What's everyone expecting? 3 Points Should be easy here right? Armenia like although hear their home record isn't that bad. Republic of Ireland squad to face Armenia Goalkeepers Shay Given, Keiren Westwood, Joe Murphy. Defenders John O'Shea, Richard Dunne, Sean St Ledger, Greg Cunningham, Kevin Foley, Stephen Kelly, , Darren O'Dea, Kevin Kilbane. Midfielders Glenn Whelan, Darron Gibson, Paul Green, Liam Lawrence, Aiden McGeady, Andy Keogh,Keith Fahey, Forwards Robbie Keane, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long. Cillian Sheridan
We hvae a lot of injuries, think recently they ahve done well v portugal or someone like that but yeah we'd have to be winning this one really, we do have a bad squad going out though but a team of: Given O'Shea Dunne St Ledger Kelly Lawrence Whelan Green McGeady Keane Doyle Should be able to beat them comfortably Id imagine
this will not be an easy 3 points spain only beat them 2-1 in the last campagian and beat belgium at home and the heat is gonna be a killer for the players hope we can nick it by 1 or 2
1-1 or a narrow win for Ireland would be my guess. Long way to travel, injuries to one or two key players and playing in hot temperatures won't make this one bit easy.
See I was thinking about backing us at 4/6 dunno now. Few Good points made there. Armenia just sound rubbish
To be honest were missing Duff and Andrews of the team that played towards the end of the last qualifying campaign and think Mcgeady will do just fine in for Duff so 3 points definately should be our aim
McGeady or lawrence havent played yet this season though so they may not be fully fit. Robbie Keane and given have not really played either. Was dispointed given chose to stay at city and pick up big money rather than regular football at fulham to be honesst but anyway he did so nothing can be done there. These have n players of note as far as i can make out and we need to be winning and getting 6 points from our two games - anything less isnt good enough IMO. 4/6 though? nO FOOKING WAY!
Aug 11 2010 Iran Lost 1:3 May 25 2010 Uzbekistan Won 3:1 March 3 2010 Belarus Lost 1:3 Oct 14 2009 Turkey Lost 0:2 Oct 10 2009 Spain Lost 1:2 Sept 9 2009 Belgium Won 2:1 Sept 5 2009 BIH Lost 0:2 Armenias last few results. Didnt take any hammerings and good result against Belgium and not bad against Spain! All were played at home except Turkey and Belarus.
This has to be 3 points if we have any serious ideas of topping the group Im not assuming a walk in the park but i think we will sneak it 2-0 / 1-0 Under Trap we haven't being exactly high scorers against anyone. I expect a cautious approach with it being early season, high temperatures and team that needs to gel I think will be 0-0 till well into second half but hopefully we should be too good for them
They have one player of note, Mkhitaryan, Shaktar just paid €7 million for him,he scored a hat-trick against our U21's last year so he's one to be wary of. Our away record in eastern Europe is almost Celtic like and with the withdrawals I'd be glad of a 1-1 or 0-0. A win would be a great start but I don't think we will. I was supposed to be goin to this but unforseen circumstances meant I had to cancel on Sunday, gutted. Mates of mine arrived there 6am today and they txt me to say it was 18*c this morning and it rose to 34*c during the day and was 26*c at 8'oc their time which is kick off time(4pm here). Just as well Stan's not there, he'd fry!!
On a side note, did anyone see Seamus Coleman when he came on for the last few minutes of the everton villa game??Looked very good and was causing the villa defence trouble, one for the future and hopefully he'll feature in the qualifiers at some stage