, 01:34:49 PMQuote from: tonto1888 on April 04, 2024, 11:19:19 AMQuote from: Applesisapples on April 04, 2024, 10:16:12 AMQuote from: David McKeown on April 01, 2024, 11:09:29 AMNot saying you are one of them, but Armagh fans have unrealistic expectations for this crop of players. The team is in a better place than it was but there's still a way to go to get to Derry's level. Is McGeeney the man, I'm not sure but I don't think there is a queue for the job. Rian O'Neill I understand has had issues outside of the game and is being eased back in. Talking of unrealistic expectations though the fans have placed too much on his shoulders and indeed Oisin's before him. Maybe just let them play football they both are class acts on their day. It was strange I'd say that the best club team in the county didn't have one starter.Quote from: statto on April 01, 2024, 10:29:29 AMQuote from: David McKeown on March 31, 2024, 03:48:00 PMDonegal deserved to win but Armagh were awful. Falling back in to all the old habits I thought they had moved away from this year (Louth match excepted).having saw down Fermanagh and antrim they should be making it with bit to spare.
The manner of the defeat against a Donegal who will get much better is hard to take. I'd no longer be confident of an Ulster final let alone hoping for something more.
In fairness I was maybe a little raw after the match but I am not as confident as I was before yesterday
this is it in a nutshell. Our fans think we are a top 4/5 team when in reality we are far from it
How exactly are we far from a top 4/5 team. We've proven against Galway and Derry in the last 2 seasons that we are on a par with those 2 sides. Arguably should have beaten Derry last season and beat Galway in the group game. Last Sunday was undoubtedly a blow and would make you reevaluate whether we have learned anything from other recent close defeats. I think we are outside the top 3 at the minute but that can easily change on the basis of one result. Our season will be defined by the Ulster championship this year as I don't think many are realistically expecting us to win the All Ireland.
In my view it would be nice to see us just throw off the shackles and give it a go. Irrespective of whether we actually win anything if we can produce football like the 2022 back door campaign I'd be more than satisfied with that. Plus it actually suits our best players to take this approach anyway as the reality is that we've been losing tight games playing the cautious, cagey stuff anyway.
your laast paragragh sums it up. If we played to our capabilites and threw off the shackles then we could reach the AISF. As it is, despite recent QF results we arent close. We dont play good football. We cannot close out games or win big games at CP. We dont have a midfield and we lack that real top quality forward who can guarantee you at least 5/6 points in the big big games a la Clifford or McGuigan
I couldn't argue with any of that but if we opened up and kicked the ball inside more regularly to 2 inside forwards I think we would be closer. And if not then at least we would have something to get behind. We have enough good kickers of the ball to play this style and make us less predictable.
Clifford is a generational player so we don't need to have one of those as long as we have enough other good forwards which I firmly believe that we do. The obsession with risk free football and making every game an arm wrestle might help make us competitive but it won't actually help us win anything.