We’re not Brasil we’re Tuaisceart Éireann

Well yeah, except that his club form this season has been terrible - can't get into a dreadful Newcastle team, fans want him out of the club already etc

Not so much of a loss if we play 3 at the back, though I personally wouldn't opt for that.

If we play a back four, I personally would pick Stuart "Madeley" Dallas there - he's done it for both Leeds and NI and done it well.

irishmufc wrote: @Territorial I assume 3 points is the main objective from the opening two games away to Italy and home to Bulgaria?

Guess so.

Italy are now unbeaten in 22 games under Mancini, so I don't hold out much (any?) hope there. The only thing is that they've not played together for 5 months either, so might start slowly? Also Mancini is normally pretty defensive, so might be happy enough to sit on a 1 or 2 goal lead? (They did hammer eg Liechtenstein 6 and Armenia 9 etc, but I'd expect us to be more obdurate)

irishmufc wrote: The Swiss are obviously one of the most consistent if unspectacular regular qualifiers (as we've found out to our cost in numerous qualification campaigns the horrible coonts ) but It wouldn't surprise me if Bulgaria held them to a draw in Sofia.

Don't need to tell us what horrible coonts the Swiss are - esp Xhaka and Shaqiri - and they were really jammy in beating us in the 2018 play-offs.

As for Bulgaria, you obviously know more about them than I do, but I really don't think they very good at all: 2 wins in 22 games - a 1-0 ECQ vs Czechia and a 3-0 Friendly vs Gib, both at home.

Ranked 36 in Europe doesn't say much for them, either.

So I'd expect Switz to beat them in Sofia and us to win in Belfast.

Tbh, SD could play in any one of 4 or 5 positions and he'd be better than the player he replaced.

But if Lewis is out we may need him most at LB, seeing as we've already got a number of average midfielders who can do a job there (sort of), and we're likely to play only one up front, two maximum.

Besides, he played virtually the whole of last season at LB for Leeds and started this season there, too (although he's since been moved further forward).

But who knows, Bara may have different plans: like Michael, he seems to pick his formations and tactics according to the opposition being faced.

irishmufc wrote: The Bulgarians have gone to the dogs but they could spring a surprise in either your crowd's game with them or the Swiss in Sofia (Hopefully it's the former)

It's always possible we'll fail to beat Bulgaria.

But whereas previously we were as easily capable of beating a Big Boy one week, then losing to a minnow the next, the basis of Michael O'Neill's success was that we consistently won the games we were expected to win, even if we didn't pull off any shocks ourselves. And I get the feeling that Bara is cut from the same cloth.

irishmufc wrote: I don't think Italy will hammer N.I. in the first game either tbh. A tight little stadium in Parma with no crowd suits your lot more than the home side. Italy will need to get the early goal as the longer it goes on without one, they could panic a bit.

I don't think they'll hammer us, but that's primarily because Italy are traditionally "The Kings of Doing Just Enough".

And it's even less likely that we'll cause them to "panic" - we've not done that to other teams since David Healy retired!

He's very small for a goalkeeper. Doesn't have much presence at all. Though Mark Travers is huge and that didn't benefit us last night.