Ireland v Latvia match thread

But the goal vs France wasnt similar in nature to several of the others, it has just become a trope now. The French goal was a passing error from inside the box, rather than a failure to close down the space to oncoming attackers. It is clearly a concern, but perhaps overstated imo, the Latvian goal was a worldie from 25 yards out.

In fairness, I never said that a 1-0 wouldn't imply being on the back foot. But that it means the defence held up to scrutiny and did its job. From a defence, you cant ask more more than a clean sheet.

The defence last Wednesday comprised a 20yo, a 21yo and a 24yo, who had never played together before, 2 of whom were badly in need of game time as were the GK and the RWB. The LWB wasnt really a defender and Molumby was playing the Cullen role which is pretty new to him, so it's kind of understandable to a degree that the defence didnt cover themselves in glory on the night.

The reason I didn’t mention the attack is simply because they did their job, generally. And as part of the progress is good to see EF get off the mark and Ogbene continue to score. But, it would be more rounded if the defence keeps a clean sheet. I don’t think we have the players to outscore teams ( i.e. you score five, we score six), so it’s important for our defence to remain robust. We are demonstrably less robust, defensively speaking, at the moment, than we have historically been, 

Elite 

Gaff wrote: When is the squad announced?

About 3 months ago. We won 3-2