Micks first eleven.

           Arter Whelan 

O’Dowda Robinson Brady

              Maguire

Think that’s the best footballing side we have available if all are fit. 

If James McCarthy can ever get back playing games for Everton then he starts ahead of Arter or Whelan. 

He's played pretty regularly this season actually, despite missing a couple of months with injury.

 

Agreed. You could tell after the first couple of minutes into the game that it wasn't going to be a comfortable evening for us. The conditions were terrible and we certainly weren't playing to the strengths of the pitch either - unlike the hosts. That's the first time Gibraltar have been allowed play their competitive home games on the pitch and it's the same pitch that all ten teams in their league use. They know exactly what it's like and how to play on it. Getting out of dodge with the three points was all we needed to do. Also, as poor as our performance was, there were two or three occasions where it looked like we were definitely gonna score only for the ball to whizz just past an upright. We'll know far more about Mick's Ireland tomorrow when we play a proper team, in a proper stadium and in non gale force wind conditions.

 

Having said that, we should clearly be winning more comfortably no matter the conditions against such limited opposition. We still have big issues with our midfield and even bigger ones with our forwards. We look desperately short on quality in the final third of the pitch. McGoldrick did well for the goal but apart from that didn't inspire much confidence. Maguire looked well off the pace bordering on out of his depth - which is an obvious concern considering the opposition. And yet again the midfield never got it down and tried to play a bit of football. Hourihane had a few good deliveries but from general play was as poor as Hendrick was. The substitution of Doherty was bizarre - thought it was definitely worth persisting with as now he's essentially ruled himself out of trying it again. It wasn't working out too great but considering the state of everything else it wasn't the worst aspect of the display either.

 

It will be very interesting to see how we get on tomorrow night. I watched the Georgia-Switzerland game and Georgia did their usual - lots of decent build up play but no cutting edge whatsoever. We're a bit like that at the moment less the decent build up play. In truth Mick will be working miracles to get this group of players to finish ahead of either Denmark or the Swiss.

Full list of excuses:

The pitch

The wind

The loss of  S.Long

Scotland are sh*t

Have I missed any more? 

 

If Doherty is on the bench against Georgia it really is a comical start to the new managers tenure. Btw why were so many also opposed to Doherty and Coleman switching sides. Surely one of them is at least adequate on their left side. It's not as if we have Roberto Carlos ensconced in the LB position for the next decade.