randy. 7

Coleman 5

duffy 5

keogh 4

stevens 4

 

doherty 5

hendrick 5

hourihane 5

mcclean 5

 

mcgoldrick 6

maguire 4

 

Brady 5

@rter 5

Coleman-5

Duffy-4.5

Keogh-5

Stevens-4.5

Doherty-4.5

Hourihane-5.5

Hendrick-6.5

McClean-3

McGoldrick-5.5

Maguire-5

Coleman 4 - Far from the worst out there

Duffy      2- Why does he think he is Ronald Koeman or Lothar Matthaus?

Keogh     3- Little better

Stevens   3- Did he complete a pass

Doherty   4- Similar to Coleman. A bizarre substitution

Hendrick 3- He got the goal, he was dire otherwise. Hiding against Gibraltar is just embarrassing.

Hourihane 2- He had a couple of decent set-pieces, but was atrocious in general play. His passing is pitiful

McClean-1 For turning up. A waste of a jersey. You would expect some fight from him, tonught his fight amounted to a stupid yellow card and nothing else.

McGoldrick- 0 Pitiful. Hopefully he changes boots for Tuesday, the concrete ones aren't working

Maguire- 1 The one is for the eyebrows.

Coleman 2

duffy 2

keogh 2

stevens 3

 

doherty 4

hendrick 2

hourihane 2

mcclean 1

 

mcgoldrick 3

maguire 1

The lack or of urgency to get a 2nd goal was brutal. 

Maybe someone had bet 100K on a 1 0 scoreline ?

Houriane 2, and Maguire better than McGoldrick?? My god, you are a crank and a half! 

He did point out it was purely on the eyebrows. If McGoldrick was as well endowed in that department I am sure he would have gotten 1 too.

You may be right about Hourihane, I am willing to knock him down to 1. Maguire and McGoldrick were equally as bad as each other, but Maguire has the eyebrows.

Coleman did okay going forward.

 Stupid yellow picked up by Stevens. 

Thought McClean was dire and should’ve been hooked at half-time. Not Doherty’s day - close marking and the narrow pitch definitely didn’t suit him. 

Hourihane had a good first half - very good really - but faded in the second-half like everyone else. 

Nice finish by Hendrick but nowhere in the second-half either.

 Maguire looked out of his depth - didn’t get much service but looked far from convincing.

 McGoldrick did relatively well, especially first half. 

If you’re taking the mick, fair enough, but if you really think Hourihane didn’t have a decent first-half, then I don’t know what planet you’re on tbh. 

Coleman 5

Duffy      4

Keogh     4

Stevens   3

Doherty   4

Hendrick 3

Hourihane 5

McClean 2

McGoldrick 3

Maguire 2

We were playing a bunch of amateur pub footballers on their day off from work, anything less than 4-0 even for a team of our talent pool is pitiful

You have to be taking the piss! They were the better team for the first twenty minutes!We couldn't get a hold of the ball in the midfield for the whole game. Both Hendrick and Hourihane should be embarrassed and ashamed. If that is him being decent then he should retire.

Positives: there was obvious plan in final 3rd. Hendrick scored, coming from deep. This wouldnt have happened under MON. Jeff was obviously under instruction. Hopefully Mick's influence on players will grow as campaign continues. 

Tuesday at home on an actual pitch, and not blowing a gale, will give us a better idea of where things are at. 

If Hendrick did ‘shame’ he’d have retired a few years back.

Took us a while to get any foothold, agreed, but your ratings of 1s, 2s and 3s make you come across like an online version of Roy Curtis tbf. 

I wish he f**king had! 

We just beat a team of amateurs and semi-professionals 1-0 with an abject performance, I think the marks they got are fair.

That is my opinion, if you don't like it I have loads of others!

Player ratings are so stupid anyway

Coleman 1

duffy 1

keogh 2

stevens 1

 

doherty 1

hendrick 4.5

hourihane 4.5

mcclean .5

 

mcgoldrick .5

maguire .5

Disgusted. Randolph saved 2 points on his own. Joke of a performance by the rest. 

I would genuinely give Duffy 0/10. Hendrick 1/10 for a lovely finish. Hourihane 1/10 for the 2 or 3 lovely dead balls. McClean 0/10. Randolph should get 8/10 for a massive save. A save that could well have saved us from our worst result in history if they'd gone ahead. Stevens 1/10. Actually thought the Coleman Doherty combination wasn't nearly as bad as what was going on around them. McCarthy should have left them persist with it. McGoldrick at least attempted to get on the ball a few times and show some composure. 2/10. Maguire 1/10 for a lovely ball to Coleman that nearly ended in a lovely goal. Still think Maguire is massive for us for the next few years, by far our best finisher. Keogh 2/10 for a good block. Brady 1/10. Arter 1/10.

Please let that remain a threat, and not become a promise. 

I feel obliged now...

Best have a lie down 

But, but we won! And Jeff is great! He played well once in a big game!

The most depressing thought of the evening

Jaysis, that is a new level of embarrassing from you. Are you that insecure in your opinions that you have to insinuate those who disagree with you are gay? Most people stop doing that around the age of 10...

No no me and sean dyche also see it. Ya the PL coach.

The term 'man-crush' doesn't imply homosexuality, nothing from that post did. 

 

No cohesiveness, nobody leading the team. Coleman too meek. 

There is a serious lack of leaders alright. There was a lot of lads looking around for a leader,  none taking the responsibility themselves. I know I have said it before, but it is truer now than ever before, we are badly lacking a midfielder with confidence and responsibility. They don't even have to have much ability, although it would help!  The two lads today didn't even try to impose themselves on Gibraltar. That is criminal and why I find some of the posts saying they did ok as baffling. A proper midfield today and we win the game easily, it may not have been a hammering or a stroll, but there would have been very few nervy moments,. 

If you have a midfielder who constantly  looks for the ball, Duffy and Keogh  don't launch it as much, or, if they do , they get an earful for it. In the first half, a half where Hourihane and Hendrick are being absolved of any blame by some on here, nobody came and put their foot on the ball and started stringing a few short passes together to get some momentum in the game and show which team is superior.  Whelan, for all his limitations and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about him still being in the squad, would have provided that. I just hope he was just being rested for Tuesday.

I also think that Egan should get the nod ahead of Keogh. In games where we are the favourites, you can't have two central defenders whose first thought is to aimlessly punt the ball. Egan seems to be the better in this regard.

McCarthy does have to take some blame too. There seemed to be a deliberate tactic of trying to put the ball into the corners for Maguire to chase. I would be unable to understand the logic of that on a  grass pitch, on a surface with very little traction it was bonkers. The changes made little sense either, I am sure there was some logic to them, it just wasn't apparent to me. If he was keeping Whelan for Tuesday, he should have brought Arter on at half-time,  as poor as I think he is, to try and introduce a bit of drive into the midfield. It really felt like we played ninety minutes without a midfield structure, which is one of the main reasons we all got so fed up of MON...

Coleman 5- Needs to do much more in a green shirt. 

Duffy 4- Poor game and missed a few half decent chances

Keogh 5- Not much to do but still didn't fully convince.

Stevens 5- Tried to get forward though needs more composure.

Doherty 4- Didn't work out for me. Didn't look comfortable and gave the ball away a lot.

Hourihane 6- Probably our best outfield player. Kept the ball nicely without offering much penetration really.

Hendrick 5- Well taken goal but still capable of much more.

McClean 3- His worst game in a long time in an Irish shirt. Gave so many silly fouls away and offered nothing.

McGoldrick 5- Looked ok at times but lacks pace and can be a bit wayward with passing.

Maguire 3- Offered nothing. Will need to do far better to have any chance of a permenent role in the team.

Subs

Brady 4- Out of position again but still was poor enough. Had a few good positions to do something but chose the wrong option.

Arter 4- At least tried to get on the ball and move it but wasn't great. Still think he should start against Georgia. 

A 5 is a pass mark??

That is truly astonishing mathematical excellence.

 40%, is often usually considered a pass mark. The lowest level of performance acceptable. I would be strongly of the opinion that not too many managed that.

Anybody calling anything at this stage needs to have their head examined.

Didn't realise it was a university exam standard were conducting. But if it was then yes not too many would have made it. As it is it isn't a university exam and to me 6 is average and work from there.

Not trying to be smart, but if it failed the pitch inspection, why was the game allowed to go ahead?

Probably UEFA saving face. They're the ones who told Gibraltar they have to XY and Z to get it up to standard. They did. UEFA said go ahead. Then it fails bounce test. UEFA didn't want to do a u-turn at late stage.

Surely six is above average, 5 is average and 4 just below? It is all f**king irrelevant anyway.

We know the pitch is terrible and the wind was awful, it excuses nothing. Gibraltar played the conditions far better. We continued to hump the ball into the wind or into the channels, despite everyone being able to see that this  was giving them a chance.

It cannot be underestimated how bad most of our players were yesterday. A 0/10 mark for Duffy and McClean is fair and also kind to them. Hendrick 1/10 for a lovely finish for the goal but an all round deplorable display is also fair.

All the while many are talking about how Doherty Coleman didn't work. A setup given 50 odd minutes to settle. What an absolute cod by McCarthy to hook Doherty and leave the likes of McClean on btw. I was of the opinion before this game that McCarthys tenure is going to be a disaster and pretty grim. I really didn't think that it would effectively be dying a death after 1 game against Gibraltar though. Wasn't Mick brought in to get us back playing some semblance of attacking football? What the game plan yesterday, puc fada competition was it?

Yes. Dundalk would have looked more comfortable and won more comfortably.

Emmet Malone in the Irish Times wrote yesterday that "The pitch here , as it happens, has apparently been the subject of repeated inspections this week by Uefa who obliged the hosts to keep working on it before finally passing it as fit to actually stage the game on Thursday".

I did hear something on Newstalk on the bounce test.

I presume that Gibraltor will be obliged to play all other home group games there.

You would hope so and would hope the FAI would raise any objections to it if not

I certainly am not suggesting they will. However, what I am saying is that if we had to go there and play on that pitch they should too. What I would be seriously annoyed about is if UEFA decided the pitch wasn't up to standard and they had to move to Faro. 

Exactly fair is fair. We played there so the rest should / will have to.

There was serious concern speaking to locals on Thursday that is would have to move to faro with only 48hrs notice.

Failed a bounce test and appearnetly never passed one either. Everything given the go ahead to save face. The whole set up there was simple a shambles.

Makes league of Ireland grounds look like the camp nou

If we'd played without Hendrick, we literally would have drawn the game  The man has once again provided a moment of quality to win us points, but apparently because he is who he is that counts for nothing...

There is literally zero chance of Switzerland or Denmark dropping points to Gibraltar. It wouldn't matter if the games are played on that Astro pitch, on a grass pitch in Faro or on the actual Rock of Gibraltar itself.

The fact that Coleman and many on here are hoping that the Swiss and Danes have to play there, and that so many are using it as an excuse for one of the poorest Irish performances I've ever witnessed is something to behold. The majority of players and the management were simply appalling yesterday. To go on about the pitch, the wind etc. when we were playing against a bunch of amateurs and struggling to put 2 passes together as a team is comical to say the least. 

We are already clutching at straws under out new management. I'll ask again, as there were an awful lot in favour of McCarthy coming in, does anyone know what the actual game plan was yesterday? Was it to tell Shane Duffy to kick the ball away as long and as often as possible? 

We are in for a grim year. A much grimmer year than last year even I'm.

Just highlighting the fact that is far from ideal conditions.

I'll wait until Tuesday to judge any of them

The fact that you believe that if Hendrick wasn't on the pitch the score would have been 0-0, says it all really. What if we'd played with 10 instead of Hendrick, still 0-0. What if we replaced Hendrick and had 11 but a player who could actually get on the ball in midfield against a team of  part timers. Still 0-0. What if we replaced our whole 11, started a different 11 would the game still finish 0-0 without Hendricks goal?

Mick's input yesterday was really, really worrying. There was no logic to anything he done. It is too early to be pushing the panic button, but Tuesday is even bigger than it was already. I mean, if we draw on Tuesday the campaign will be over, sow what will be the point of him? Let him potter about and hope we get a playoff?

I agree as well with what you and a couple of others have said about our midfield. Whelan now has to start. I cannot believe I'm saying that but he has to. He shouldn't be next or near our squad imo, as we should be looking to build a new younger squad, but we're now in a situation because of the 23 that McCarthy has selected that Whelan must start the Georgia game. Along with Arter also.

What other options is there in midfield?

McCarthy is injured.

Crowley is a number 10.

Hoolahan is retired.

Meyler is a League 1 sub.

Who else could McCarthy pick in the 23 to play instead of Glenn Whelan? 

2018 was a write off. 2019 will also be a write off. If we had used the bones of 20 games in those 2 years to build, we could be in a very decent position come the playoffs in March 2020. Instead by the end of 2019, we won't even be at square one. We will have managed to fall even further behind and confidence in the entire setup will take longer to build up again under new management.

Hans whats the name of the planet you live on? Id like to visit it for a vacation some day. Come on man.

That should have been done in the Gibraltar game surely. Then Byrne would have a game under his belt going into the Georgia game. The midfield selected by McCarthy yesterday was absolutely baffling. If those 2 lads play in a 4 man midfield against better sides, we won't just not qualify. We will also be embarrassed in the majority of our group games.

I'm not sure what you mean? 

Do you think we will qualify from this group?

Do you think we will be in a better place in 12 months time as a squad and team than we are now? 

Do you think we are in a better place as a squad and a team than we were this time 12 months ago?

The lack of foresight at times is scary tbh.

Indeed. It won't be long until you realise we haven't any chance of qualifying from this group. It could even be 48 hours away before you are singing a totally different tune.

I see you didn't answer most of the questions I put to you either, which is quite telling as they're not exactly tough ones.

As I've said, the lack of foresight is scary. 

We have two hopes and Bob is dead. 

Hans, what I will say is that Mick was brought in with the goal of qualification and was always going to pick his strongest squad. I agree that this campaign should have been written off and try to really bring some  lads through, but that isn't what Mick has been told to do.

In any case, it may well be a year or two too soon for a lot of the young lads.

The lack of foresight left right and centre in Irish football is scary though. Many thought that because Mick had us playing some great football in the '02 World Cup, we'd be a totally different team to the last 18 months under MON. We are a massive rebuild away from being near a competent football team. We are regressing game on game at a rate of knots for almost 2 years now and that will continue.

Jesus Christ, man, will you wait until Wednesday anyway? 🙄🙄

Would be interested to hear what you think that squad should be.......