On a negative forum due to negative results, lets have a place for positivity.

There were some positives to talk about from this campaign, i.e. our possession stats.

Or upcoming players breaking into the team and showing great promise, i.e. J. Knight.

What are your 'positives'? 

The positives we had have disappeared. Playing hoofball again.

Moulmby, Cullen, Knight, O'Shea look like they MAY become half decent

That is all.  Goodnight.

As bad as we have been we have given O'Shea Knight Idah Parrott Moulmby some gametime. Will surely stand to them in time.

As much as he gets stick i think Hendrick has rediscovered some of his better form under Kenny. Thats my opinion.

Better possession stats which is a start. Need to capitalize on our chances.

 

I would agree with you on Hendrick. I think we really missed him tonight. Cullen was decent when he came on. Really need him to establish himself at Anderlecht.

Apart from tonight the passing and possession have both been positives.

While he didn't score, I also thought Collins looked useful tonight and when he came on on Sunday. Don't get why he was written off so quickly on here. 

I'm not sure he is any closer to knowing his best team than he was at start of Sept though

But it needs white shorts, not green like tonight

I'm optimistic that we will wear white shorts in future as Bulgaria usually wear green shorts - I think we only wore green tonight to prevent a clash

We didnt lose

Knight: for a young fella and quite raw, had also a super attitude.  Seems like someone you could hang your hat on. 

Cullen: came on and seemed like he was quite suited to a conductor role. Ok he is no roy keane but he was able to make space in the middle, receive a pass, put the head up and pick out a good pass.  We have seriously lacked that in other games.

We have a lot of players to come back and a vaccine has been found:

The sooner things get back to normal, players don't have to pull out for covid reasons and we have the fans back in out stadium  we will be able to lift it up a gear im sure

 

3. O'Shea is quality. We have a good back 5 overall. Duffy needs to improve or be dropped.

 

4. Cullen will be a functional player for us. The likes of Smallbone and Knight have potential. McCarthy is still there. Midfield could become half decent.

 

5.  Parrot and Connolly could be a very good strike force.

 

End of Year Report

 

This requires a massive rebuild. A rebuild that imho is way beyond Kenny's scope. Plenty of good experienced managers will be available next year that knows our calibre of player and will command the respect of the dressing room. Kenny is now a lame duck manager. It's obvious. He's done. Pay him off.

 

 

Surprised by the quality of his movement as I saw him as a stopper. His passing was also crisp and accurate.

He reminded me of D***** R*ce. Amazing that he played across the back line, but i reckon he would be our best midfielder if we put him there.

I'd go a step further and go 3 at the back, with no Duffy or Long.

Coleman Egan O'Shea. 

Doherty and Stevens on either wing then.

The fear I have we get relegated to group C and everybody thinks it’s a formality we bounce back up but we end up a mid table group C team.

So today after reflection, this is a small positive.

I’m still angry about the subs. Every one should have been made 10-15 mins earlier. 

Brady's set piece deliveries were decent for the most part.

 

That's about it really.

We definitely won't be drawn against Denmark or Wales in the next Nations League tournament.

Shane Duffy very likely to win Goal of the Year at the next FAI Awards, place your bets down the bookies now!

Losing that took the wind out of our sails and the boat was then torpedoed by Covid and injuries from which we never recovered.

Even with that, we should not have lost twice to Finland in very even games and we had the beating of a very poor Wales side in the home match.

Seems all the gods were out against us and I am hopeful things will swing around in the new year.

We are now drawing 0-0 with teams. 

I do think we are creating chances in games. Duffy missed headers he was scoring before.

Kenny has now seem a lot of players available to him and I would expect he has his first team in mind.

Players promoted to the first team from u21s with oshea, molumby and Knight standing out. 

Consistency-wise, last night was the best they've been in years.

Another positive is I think it's clear Byrne can play at this level, regardless of whether he's a Rovers player or not. Whether he gets another opportunity is another thing, but he deserves one.

On the basis of what?

Whipping in a half decent cross from a free position against a pot D team shorn of nine players?

I'd be confident enough of managing that

Need a bit more than that I'm afraid

Kenny clearly thinks he's not up to it as he only threw him in as a last resort after several matches, in a match where we were down the very bare bones

This is one instance where I would trust Kenny's judgement

Daryl Horgan put in some very nice crosses, better crosses, over the last few matches and some people here are lamenting him being even in the squad and saying he's not up to the level

He was constantly showing for the ball and wanting the ball a lot more than some of the players and was able to move the ball into positions quickly which again contrasted to others.

Yes, he did get caught dwelling on the ball once but also showed he can quickly track back and put in a good tackle to stop the counter. Should have been given a longer run last night as could have made more of difference given longer. 

Per Emmet Malone in the times today: 

Cliche time: Goals change games. You have to take your chances. 

We haven't, and so everyone thinks it's the end of the world - the good news is, there have been chances. 

In each game we've played (apart from against England maybe..) there has been at least one clear-cut chance made that we would expect to score. I'd argue that the quality of those chances was better than anything we would have made (scored or otherwise) under Mick 2nd time, or even back to under MON or Trap. 

Like the Curtis one the other night - we opened them up by passing, had a good ball played to player running through on his own in the middle of the goals with only the keeper to beat. That's not the kind of chance I'm used to seeing us making - and in future, hopefully our players will start taking them.. is that the kind of chance that a Connolly or a Robinson or a Parrott would take better advantage of? 

So yeah, results were crappy (not like they've been amazing since 2016), but lots to be positive about if you actually like football and want to see the Ireland team develop into a good ball-playing side. 

Roll on the draw and the qualifiers, and let's hope we can get back in the ground and cheering them on! 

 

We are a lot more open and look much more vulnerable. Our main attacking potential comes from our full backs but the system negates their attacking threat and exposes their defensive frailties. The high line and lateral passing in our half is high risk low reward strategy.

 

However, if we look at the goal scoring issue with perspective 

Would mccarthy have done better over the last 8 games? I seem to remember some pretty shocking games against Gibraltar. Kenny has started badly but let's not pretend that mccarthy was some sort of tactical genius.

Under Mick we conceded 7 goals in 10 games (2 games v Gibraltar) 

Under Kenny we have conceded 7 goals in 8 games 

so the stats don't bear out the contention that we're more vulnerable.. 

if you limit it to competitive games: 

Under Mick we conceded 5 goals in 8 games. 

Under Kenny we conceded 4 goals in 7 games. 

again, no real indication that we're more vulnerable.. 

But yeah, tell me again how your eyes see something different to what the facts suggest - or are you a "you can prove anything with facts" merchant?

we can go back further if you like: 

Under MON, 55 games, 56 conceded (>1 goal a game)

Under Trap, 64 games, 64 conceded (=1 goal a game)

Let's see where SK ends up after 55-65 games and then we can talk about if the system he wants to play makes us more vulnerable.. 

btw, Big Sam - wasn't he the one who took bribes after finally getting the England job? haven't you had enough corruption in Irish football with Delaney? 

So what yer saying is...we're due a load of goals to even out the stats.

Gotit 

Knight and o'shea have been impressive which is good to see. Would like to see cullen get some more games. 

Good to see troy parrott fit again. Hopefully he can break into the millwall team now and get some more experience.

Can you explain this? How is our expected goals greater than 1 when past experience tells us this isnt the case?

im not sure you understand what expected goals is. it has nothing ti do with prior experience, its an analytical formula

You're right, I dont understand!! I'd have thought an analytical formula would take account of past experience, if we only ever score one goal a game  why would we be expected to score more than one? Does it look at chances created and calculate their difficulty?

Isn't it balanced out though by the fact we also played Switzerland and Denmark in the last campaign, who are both stronger than the opposition SK has faced this far (aside from the Wembley friendly). Both were at the last World Cup, Switzerland topped their Nation's League group last time (ahead of Belgium and Iceland), and the Danes have held their own in this year's Nations League.

I would say the big, massive, positive is we now have an LOI manager in charge of the national team. This is something a significant section of the fans have wanted for decades (perhaps not a majority but certainly an incredibly vocal section of the fanbase). In Stephen Kenny they have their man in the driver's seat. Kenny was the most credible LOI based manager, I acknowledge he had a brief spell in Scotland etc, but he is first and foremost and LOI manager. If his appointment is a success then we will know that managers with (primarily) LOI experience are proven viable options for the national team.  If he is a failure then at least we can tell that section of the fanbase we tried, but we would probably want to consider casting a slightly wider net in the next search for a manager.