September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

[Ray de Galles]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

In the same paper, Bale's agent addresses why Wales qualifying would really matter:

“It’s an obsession [for Bale],” said Barnett. “He loves playing for Wales more than anything in the world.

“I’ll tell you it has cost him millions and millions of pounds. You can imagine what it would be like if he was playing for England next summer. But playing on the international stage is so important if you want to win the Ballon d’Or.

[Jah Womble]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

You can imagine what it would be like if he was playing for England next summer.

Yes, just imagine the millions that'd have put on his value. I mean, who knows who might've come in for him.

[Ray de Galles]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

I blame Barnett for not getting him a transfer to England before now.

.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

That paul doyle line there illustrates one of the problems we're facing. Shane long had one chance, it was blocked, as a result it's difficult for Martin O'Neill to trust him. On the other hand Robbie Keane has been turning in absolutely garbage performances for over four years now, and that's not held against him. If we limit the chances of all the other strikers to get on the pitch, only remember their misses, and completely forget Robbie's rank performances, then we're always going to be stuck in this terrible cycle.

[treibeis]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

dalliance wrote: Probably like a few others here, the last active player I could say I grew up with disappeared when Paolo Maldini finally retired in 2009.

If goalkeepers are included, Jens Lehmann retired two years after Maldini.

[dalliance]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

Lehmann only really appeared on my radar about a decade after Maldini though.

[anton pulisov]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: That paul doyle line there illustrates one of the problems we're facing. Shane long had one chance, it was blocked, as a result it's difficult for Martin O'Neill to trust him. On the other hand Robbie Keane has been turning in absolutely garbage performances for over four years now, and that's not held against him. If we limit the chances of all the other strikers to get on the pitch, only remember their misses, and completely forget Robbie's rank performances, then we're always going to be stuck in this terrible cycle.

Yeah, and it also ignores the point that Robbie Keane, even when he was knocking in brilliant goals in his peak years, was always the king of fluffing crosses. Usually by trying to do an overhead kick.

If you look at the Georgia goal you will see that once it is clear that Hendrick is breaking through, Long immedieately moves away from the six yard box at speed, pulling the Georgian number five to move out of the six yard box with him. If the Georgian number five hadn't done that, then he would have been in a position to intercept Hendrick's cross. It was a clever little move, but not the kind of thing that makes the highlights reel.

[dalliance]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

Isn't the reason that Martin O'Neill can't trust Shane Long because he has had a lengthy career demonstrating consistently that he's not a clinical finisher?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

I'm not sure that matters, when the alternative is a player who doesn't get on the end of any chances at all, or move, or get a touch on the ball when your opponent is in the top two thirds of the FIFA rankings. when we're playing an opponent other than the tiny whipping boys in our group, we're playing with 10 men if we've picked robbie keane.

Robbie Keane is in the Ireland as a result of magical thinking. When he tapped in the ball from a yard against Gibraltar, Ronnie Whelan launched into a rhapsody about how Robbie had five goals in his seven qualifiers, and how he was a great goalscorer etc. THat breaks down to five goals against gibraltar, and no goals in the other six qualifiers he has played in.

the reason that no player has come along to replace robbie Keane is that no player has been give an extended run in that position to find their feet, or given the same patience that Robbie himself got.

We stuck with Robbie keane when after scoring against holland in the eighth minute of our first qualifier, he didn't score for the rest of the qualifiers. If we played 4-2-3-1 with brady, houlahan and walters behind long for five games, with coleman bombing up the wing, overlapping walters, with walters getting to the back post when brady is knocking in crosses, then I'm pretty sure we'd eventually start to play well. But as it stands, we pick some of those players, but put them in odd formations that don't make very much sense, and when it doesn't immediately work out, we switch back to Robbie.

[anton pulisov]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

The problem is that Shane Long gets compared to the 25 year old Robbie Keane instead of the 35 year old Robbie Keane.

The 35 year old Robbie Keane has consistently demonstrated in this qualification campaign that he can't score goals against international teams that are not Gibraltar. Robbie Keane's goals per minute ratio in this qualification campaign is worse than Shane Long's.

On top of that, the 35 year old Robbie Keane offers no pace, fitness or aerial ability. And no goals either. He offers nothing at this stage.

Long's pace and runs help to stretch opposition defences, which opens up opportunities for other people to score. As was evidenced against Georgia, when Ireland put in a much better second half after Robbie Keane was substituted for Long at half time.

[Borracho]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

I was happy to have Keane as our main striker up to and including Euro 2012, despite his increasingly glaring limitations, because at least there was the chance of him sticking away a goal even if he didn't contribute much in general play. Since then, the rationale for picking him has ebbed away completely. He should have followed Damien Duff's lead and said goodbye after the Italy game in Poznan.

Shane Long probably isn't the answer but I can't see who else we can realistically go with. We're completely fucked for centre-forwards.

[anton pulisov]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

Yeah, Duff and Dunne retired with dignity.

Shay Given was always one of my favourite Ireland players until his recent refusal to retire. I have a feeling he is going to throw one into the net in an important match.

[Borracho]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

Looks like Jack Grealish has plumped for England over Ireland. Mind you, after the way he played in the Cup final, I'm struggling to give two hoots one way or the other.

[Sean of the Shed]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

If Jack's summer holiday is anything to go by, then there really is only one country he could possibly belong to.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

September's Euro 2016 qualifiers

Antonio Pulisao wrote: The problem is that Shane Long gets compared to the 25 year old Robbie Keane instead of the 35 year old Robbie Keane.

The 35 year old Robbie Keane has consistently demonstrated in this qualification campaign that he can't score goals against international teams that are not Gibraltar. Robbie Keane's goals per minute ratio in this qualification campaign is worse than Shane Long's.

On top of that, the 35 year old Robbie Keane offers no pace, fitness or aerial ability. And no goals either. He offers nothing at this stage.

Long's pace and runs help to stretch opposition defences, which opens up opportunities for other people to score. As was evidenced against Georgia, when Ireland put in a much better second half after Robbie Keane was substituted for Long at half time.

I think that you mean a 28 year old robbie Keane. Robbie keane was pretty awful for ireland when he was 25. he let down brian kerr with a terrible bang, and only scored against the faroe Islands and the likes.

GC, I think it was pretty obvious from the start of the 2011-12 season that Robbie had completely fallen off the cliff. He wasn't getting a touch on the ball.

I think ultimately the thing about shane long is that he's one of the fastest and strongest forwards in the premier league. We've never had anything like that before. He might be an erratic finisher, and might need 5 chances to score a goal, so then the challenge is to give him five chances, and that is possible when you have a player that fast, strong and good at jumping. Also he works so hard that he enables you to play the ball around, by running around and linking up and keeping possession. A player like that gives you enormous tactical flexibility, whereas currently we're limited to having ten players working hard to generate breaking ball in the six yard box for robbie to tap in. We've been doing that for too long. It's time to try something else.