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Ireland's best squad?
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20-11-2008 12:44pm#1For me...
Given (Newcastle) - Top 5 keeper in the world. Up there with Buffon according to Trap.
Kiely (West Brom) - Getting on now but not a bad back up keeper.
Westwood (Coventry) - Highly rated keeper.
Dunne (Man City) - One of the best in his position in the premiership.
McShane (Hull) - Has done well for us at centre half. 6 or 7 good performances there for us. More than capable of playing beside Dunne despite his reputation having been played mainly at right back for over 2 years.
O'Shea (Man Utd) - He's ok. Has done well beside Dunne so far.
St Ledger (Preston) - Preston's best player and only 23 which is very young for a centre half so good potential. voted best championship player in north east England this week.
Finnan (Espanyol) - Still a great defender.
Foley (Wolves) - Mr consistency they say. The new Denis Irwin. Last season he was a regular 7/10. This season he has supposedly stepped that up to 8 or 9 every week.
Kilbane (Wigan) - Probably our weak link in the team but has the experience now in that position and every team's allowed a weak link.
Delaney (QPR) - Impressed so far for Ireland. Good on the ball.
Carsley (Birmingham) - Would still be playing for Everton but for family reasons. Getting excellent reviews at Birmingham and described by a BBC Columnist as the championships most effective player.
S.Reid (Blackburn) - Now our first choice central midfielder in everyone's book. Has a bit of everything and we miss him badly.
A.Reid (Sunderland) - Certainly up there with Brady as Ireland's most gifted passer of a ball ever.
Garvan (Ipswich) - More than capable of stepping up. Would demand the ball a lot more than the current pair. A 6 foot playmaker and Ipswich's most talented player. Will be in the premiership next season.
Andrews (Blackburn) - A bit of a fickle choice in that he wouldn't have got near the squad 6 months ago but time changes. Something different then the other central midfielders there. An energetic box to box type who'll raise the tempo.
Duff (Newcastle) - Despite losing a lot of his skill, he's still usually one of our best players.
S.Hunt (Reading) - Super sub himself. Great to have on the bench for any team.
McGeady (Celtic) - Has settled in at international level now. He was missed last night.
Lawrence (Stoke) - 16 goals and 15 assists from the right wing last season got him Stokes POTY. 1 goal and 2 assists so far this season before getting injured in September. Not bad backup for the wings.
Keane (Liverpool) - Trap reckons the Keane and Doyle partnership is of Champions league standard.
N.Hunt (Reading) - Just based on form atm.
Doyle (Reading) - I can't speak highly enough of Doyle. Great striker who Ledley King reckons is one of the toughest he's played against. Pace, strenght, ability to hold it up, link up play, make intelligent runs, head the ball, finish, and work his socks off.
Folan (Hull) - Very impressed with him last night. Always played the first time pass. Excellent awareness. Good strength and pace. A good option to have.
I think left back is a relatively weak position but the rest of that first 11 is strong. There is a big drop in standard between a Robbie Keane and Noel Hunt but there's always the possibility of playing an attacking 4-5-1. We're missing S.Reid badly atm but if we chose a pairing from the other 4 central midfielders above we wouldn't be missing him half as much. Back up for the full back area's is decent, back up for O'Shea is decent, back up for the wide midfield positions is decent. We've no back up for Dunne though so it's vital he's always available.
So from Trap's squad I wouldn't have J.Murphy, Bruce, Gibson, Whelan, Miller, Keogh, Stokes and Long at the moment. Despite not playing for Reading I can understand Long's call up as he has been terrific for Ireland.
As well as those 8 players there's McCarthy, McCann, O'Toole, Morrison, Delap, Joey O'Brien, Fahey, S.Kelly, Ward, Rowlands, P.Kenny and a couple others in with a shout.0
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I presume the criteria is players available to Trap i.e No Stevey Ireland
Given
Kiely
Murphy
Finnan
McShane
Dunne
O'Shea
Kilbane
Foley
Bruce
S Reid
A Reid
Carsley
Duff
McGeady
S Hunt
Whelan
Garvan
Keane
Doyle
Keogh
Long
Folan
with my starting XI being the same as eirebhoy's
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Reid too.
I never saw Giles play but if he was as good a passer as you say then I don't know why he isn't the unanimous choice for Ireland's best ever player because what I read he certainly had everything else in his game.
A ha'penny then:) He wasn't part of any sucessful Ireland teams. He played before TV broadcast 8 games a week etc. Get a 'best of the geat Leeds team' and see him play. For me there are 4 players that are imovable as Irish football legends: Giles, Brady, Roy Keane and Paul McGrath.0 -
Reid too. I never saw Giles play but if he was as good a passer as you say then I don't know how he isn't the unanimous choice for Ireland's best ever player because what I read he certainly had everything else in his game.
Well he is!
He won this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Jubilee_Awards
And he was named Irish Player of the Century by World Soccer Magazine in 2000:
http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamHons/HonsWldSocPlyrsCent.html0 -
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I don't see why not. He hasn't looked any worse to me.This post has been deleted.
Being without doubt Sunderland's best player for the 2nd half of last season and constantly getting man of the match. Doing the same with Charlton in the premiership and championship. All these being broken by injury. This is the first time he's really been dropped since his Spurs days but he's still put in some really good performances this season and I think is being treated very harshly by Keane. For example, Widely regarded as Sunderland's best player along with Cisse vs Portsmouth, dropped for Blackburn game. He came on against Blackburn at the weekend and changed the game. Sunderland started to play football and it turned Cisse into a much better player. I'd say strikers love playing alongside him.This post has been deleted.
His performance against Cyprus at home raised a few question marks about whether he can handle constant pressure but I've seen him handle it many times. He's had a few poor games and a few average games for Ireland but overall his first 20 games for Ireland were excellent and settled in as well as any Irish player to the internationals.
I don't know what Celtic forums you post on but I wonder do you put down the posters on there as much as you do the Irish? I'm not any more biased towards Irish players than I am Celtic. Andy Reid would come in and dominate the Celtic midfield imo. I'd love to see him beside Brown. 0 -
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I couldn't give you an accurate opinion on Kris Commons, James McFadden, Graham Alexander, Darren Barr, Morrison, Berra, etc, etc. because I just don't watch them much. I probably see as much of McFadden as you do Reid but I've never watched a match solely just to watch McFadden. Any time Reid I'm pretty much just watching him. Anyway, I think I've seen an awful lot more of Reid than you, just like you've seen a lot more of a lot of players than me. Other than Celtic and Irish players I don't really have great knowledge of how good players are. I can just go on the odd match where I'm watching 22 players, a few clips on match of the day and any headlines they grab. I do go out on a limb and make a judgement of a player on one game but I'm usually wrong.This post has been deleted.
ah for ****s sake ziggy get a grip. I said he was as good a passer. ffs Massimo Donati is one of Celtic's top 3 passers but he's miles away from the team with everyone with. Gattuso isn't has below average technical ability but still a fantastic. There's a lot more to a footballer than passing, you'd tell me that so don't say I even said Reid was anywhere near as good as Brady.ziggy wrote:This post has been deleted.
This tends to be when people think Naka is anonymous. It's very bloody frustrating when you know a player is heavily involved in a match and so many people think he goes missing. There's no doubt in my mind Naka is judged on the spectacular things he does. Just like Brown is judged on his drives forward and his tackles, or McGeady by how many times he beats a player.ziggy wrote:This post has been deleted.0 -
Typo, edited.So Montenegro were the better team for 2/3 of the match!
I should have noticed that was a bit much.And Montenegro had more possession than Ireland that day as well. Not sure where you're getting your 66%.
Stupid ESPN;
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=236142&cc=5739&league=FIFA.WORLDQ.UEFA
Looks like 51.8% is the correct figure:
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/world-cup-qual-/2008/montenegro-rep-ireland-249439.html
http://sport.setanta.com/en/Sport/News/Football/2008/09/10/World-Cup-Ireland-v-Montenegro-Stats-and-Ratings-/?facets/sport-space/great-britain-locale/football/
http://www.skysports.com/football/match_report/0,19764,11065_2947189,00.html
That makes a difference. Maybe we had 66% possession for that good hour in between though!;)0 -
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