SQUAD Greece (A) - Gibralter (H) June 2023

It's delusional to think we are going to qualify from this group. 

A draw away from home against Greece is a good result no matter way you look at it.

Vlachodimos - Benfica's #1 GK. Lots of Champions League experience.

Tsimikas - Plays for Liverpool. Quality backup LB. A key man for Greece.

Baldock - Juts won promotion with Sheffield United. Decent PL player.

Mantolas - A very experienced CM with title winning experience.

Bakasetas - Their star man. 11 goals from 55 caps. A technical AM.

Giakoumakis - Did well at Celtic. 8 goals from 11 games since switching to Atlanta United.

Pavlidis - 15 goals from 23 Europa League and Conference League games. Prolific at club level.

Depends on how you look at it. A draw for us means 1 point after 2 games and an uphill battle to qualify, which is tough for us as we wanna qualify.

But looking in from the outside, a 1 nil loss vs. France where we gave them a good game and nearly equalised and then going to Greece away and getting a draw, you would look at that and say Ireland are doing alright. 

Bookies have Greece as favourites. We can demand results that we want and curse the manager if we don't get it, but this particular one we are not expected to win so a draw is acceptable and anything more a bonus

tetsujin1979 wrote: t_rAndy wrote: You Tell Me wrote: I think every result has to be taken in the context of the group we are in, not groups we were in during previous campaigns. Especially as it is the manager's second full crack at a qualification campaign and the odds of the playoffs are against us. For Kenny it's likely going to be this or nothing, unless he gets very lucky with the playoffs. So, in the context of where we find ourselves, a draw is as bad as a loss. Depends on how you look at it. A draw for us means 1 point after 2 games and an uphill battle to qualify, which is tough for us as we wanna qualify. But looking in from the outside, a 1 nil loss vs. France where we gave them a good game and nearly equalised and then going to Greece away and getting a draw, you would look at that and say Ireland are doing alright.  Bookies have Greece as favourites. We can demand results that we want and curse the manager if we don't get it, but this particular one we are not expected to win so a draw is acceptable and anything more a bonus To give ourselves the best chance of finishing ahead of Greece, we have to get a least a draw and a win from the two games against them, otherwise we're depending on bettering their results against France and the Dutch.

But finishing ahead of Greece is useless at the same time, unless we finish ahead of one of the other two also.

If we don't beat Greece we're likely going to need to win both games against the Dutch. I think there's a way that we could technically do it with four points off the Greeks and the Dutch, but we need other results to go our way - but Netherlands could easily beat an already all but qualified France at home in October for instance and that would be it for us then if we haven't won in Greece.

We can presumably put the Gibraltar games to one side as irrelevant - everyone else will surely take six off them. That leaves us with six games - Greece x2, Netherlands x2 and France x2 - if we've only taken one point from two of those games after this window and still have to play France and Netherlands away, I think we can safely say it's over.

Sorry my friend, but that is absolute horsesh*t. The hereunder are Greece's results in home competitive internationals since Oct 2019. They are clearly a very difficult team to beat and concede very few goals 7 in 12 games. Only Spain have beaten them and they have beaten teams who are at least on a par with ourselves - Bosnia, Finland, Sweden.

Their players are arguably at better clubs than ours, certainly have more European club football experience and have more international experience. Comparing the last 2 international starting XI's they had an average age of 28 and average caps of 28 compared to an average age of 25 and caps 24 for ourselves. 8 of their starting XI had 20 caps or more, compared to just 4 of ours. They are an experienced outfit, dogged, difficult to beat and will be a very tough opponent in the heat. Any kind of result would be a good nights work.
 

France are going to have qualification already wrapped up before they go to Netherlands or Greece, which are both late in the group. I doubt they'll be anywhere near full pelt in those two games - why would they bother when they'll have already qualified?

There's hope, there's expectation, but there's also realism. A draw here would be a great result as it will be for the Dutch. I hope for a win obviously, but any rational analysis as evidenced by the bookies odds suggest that a win is unlikely. I would take a draw now and move on.