Players who didn't live up to expectation

The Huntacha wrote: If the Robbie Keane metric is being used, the you have to include the Duffer. Absolutely ran Spain ragged in 02, but never manager the same sort of us over the following 10 years. Again, injuries played a part in that too.

Gary McKay wrote: The Huntacha wrote: If the Robbie Keane metric is being used, the you have to include the Duffer. Absolutely ran Spain ragged in 02, but never manager the same sort of us over the following 10 years. Again, injuries played a part in that too. In fairness to Duff he played for the best team in England at the time and won two league titles. He also ran Barcelona ragged one night.

Citizen wrote: the entire 'golden generation' were a massive disappointment, who woud have thought after 2002 that group wouldnt beat a higher ranked team let alone qualify for a tournament for over a decade.   I include Duff, Keane, O'Shea, Dunne, Carr, Finnan, Given (To be fair was consistently the best performer among that group). pretty pathethic tbh, especially looking at the players we have now

Considering in '04 we had very ordinary Russia and Switzerland sides as our main rivals, and McCarthy threw the Swiss game in the last 15 minutes trying to get a winner to save his own job, that for me would easily top the '06 campaign.

Het-field wrote: I would say that our 2006 WC Qualification was easily the biggest disappointment in our annals of modern football in the country. The squad we had was more than capable of topping a very average group, where France even gave most a head start, and we came fourth.

Kerr couldn't have done much more in the 2006 campaign. We were robbed against the Israeli's twice and their keeper punched Andy O'Brien and got him sent off! Although I do attribute some blame to the substitution of Graham Kavanagh for the injured Robbie Keane in the same game.

We weren’t robbed against Israel. We totally robbed ourselves, notwithstanding Dudu’s despicable behaviour that night. We were the architects of our own downfall in both Israel games. Little separated us and the Swiss and we should have beaten a French team in turmoil in 2004, when we got a 0-0 draw in Paris. That ignores our awful performance in Nicosia, and our profligacy against the FI in Dublin. People seem to be forgetting the difficulties in the French camp when the group started and which ran into early 2005. We withdrew after scoring against Switzerland in Basel.

Back on topic - bar Robbie Brady, struggling to think of a high profile young Dublin player who's moved to England who has gone on to make a reasonable impact in recent times. 

engpad wrote: Back on topic - bar Robbie Brady, struggling to think of a high profile young Dublin player who's moved to England who has gone on to make a reasonable impact in recent times.  By high profile I'm thinking along the lines of lads who were hyped as agents began to be more involved, Anthony Stokes, Conor Clifford, Richie Towell, Aaron Doran, Gavin Gunning, Eoghan Stokes, Jack Byrne, Alex O'Hanlon, Daniel Cleary, Conor Masterson. Hope the same doesn't befall Glen McCauley, Troy Parrott etc.  Will be really interesting to see if it's different for Gavin Bazunu having come through the LOI route and played a few first team games before making the move.