Some players England have when you look at the bench and players out injured. I reckon Trent will see more game time under Carsley and rightly so.
No sign of freebies this time out, there have been tonnes floating around on the WhatsApp groups I'm in for recent games.
We are very limited. Have to say, a lot of them are incredibly lucky men to be earning great money playing football professionally.
10 Premier League players in that squad and a few recently were in it. The centre back pairing have gone for nearly 60 million in transfer fees. Our goalkeeper probably worth 40 million. Evan Ferguson was being talked about as the next big thing. Compare that to the quality of other teams in and around us in the rankings. It’s not a great squad but we should not be losing 4 home competitive games in a row, barely registering a shot on target. The problem for me is that the FAI is complete shambles and fcked up the last managerial appointment that set us back 5 years. That is on Delaney as he came up with Mick McCarthy/Kenny transition nonsense. Due to all financial issues and trips to government, there is very little money to attract a top manager and that for me is the main problem with this team. The players are not superstars by any means but the output is chronic compared to the level they are playing week in week out
Played well in a lot of phases in the first half or what I watched of it. Out on the front right we played into soon good opportunities and worked a couple of half chances. Greece defended well as a unit and we had to really work hard to get our opportunities and then one mistake and they were running on to us. The goals were both unforgivably bad at this level but that's not to say they came out of nowhere. We seem to genuinely be in a position now where we're finding a way to lose games and that mentality is very hard to shift. Was good to see us on the front foot yesterday and continuing to try and play a bit albeit with very limited players. I'm very surprised to hear that there's 10 premier league players in our squad, do many start because there's very few that look to be at that level. If we could find a bona fide star or two I think we'd be a different prospect but one of them has to be a goalscorer.
Delaney is to blame but it's not his last manager appointment that have us here. When he appeared on the scene with his stupid face in 2002, we had a good young squad. From then to now, who have we produced? England, The IRFU and the GAA have all accelerated away from us under his watch. Jurgen Klopp would struggle with that team, the midfield is a LOI midfield, basic control, receiving it on the turn, it's as bad as anything in International football. Sell our share of the Aviva and pay off some debt, move the national team down to Cork so they can take their turn at suffering in person.
It's the first I've heard of sending the national team somewhere as a punishment for the fans but I think it's a good idea.
They are bottom of Premier League, top of the championship level players earning some serious money. In 2002 we had Mark Kinsella, Matt Holland, Stephen Reid who were that level and we managed ok. Stan was coming to end, Kenny Cunningham was average and Gary Breen didn’t even have a club. Fair enough we had Keane and Duff coming through but we had plenty of players who were on that brink between the two divisions. Plenty of international teams seeded 3rd for groups would love to have that level of player. Northern Ireland and Wales have gotten big results with League 1 players throughout their teams. Internarional football below the top 5-6 European team is much of a muchness and the record of Ireland over the last 6 years is an outlier. We let our two best players of a generation at underage level walk by bad management but even at that the record of Stephen Kenny is actually hard to fathom.
The two English players? Kind of sums up everything if that's the only hope we have of getting good players to be honest. The only people I blame for Rice and Grealish are the ones who left us so hopelessly stuck for players that our only hope is to try and poach England's second tier players who have an Irish relation, it's embarrassing. They were both right to opt for England. I was dismayed to hear the new gaffer talking about going back to creating a department to try and source more of these types of players.
Stephen Kenny has had a good week, his replacement has managed to keep all the worst bits but also take us back 20 years. At this rate the Kenny years will be remembered as good times, you remember the time we only lost 1 nil? We're just shite, pick any random country and they will have 1, maybe 2 really good players, we have none.
ok two random ones I was thinking about this week. Czech Republic - have a look at their first XI from this week. A lot of them from their own domestic league. Soucek and Coufal decent Premier League players. Wales - Harry Wilson is probably their best player these days. They have mainly Championship players, we probably have a better squad. They have beaten and drew with Croatia, drew with Turkey a few times in last 18 months I am not saying we should be beating top sides, however this squad should be able to at least compete with 2nd/3rd ranked teams on a regular basis.
I'd argue that Soucek and Wilson, would be our best player if they played for Ireland. They're midtable PL players, we don't have any of them. Our midfield play for Southampton, Burnley, Bristol City, WBA and Preston. That's our level, mid tier championship, which is fine if you sprinkle an elite level player or 2 in there. That's a problem, we have Evan Fergusons potential, that's all we have.
Can’t argue with that, Collins seems to be highly rated and has gone for serious cash. The new gaffer seems to be giving him the captain. Wonder is there a case to play him in a deep lying role.
That's the key to improving the national team. Our young players are going to league 1 in England and either coming straight back or dropping down the leagues or going to Scotland. The best way to improve the national team is to make the national league better so that it's more appealing to young players to stay and play their football here so they can develop. At the moment they are taking their chances with any lower level English team as it's their best hope of making it.
But even if we do develop it (which we should), I don't think we'll ever be able to compete financially as an attractive prospect for a professional footballer?
I agree, if a PL team or a leading championship teams comes in for a player in Ireland there will be very little that can be done to stop a player going. However, our goal should be to improve the league where it makes league 1 an unappealing prospect for the players in the league. Improvement won't happen overnight but it should be a priority. Put our resources into the coaches, academies and infrastructure at the clubs in this country and that's where the improvement will come.