All top spot requires is win all your home games, beat Lux and Abz away and then a point away to Serbia or Portugal. 19 points should be enough. Always sounds easy on paper.

But realistically we are aiming for RU spot.

It’s possible but for me I think this campaign is one year too early for some of our promising players/ forwards. 

I think 14/15 points - a few draws in there. 

I really don't get these comments, surely people should give their honest opinion as opposed to blind positivity for the sake of it?

We are a bang average side on a horrendous run, there is absolutely nothing to suggest we will finish second in this group on current form.

We will be lucky to finish close to 14 points never mind anymore.

Optimists live longer than pessimists so actually its objectively better to be an optimist.  

An optimist has all the fun before the game whereas a pessimist is down before and after the game  

Exactly, we have barely scored a goal in 2 years this is a rebuilding campaign.

How profound. 

Serbia score goals rather easily though, we don't.

Portugal -0

Serbia -1 (draw at home)

Lux - 4 (home win, draw away)

Aze - 4 (home win, draw away)

This is pessimism top trumps 😀

Serbia are a good draw from Pot 2, but they were a good draw in 2016 and we got one point off them. I would expect a "backs to the wall" style approach against them. If Ronaldo is playing for Portugal, you could have the better of the game and he'll still pull something out of his locker that nobody would stop.

I want to have the old mentality that second place is in our grasp. But the last three years wouldn't suggest that. While we are seeing the development of players like Kelleher, Molumby, Collins Parrott etc which is all very positive,  and the likes of Josh Cullen settling in in Belgium this may be at an early stage and not sufficient to action it in time to make the most of this campaign, and we may need this campaign to bed in our new team. Especially as I feel that change may need to come, especially if lads who wouldn't normally be in the team are sitting on benches and in stands around the uk.

 

If we did very well in the NL games we would be sitting on a play off spot as it stands .

Murph so you are saying that Kenny should have had us finished top of the nations league group having just taken over the job. 

0 from Portugal

1-3 from Serbia

10-12 from the bottom two

Anything over 15 is bonus territory for me. 

 

If you look over their results from the last few years they've suffered very few hammerings. I think it's far from certain we'll be taking full points off them but thankfully I think the same can be said of Serbia in their games with them.

 

 I am saying that the last 8 games did matter and Kenny kind of blew it off last night . The teams we played were at the same level as we were and yet we were shocking .

 

You said we have to see an improvement in March as for whoever we play we can't have two defeats as it's a long wait until Sept .

Results in the last 12 months include a 2-1 loss to Cyprus, a 2-1 loss to Liechtenstein and needing an own goal and penalty to beat Azerbaijan 2-1

They have a few young players currently playing in the Bundesliga too.

We ended up missing 14 players from the original squad for the November games but do continue on with this spiteful stuff. You've had the knife out from Day One for him. 

They have two Bundesliga players

 

Not really sure what the relevance is of how their scored their goals against Azerbaijan, but that's another decent enough result for them. My point is they are not the absolute whipping boys they were in the past and certain posters don't seem to be aware of this. The majority of their games are close enough affairs no matter who the opposition is. Perhaps they are still one of the better teams we could have got from pot 4 but I wouldn't think there's too much between themselves and the likes of Belarus, Bulgaria and Macedonia.

What do you want him to say.  That we were sh*t and to be honest I am notmup to it I had 5 games to prove murph wrong and I blew it and to be honest they should probably sack me now and be done with it.   Every manager has to be an optimist esp to the press ffs.  The players would be disgusted If he either said they were not up to it or he wasnt up to it.  

Don't know about you, but I would consider a team that lost to Liechtenstein this year as absolutely muck, and if we are already making excuses for not being able to beat them then we don't deserve to be competing for a WC spot

It was a friendly and it was Luxembourgs second string to boot.

That actually sounds really difficult on paper.

And even harder in reality.

In terms of points, I'd expect something like this

Group A.............points

Portugal................22

Serbia...................17

Ireland..................13

Luxembourg............4

Azerbaijan...............1

The best case scenario is: 

Portugal beat Serbia twice, and the Serbs only manage a draw away to Azerbaijan. 

Then it's up to Ireland to get a draw off the Portugese in Dublin, and also four wins against Luxembourg and Azerbaijan. 

So even with defeats in Lisbon and Belgrade, Ireland can reduce the campaign to a one-off game in Dublin against Serbia to decide second place.