Ireland v Greece 10.09.2024 Match Thread - UEFA Nations League

So the plan tonight lads is a diagonal punt to Ogbene on the wing if it gets too tricky playing it around at the back.

Most wide players in football don't actually take on the defender any more. 99% of the time that they actually look like they are going to try to, they don't, cut back and play the ball back to a midfielder.

Only a few guys like the 2 Spanish wingers are doing it. The traditional winger is dying.

These greeks seem to fall over very easily.

Szomdics is making good runs up front. Once the players get a bit more familiar with each other they will start to pick out those passes.

Theres also good pressure on Greece when they have the ball. They've put the ball out a few times under the pressure.

And a good bit of variance in the play, playing out from the back, long balls, as well as short passing moves around the box.

Not everything is working but considering how much we were outplayed the last two times against these it's a definite improvement.

It is definitely better than expected so far. They are clearly missing a cutting edge but that's to be expected with a new manager who wants to focus on defensive solidity at the start.

Greece are very average

Much better!

He wasn't playing every week like Bazunu was so how could you play him? players need to be playing every week, especially goalkeepers. Bazunu played well for us in most games so there wasnt any reason to drop him.

Not entirely displeased with that. We were generally pretty comfortable and in the last 5 minutes we started to cause the Greeks some problems. We have some options on the bench to change things if it remains 0-0 with 30 minutes to go. Ebosele has pace, Robinson has a bit of trickery, Ferguson has the physicality.

Dreadfully boring game bar the last few minutes of the half. Having said that we've been OK defensively with Collins and O'Shea dealing with everything fairly comfortably. Greeks looks like a team who would take a 0-0 fairly happily. Smallbone has been fairly poor, wouldn't be surprised if he was subbed early enough in the 2nd half.

Ogbene's goal was such a fantastic strike, shame he was offside.

And if Bazunu wasn't injured Kelleher wouldn't be playing now.