2-0 maybe 3-0 to Der Schweiz

Our team simply cant play football 

The question is if we can somehow nick a goal..

In Warsaw in 2015 we had a free run at it. Win and we qualify and yet we played as if we were happy to draw it.

What is the fooking point of keeeping it tight for 70mins?  You are running down your own clock FFS.

We attacked from the off in Paris in 2009 and thats the way to do it.  If we get picked off on the counter so be it.

C'mon robs... be realistic, we didn't have a sniff of goal and he'll play the same useless team 

Spot on... we've been playing toxic football for a long time. Just because the game might have less pressure on us doesn't mean we're going to play like Brazil in the 60s.

We'll play the same team with the same tactics and hope to nick it. 

If the Swiss get one goal, we can still recover as we are a threat from set-pieces. Fortunately we have Duffy and a never say die attitude.

Connolly adds something new. He looks to be a threat from open play. The question is will he get a chance. If the Swiss score more than one goal, we'll need him to set the game a light.

With the way we played this campaign we are due a beating.

Switzerland being interiewed on tv about their upcoming match with EIRE be like:

Mick who?

I can see them scoring 2 or more against us. 

They take the lead in the first half, we come alive at 75 minutes and steal a goal.

Duffy at set pieces is still our most likely route to goal.

We have 2 chances to qualify.

We have to keep it tight but take risks when needed. We should be throwing bodies forward for every corner etc

I can’t see us winning against the Swiss but a home game v Denmark is a great opportunity to qualify. If we can only win 1 match out of 6 v Denmark/Swiss/Georgia then we don’t deserve top 2 IMO.

1-1

But only if Duffy is employed up front, with Connolly playing off him.

Yes, I meant to type 'Duffy'. I am seeking to replicate the Niall Quinn Ibaraki effect, but would settle for the Gary Doherty process.

They could become known as 'The Brighton Bombers'

Jesus.

Lets hope they have more luck hitting their designated target

If they took down the Swiss it’d almost make up for them missing Maggie 

Some dodgy set piece goal in the 4th minute followed by 86 mins of dogged defending and the Swiss hitting the bar/post x4 times. Randolph, Duffy and Egan playing out of their skin.

f**k it - this is the time when we might pull it out of the bag. No one expecting anything except pure misery and suffering. 

A backs to the walls defending game - Attack v Defence for 90 mins and the crowd getting ever more frustrated. 

3.5K Irish packed in to a tiny sh*te ground lifting the roof with the fields of Athenry, knowing full well that we will be picked off any minute and our chances of a tournament go down the swanny. 

We win a few free kicks and threaten their goal with our set pieces. 

They start committing men and look like they could be vulnerable to the counter. We hoof a ball up, Connolly races clear and smashes one in. We go mental, knock the swiss out in their backyard and party long in to the night. I miss my train and my flight but who gives a f**k. 

We are going to the Euros 

#ybig

We need to believe when everyone else doesn't 

“Ireland are so bad” he says

He should in my view but it depends on how much you value the Danes having already qualified in the last game and thinking we are a rubbish team.  

Was Peter.  "EIRE are sh*t"

https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/denmark-legend-peter-schmeichel-seen-20572350" rel="nofollow - https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/denmark-legend-peter-schmeichel-seen-20572350

He’s not lying.

Think he's trying to give us something to pin up on our dressing room wall - if we get any sort of result, the Danes are sorted.

Otherwise its baffling because i've never seen such an ordinary side go on like this

Trying to predict Tuesday's outcome is the usual conundrum.   

I think the  best we can hope for is a dour game in which we frustrate them and that we somehow snatch a late winner or equaliser.                               

We probably have one of the best defences in Europe, we just have nothing else up the field. 

1-0 loss. 

I think we will do ok in this game by our very low standards  and it will give us a bit of hope going into the Denmark game 

This is what irish football is now. A legacy left by Delaney, Trappatoni and o'Neill.

It's actually embarrassing and cant be defended by irish supporters.its been 15 years like this.

Complete overhaul should be a priority, players, manager, style of play, youth setup. 

I think the overhaul should be a priority over qualification and I appreciate that will be an unpopular position with some but enough is enough.

Denmark have always struggled to beat us and it seems to really rankle with them and their fans. Funny enough, I can understand, given that we have hardly troubled their goal over 5 games.

Our players will be undergoing an overhaul soon enough if our youngsters start making the breakthrough. The manager is being changed after this campaign, to one who has a radically different style of play. The youth setup has been overhauled, and we are starting to see the fruits of that overhaul. Furthermore, the League of Ireland has been a proving ground for so many talented youngsters, with quite a few like Scales, Mandroiu, Leahy, Farrugia, Elbouzedi in the 21s and Talbot and Byrne in the seniors over the past year whilst still being in Ireland.

I never get why its a choice between 'the overhaul' or qualification. The idea is that the players who start should be good enough to get us qualification. We get these players for sporadic bursts throughout the year - their development is unlikely to be made by what they do with Ireland at this stage. No point in playing lads that'd mean we're certs to not qualify just for the sake of blooding the youth.

We've had a bad result on Saturday but it by no means signifies that the national set-up is a disaster at this stage.

They aren't good enough to get us qualified though. It shouldn't be a choice of either or but yet we're somehow making of a choice of neither. What there is no point of, is playing lads that mean we're certs not to qualify when they are 28+ years old. Why are we giving debuts to 28 years olds who have never done anything in their career and are actually being outperformed at club level by younger players? 

Aiden O'Brien hasn't a decent scoring rate at any level and is downright atrocious in the Championship. He isn't getting us qualified so why has he any caps and still being called into prelim squads? What was the point of debuting Shaun Williams at 31? Why are we wasting a cap on Hourihane at LB and constantly giving interviews professing the love for Stephen Ward when Ryan Manning is already playing to a higher standard at club level for a poor team? With the added bonus of being 11 years younger and not having stunk the place up for years. 

Is Mr. 1 in 10 McGoldrick going to get us qualified? The striker who has about 2 respectable scoring seasons in his entire career. Daryl Horgan has never done anything outside the LoI. A geriatric Whelan manages to cover even less ground than he did in his prime. 

So who of these are certs to get us qualified? Because this route of only going for qualification certs has seen us not qualify for a World Cup for 17 years with no chance of changing. Even for 2016 we were dragged there by Keane, McGeady, Hoolahan, Walters, Long, Brady, O'Shea. None of which are in the squad anymore and have been replaced by 28 year old debutants who've never performed at even a half decent level. At least those guys had quality at an old age. You can't say that about Alan Judge. So what exactly is this method achieving? Other than playing dog sh*t footballers with a bunch of 30 year olds who will never do anything other than play sh*te football. 

Performances for Ireland could be huge for their development as well. The fact is these young players are at clubs that would play us off the park every day. Why should a player be expected to break into a PL side when we're nowhere even close to being PL level? The likes of Wales, NI, and other countries have given debuts to youth players with no senior club experience and included many in senior camps. A good performance at senior international level would be a huge boost for any of those players at club level. 

The set-up has been a disaster for years and continues to be at the senior level. Until a new style and approach is brought, which hopefully Kenny will do, the team will continue to be a bunch of cloggers playing dogsh*t football and getting played of the park by the likes of Georgia. 

This is what irish football is now. A legacy left by Delaney, Trappatoni and o'Neill.

It's actually embarrassing and cant be defended by irish supporters.its been 15 years like this.

I think the overhaul should be a priority over qualification and I appreciate that will be an unpopular position with some but enough is enough.

Our players will be undergoing an overhaul soon enough if our youngsters start making the breakthrough. The manager is being changed after this campaign, to one who has a radically different style of play. The youth setup has been overhauled, and we are starting to see the fruits of that overhaul. Furthermore, the League of Ireland has been a proving ground for so many talented youngsters, with quite a few like Scales, Mandroiu, Leahy, Farrugia, Elbouzedi in the 21s and Talbot and Byrne in the seniors over the past year whilst still being in Ireland.

I never get why its a choice between 'the overhaul' or qualification. The idea is that the players who start should be good enough to get us qualification. We get these players for sporadic bursts throughout the year - their development is unlikely to be made by what they do with Ireland at this stage. No point in playing lads that'd mean we're certs to not qualify just for the sake of blooding the youth.

We've had a bad result on Saturday but it by no means signifies that the national set-up is a disaster at this stage.

I don't think it should be qualification OR the overhaul either, they are not mutually exclusive. A priority is a hierarchical framework and at the moment qualifying is the priority over an overhaul. Mick just needs to qualify.

I disagree that this is a reaction to Saturday. This is for the past 15 years.

Yes, it looks like progress has been made but it's very hard to see this being implemented if change is not currently the priority

brilliant post

We know we're terrible. The players know.The manager knows. The supporters know. Any unlucky person in europe who decided to tune into the only early  qualifier last saturday knows it.Yet they have to keep telling us over and over. Maybe their grannies will be telling us next month.

Switzerland 3-0.

I don't know how long I've been saying it for.

I would rather see us move away from focusing on results in a campaign and focus on the performance more so and oversee a radical overhaul of the whole set up than try pox our way to the Euros where we will likely be cannon fodder anyway.

The cycle then continues and we end up stagnating with the same old plodders and being lambasted throughout Europe for our 1980s brand of football.

Not a hope the Danes would take it anyway easy

Ah no

Would they not let us win because we are sound? No?

Assuming they beat Gibraltar at home, yes. It would mean that Switzerland cannot finish above them as Denmark are ahead on their head-to-head results.

Denmark will still come to Ireland and try give us a hammering. Thinking they will take it easy on us in unrealistic.

McClean 

Egan 

I dont think they will take it easy, but do I think all the players would give the exact same commitment to everything they do that night if they were already qualified? I dont think they do. Might still be that its still too much for us, but any advantage is welcomed. 

Anyway, most likely it will be a do-or-die game both of us as cant see us getting a result against the swiss

Never say never though, we've seen some crazy results in the past.

How can we qualify in “Gary McKay type fashion”?

Not that we would need another team to do us a favour but when Scotland went to Bulgaria, most people thought they had a 1% chance or less of winning there. I quite like the way our fans have written off qualification tomorrow night.

Things that are more likely than EIRE winning and thus qualifying tomorrow night:

Time travel being invented by the end of 2019

James McClean releases an autobiography ghostwritten by Ruth Dudley Edwards

Paul Gascoigne proves that the theory of gravitational waves was made up bullsh*t by Einstein

Sligo Hornet buying a round (allegedly)