World Cup Qualification Group D Thread

Serbias defending is truly astonishing at times as is Austrias, not that ours was much better this evening. But expect to drop points in Dublin and Vienna, if you can contain Bale which based on tonight looks impossible expect to drop points in Cardiff. Along way to go yet, our draw in Serbia on the other hand is massive. 

I don't think Serbia are as good away from home, BB. They're always very good in Belgrade but their form on the road is a bit more patchy, certainly against stronger western or northern European teams as opposed to minnows.

+1

I wasn't happy at all with how we played the first two games. But we won against Georgia (as bad as we were) and got a point against Serbia where the much fancied Austrians lost. When Georgia get something it's written off as a freak result, but having seen them against Scotland, Austria and now Wales it doesn't look like very much of a fluke. What was lucky is Wales getting anything out of that game with the chances Georgia squandered in the second half. These are games you still have to go out and win, and we won it. I thought it was a much improved performance last night to the first two games, and despite our poor performances at the start of the group, from a results perspective we're doing well and can look forward with optimism. We need to get behind the team because so far we can complain all we want but they are getting the job done.

And it's really time for people like you to stop moaning about people who moan.

 

It's a democracy and football is a game of opinions.

 

If everyone agreed with each other, this place would shut down tomorrow.

 

In fairness though, there comes a point where it becomes more than luck, particularly when it occurs on a repeated basis. Its not like in the days of Trappatoni where we inexplicably took a result in Moscow, when Russia didn't want to score, or Armenia and Estonia self destructed on the biggest night of their footballing lives. We rode out luck infinitely more with Trappatoni, and the detail of those games speaks for itself.

With O'Neill, we have achieved results against Germany, Italy, and Bosnia who are all strong teams, while we have played very well in large portions of games against Poland (in Dublin), and Sweden/France in the Euros, only to be undone by a relative lack of ambition. The draw against Serbia was a good showing of resilience, while we could also view the Georgia game through the prism of James McClean's header which hit the bar. Last night's result also had little to do with luck, and more to do with resilience.

I do take the point that the tactics are limited, and that luck has played a part, but there is a serious patten in Ireland's results under O'Neill, which require more than constant rubs of the green to achieve.