Thursday, 18 October 2018

Not Quite Another Ryan's Slaughter

Considering that fingers can certainly be pointed in Darren Randolph's direction for the goal that proved to be Wales' winner Tuesday night, it's ironic that it was probably his stoppage-time save that stopped the atmosphere turning really poisonous. At least that's how it felt after George Thomas fluffed his lines when one-on-one with the Middlesboro stopper in the 93rd minute. While there were audible boos from the crowd when the ref blew up a minute later, I've no doubt a second goal for Ryan Giggs' team would have amplified them to a level that would have been far more difficult for Martin O'Neill to farcically shrug off as being aimed at the referee.

The most frustrating aspect of Tuesday for me was that the first half was undoubtedly an improvement on what we had seen against Denmark on Saturday. Yet, once Wales went ahead, the old failings came to the fore once again as our play lost any semblance of shape in our attempts to salvage something. The chaotic nature of the last twenty minutes could as easily have resulted in a two or three goal slaughter rather than an equaliser. We ended up with neither and instead took another nick in what seems like a death by a thousand cuts for this regime. 

There was still a bit of a matchday buzz around the city as we made our way over from the Northside with food and drink pit stops in Fagans, Mulligans and The Gingerman. But it was mostly coming from the Welsh fans dotted around the city and when we arrived at the Beggars, there was a lot more room than normal. 

To be fair, it was a midweek game and once it got to an hour before kick-off, there were plenty of bodies milling around. However, I do wonder if the fact that so many tickets were given away for free through schoolboy clubs meant that a good chunk of the crowd was coming in with their kids for the match alone. I've no issue with anything that encourages the next generation of fans to come along but the sheer volume of tickets rumoured to be handed out does raise questions about how fair that is to those loyal supporters who pay for the dubious privilege of watching this team. 

With Callum Robinson's cameo one of the bright points from Saturday's draw and rumours about Shane Long's level of fitness, it was no surprise to see Robinson named to start. Aiden O'Brien's performance in the Poland friendly had obviously been enough to see him given the nod in place of Callum O'Dowda who was suffering from concussion. Otherwise, it was the same team as three days before with the Cyrus Christie experiment in central midfield continuing. 

Meanwhile, the loss of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey had left Wales without their two best players. Ethan Ampadu, their Irish qualified young prospect who had done so much damage to us in Cardiff was also missing so the team Giggs sent out was hugely inexperienced with an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old and three 21-year-olds lining up. And for all the talk about the lack of Irish players playing in the Premier League, our team contained six players currently playing there compared to three for Wales.

The Welsh are a nation who know how to belt out an anthem and their rendition of Land of our Fathers was certainly rousing while the malaise around the Irish set-up seemed to have made its way into the stands with a half-hearted Amhrán na bhFiann bringing us to kick-off.

After the criticism of the overly defensive nature of Saturday's set-up, it was clear early on that our defensive line was further up the pitch, meaning that the formation looked more like the promised 3-5-2 as opposed to the five at the back that was consistently apparent against the Danes.

James McClean was getting forward well from his left wing-back position and had got stuck into both Joe Allen and David Brooks in the first six minutes before winning Ireland's first corner on eight.

The corner came to nothing but Ireland really should have taken the lead a minute later. Wales were playing the ball out at the edge of the box when a slip from Matthew Smith let Christie in on goal. A desperate swipe from Smith's trailing leg clipped the ball and forced Christie into a more central position and it may have been that which caused him to take it on first time when advancing closer on goal was the better option. Regardless, Wayne Hennessy in the Welsh goal scrambled back and the lack of pace on the shot meant he was able to push it past the post. It really was a gilt-edged chance and should have seen Ireland ahead.

A defensive error by Shane Duffy at the other end nearly let in Tom Lawrence for Wales' first chance but luckily the ref had spotted a handball and the game settled down in a bit of a nip and tuck manner again. While Wales had about 60% of the possession, neither side was in the ascendancy and it was definitely a better watch than the Denmark game. There were encouraging signs from the likes of Robinson and James McClean was looking more comfortable playing in the higher line, as was Matt Doherty.

However, comfortable saves from a Tyler Roberts shot and a Duffy header were the only real incidents of note until the 40th minute when Ireland actually managed to string a number of passes together and work the ball to Robinson in an encouraging position. Unfortunately, his shot from just outside the box was charged down by Lawrence. 

And that was pretty much it for the first half. Nothing spectacular but a step up from the weekend and the hope was the second period would see it raised another notch.

While things did move up another notch after the break, unfortunately, it was Wales that did the raising as they started doing more with the possession we always cede to the opposition. The first ten minutes were uneventful enough bar the usual McClean booking and O'Neill was the first manager to blink with the ineffective O'Brien replaced by Shane Long on 56 minutes to a fairly indifferent response from the support. But he hadn't even had a chance to settle into things before the defining moment of the game.

It was a very rash decision from Harry Arter to go to ground as it looked like Tyler Roberts would be doing well to create a chance from an overhit pass. But go to ground he did and that was the start of a series of errors. Darren Randolph's wall was all over the place and you could clearly see the gap that Wales' Joe Allen was standing in from our vantage point at the other end of the ground. 

Regardless of that gap, Harry Wilson's strike was fairly central and should have been meat and drink to the keeper even allowing for the fact that Robinson turned his back to it. Why Randolph thought it was a good idea to second guess Wilson and take a step to his left is beyond me but it left him stranded as the ball sailed in, to the delight of the Welsh fans behind that goal.

Mind the gap

Given the utter lack of a cutting edge these days (the only team Ireland have scored more than one against in a competitive game in the last two years is Moldova), it was hard to see where an equaliser would come from. But the approach that was taken to chase the game was scattergun in the extreme.

I don't know if it was the fact that he had turned his back on the ball in the wall but Robinson was hooked not long after despite looking like our biggest threat. Seanie Maguire replaced him. Given the two play together at Preston, would letting them play together not have been a better option than bringing a misfiring Shane Long on?

Long did find himself through on goal a few minutes later and was lucky he was rightly called offside considering he managed to hit the bar rather than the net with his finish. 

The longer the game went on, the more desperate we seemed to become and any semblance of structure went out the window. A couple of Hendrick efforts were blocked. Scott Hogan was introduced replacing Kevin Long which seemed to leave us playing a 2-5-3 formation.

The harum-scarum nature of the game at this stage meant we were really susceptible to counter-attacks and Arter did well to get back and block Lawrence after losing the ball himself. James Chester put a header wide when he should have buried it. Lawrence and Roberts snatched at chances.

We were still creating the odd half chance but it was aimless stuff in the main. Maguire put a header into Hennessy's hands and Duffy lashed at a chance but put it well over. A couple of long throws were launched into the box and pinged around but nothing really came close. Maguire hit another shot over the bar before McClean hit a stoppage-time effort straight at the keeper. 

Another Hendrick corner went straight into Hennessy's hands again before what looked a final attack was launched with another booming clearance from Randolph. Duffy actually won the header from the centre-forward position with Ireland seemingly playing four up front by now, Arter was caught in possession and Thomas really should have hammered the nail into the coffin but was tentative with his shot and Randolph saved with his foot. 

There was still time for another Ireland corner which Randolph came up for and the confusion he caused led to the ball bouncing back to Arter. But his shot was slashed at and his claims for a penalty smacked of the desperation that had marked our second half play. The ref wasn't buying it and promptly blew up leaving the players slumping to the turf and the fans booing roundly. The rest of our night was spent picking over the bones of the last week. And mostly moaning about it.

How low can we go?

It's not an exaggeration to say that the national team are at a very low ebb right now. And it's very difficult to see things changing in the near future. The last year's results have been the worst since the Steve Staunton era. Nine games have brought a single win and even that came with a last minute winner against a second string USA team. The five competitive games we've played have seen two scoreless draws and three defeats, two of them heavy. 

But it's the nature of the defeats that are the real worry. The competitive games have all been against teams supposedly from the same level as ourselves. The format of the Nations League is set up to ensure that. Yet, we've looked woefully short of where Denmark and Wales are despite both playing without their top players.

While the Under 19's brought some light to the situation with their win against Holland on Tuesday and will enter December's daw for the elite phase of the European Championships, there are clearly issues within Irish football as a whole. Under 21 results have been poor for a long time now and after eight years in charge, a change from Noel King should be implemented.

Unlike Wales, the Senior team has remained a distance away from the underage set up in terms of playing style etc. While results were being achieved, there was an argument that that was all that mattered. Discussion needs to happen in that regard now but that's a longer debate for another piece.

At present, any analysis has to look at how the management are fulfiling their role. Martin O'Neill himself admitted in an Off The Ball interview last August that he doesn't believe he has the players for long enough to work on systems in training. He consistently talks down the ability of the players he does have without taking any responsibility himself. Numerous ex-players such as John Giles, Keith Andrews and Gary Breen have pointed this out as a recipe for disaster.

He's admitted that he doesn't tell players they're playing until an hour before kick-off with his logic being  "Well, I've always done that for a start and I did that the night we played in the UEFA Cup final for Celtic against Porto who went on to win the Champions League the following year," 

It's a laissez-faire attitude that doesn't seem fit for purpose fifteen years on from that UEFA Cup final. Especially considering that O'Neill is the fourth highest paid international manager in Europe. It's obvious that the individual involved won't change. The last 12 months should therefore mean that the manager should be changed before the full qualifying campaign starts. Yet his salary means it would take a huge leap of faith for the FAI to do that and it's one leap I just can't see them taking.

Monday, 15 October 2018

Nothing Fresh In This Stale Danish

It's indicative of just how far Ireland's stock has fallen in the last 12 months that a 0-0 home draw against an opposition shorn of their one truly world-class player can be heralded as progress. Yet, that's the position we find ourselves in as the Martin O'Neill reign stays afloat with the clean sheet at least buying a little more time for a management team that still feels as if it's holed below the waterline.

The gloom of the morning that greeted me as I opened the curtains provided an apt metaphor for the mood that surrounds the Irish camp these days. The manner of the Welsh defeat and the subsequent hoo-hah about Stephen Ward's leaked voice message had meant that the set up had rarely been out of the sports pages for the last month. This was surely a chance to try and aim for the fresh start that had been promised at the start of this Nations League campaign. Although the repetitive nature of the fixtures this draw has thrown up had undoubtedly added to the stale feeling around the set-up.

While the Declan Rice saga shows no sign of abating, it seems like an eleventh-hour phone call from Roy Keane to Harry Arter had been enough to persuade him to return to the squad. And the award of September's Premier League Player of the Month to ex-Bohs full-back, Matt Doherty, had meant that there was at least a football based narrative around the build-up with the clamour to include a player strangely ignored by O'Neill in the past despite excellent Championship form dominating discussions.

Speaking of Bohs, there was the small matter of a Scottish Challenge Cup tie against English Conference side, Sutton United the same afternoon as the match. And, after a 30-minute struggle with a failing Eir broadband and 4g network to try and arrange a cab, myself and Bren, the sole representative from the Birmingham Irish crew arrived up at Dalymount for a taster before the evening's main event.

The nature of that competition, into which the Scottish League have invited two teams each from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England's National League (previously the Conference) meant that normal regulations didn't apply with fans allowed to bring their drinks into the stands, which added to a very nice atmosphere between the home support and the 250 Sutton fans who'd made the trip.

The game itself fizzled out into a nil all draw but the penalty shoot-out that followed was worth the admission alone as Bohs keeper and recent Irish squad member, Shane Supple, took it upon himself to turn things around after Bohs had missed their third and fourth pens. I've never seen a keeper save a pen, score the next one himself and then save another but that's what he did before Rob Cornwall scored in sudden death and Sutton's next pen hit the bar and bounced back out off the line to send Bohs through to the last eight. It doesn't make up for the heartbreaking nature of the FAI Cup semi defeat to Cork last week but it'll keep the season going a little longer.

From there, another cab through the incessant drizzle brought us over to the Beggars where the usual regulars had started to gather under whatever shelter was available. Despite the negativity surrounding the team at the moment, it was a bit of craic to catch up with those that had travelled and to try and work out exactly what sort of formation was going to be played when the team was announced.

With three centre-halves selected it was clearly three at the back with wingbacks on the flanks but with Doherty finally selected for a competitive game, presumably on the right, where were Cyrus Christie and James McClean going to play? Callum O'Dowda's inclusion was a positive but again, I was struggling to work out exactly where he'd line up with some reports stating he'd have a central role. So where would that leave Jeff Hendrick and Harry Arter?

Rather than waste time second-guessing, we wandered down to the ground in what was a fairly subdued atmosphere in time to see the standard minute's silence although it was nice to see a tribute to a young Bohs supporter, Oran Tully, who tragically died recently aged only 19 having bravely battled serious illness since he was a small child. Oran would have been well known in League of Ireland circles for his video blogs and had been on Sky Sports My Special Day programme a few years ago. A further round of applause on 19 minutes in the singing section also marked his passing which was a nice touch.

The game itself began cagily but an early flashpoint arrived when Hendrick decided to play on when Denmark and Thomas Delaney, in particular, had clearly decided to stop playing after Arter went down in our half. With the Danish players standing around, Jeff decided to scamper through on goal only, in an action that really sums up Ireland right now, to drag his shot wide. Even against a defence that stops playing, we still can't get a strike on target.

Needless to say, the Danes weren't impressed with this shithousery and, led by an irate Kasper Schmeichel, surrounded Hendrick as a bit of finger-jabbing and pushing and shoving ensued. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had he actually scored with O'Neill suggesting afterwards that he may have instructed his players to stand by and let Denmark score. Some might argue that that's essentially what we did against Wales but that's another debate...

By now, it had begun to sink in that my eyes weren't deceiving me and Cyrus Christie was actually playing in central midfield. I'm actually a fan of Christie and think he can be unfairly maligned on occasion but I can't imagine what sort of signal his inclusion in that position sends to the likes of Conor Hourihane, David Meyler and  Shaun Williams (who was a rare bright spot in recent friendlies) as they sat on the bench and saw a man who's never played that position professionally selected ahead of them.

To be fair, Christie did alright in terms of work-rate and getting a foot in but it meant a midfield bereft of guile and, as is the norm, completely unable to retain possession or create much of anything. Instructions seemed to go no further than battle away and ensure you're in it till the 70-minute mark and have a go then. Although given how often we collapse on the occasions we do score early, maybe it's for the best.

Set plays seem to be our only chance to create opportunities these days with Shane Duffy usually the target. The Brighton man should have done better when he got onto the end of a Hendrick free on 35 mins and that was as good as it got for Ireland in the first half. Denmark weren't offering much more, to be honest despite dominating possession and their closest effort saw Sisto hit the outside of the post just before half-time.

O'Dowda had taken a knock yet played on during the first half but was obviously feeling the effects so was replaced by Enda Stephens at half-time. So, another defender on and McClean moving more central.

While Denmark started the half brighter, the game was still a very grim watch as we dug in with a 5-3-2 formation where any possession we had was generally recycled to Randolph to clear upfield. Harry Arter's last meaningful act was to clear a goalbound header from Kjaer off the line around the hour mark before he was surprisingly substituted, stopping on his way to the bench to enjoy a warm embrace from Roy Keane. Well, obviously that didn't happen but that scenario seemed as likely as an Irish shot on target by that stage.

The introduction of Callum Robinson did seem to spark a bit of life into the team and Ireland's best spell followed. He at least tried to get onto the ball and be positive with it and that elusive shot on target came not long later.

Robinson did well to get the ball wide to Stephens on the left wing. His cross was flicked on by McClean to Long who laid it off to that man Christie who was striding forward from his central berth. He connected sweetly with the ball but Schmeichel beat it away comfortably.

Denmark seemed content with a draw by now although a mix up between Duffy and Christie let Sisto play Braithwaite in but Randolph had little trouble saving the shot. A second strike from Delaney was dealt with just as comfortably and one final late sub saw Aiden O'Brien on for Shane Long with a couple of minutes left.

There was still time for one last moment of stoppage time controversy when Shane Duffy went down under a Dalsgaard challenge after a Christie cross into the box. For a second, it looked like the ref had bought it only for him instead to flash a yellow card in Duffy's direction for diving. That was that.

If one looks to be positive then at least you can say that we stopped the rot and didn't lose. In fact, should we beat Wales tomorrow, we'd be going to Denmark next month where a win would see us top the group.

But is stopping the rot enough against what, without Eriksen, is a very average Danish team for whom a draw was as much as they really wanted or needed? After all, we got the same result against a better Denmark team in Copenhagen last year in a similar performance equally bereft of creativity. And we all saw how the wheels came off after that.

There are still plenty of worrying underlying issues with how we play. The formation seemed to flood the defence and the midfield yet still leave huge gaps between each third of the pitch. Letting a defender who hasn't played centre midfield since he was 14 know he's to play there an hour before kick off seems an abdication of basic management preparation.

We consistently have under 40% possession regardless of the quality of the opposition. Our go-to pass is generally backwards. We've had 7 shots on target in our last 9 games since the midway point in last year's October fixtures. Our record since then is Played - 9, Won - 2, Drawn - 3, Lost - 5. Goals For - 6, Goals Against - 14.

In fact, a run like that in league football would see a manager under pressure in the modern game. A run like that against the backdrop of a player making themselves unavailable due to the actions of the assistant manager, an admission of another row with a senior player, our best prospect considering a switch to England and more leaks than a sieve coming out of the camp and it takes on an altogether different hue.

All management reigns come to a natural end. In Ireland's case, that end never seems to be foreseen and it's generally a result in one campaign too far that indicates no way back. I've yet to see a manager turn things around after that result but I've seen a few campaigns wasted after it.

With Mick McCarthy, the Euro '04 qualifier 4-2 defeat by Russia in a post-Saipan world indicated the beginning of the end. Steve Staunton's reign never should have started and the 5-2 defeat to Cyprus was a result that there was no comeback from. Giovanni Trapattoni never recovered from Euro '12 but it was the 6-1 defeat by Germany in the next campaign that really meant the end.

If the 5-1 Lansdowne defeat to Denmark last November wasn't that result for Martin O'Neill, the last thing he'd have needed was the hammering that Wales gave us last month. Yet, the fact that he now has a chance to take on that same opposition without Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Ethan Amdapu gives him a perfect opportunity to hit the reset button in a meaningful fashion and become an exception to the rule.

While Christie acquited himself reasonably, there's no reason why he couldn't play on the right of the three central defenders to allow a natural centre mind such as Williams in to try and link the play up. Hendrick is ineffective that far forward and needs to be withdrawn back to where he was most effective at the Euros in France.

Conversely, Arter is more effective further up the pitch than he was deployed on Saturday. With three central defenders playing, the defensive midfield role doesn't need to be as tight to the defence as it was where Arter nearly seemed to operate as a fourth centre-half on occasion.

Wales have dipped significantly since we made them look like world-beaters a month ago. Denmark beat them comfortably later that week and Spain put four past them in a friendly four days ago. Considering that, and the Welsh injury list, it's imperative that we approach the game in a more positive fashion that we've recently seen. A win on Tuesday has the potential to change the entire narrative around the team. Sending out a team set up to do that shouldn't be too much to ask.