Ireland v Greece 10.09.2024 Match Thread - UEFA Nations League

The problem for irish football is that it has always neglected grass roots and relied on english clubs to take any young talent and develop them.

Big change needed. Start with an all Ireland league set up and try to appeal it to all social demographics not just the working class like LOI. One big dublin north side club and one big south side club. Belfast has two aswell one for the nationlists and one for the unionists ( got to play that riverly off another) and then a few other clubs scattered around like Cork Limerick and Derry. Try to have a maximum of 10 clubs in league to keep quality higher like the way Scotland does it. Ireland has 7m people now. That is more than Scotland 5m and similar to Switzerland and Austria. But are league is sh*te compared to thiers.

With England in group there is little to no chance we were going to qualify to league A. Finland are also terrible so we might not even get relegated from this group.

I thought Ireland were not as sh!te as I thought they would be overall.

This HH seems to have a good sensible head on his shoulders, he seems like an honest and direct sort of fella.

The only way is up. But I think this Ireland squad needs a psychologist and not just a sports one. They seem like they are suffering from PTSD after Kenny.

I also think HH should start thinking about dumping some of these underperforming bigger names. Ironically the only success from the Kenny tenure IMO was Ogbene. Kenny basically made his career. A great success.

I would rather have HH play lads from the lower leagues than constant underpreformers from the EPL or English Championship. Fellas that have some "go" about them.

The team also seems very fragile there are no leaders, surely there are some leaders with bite and fight (nevermind skill) able to play for Ireland? Those are the types required I think.

I think that the base for a good defensive system and effective attack revolves around the midfield.

So regardless of the good attacking and defensive players we have, there isn't enough aggression and drive in midfield.

And by aggression I don't mean flying in to tackles recklessly I mean been able to get around the park to support defense and attack with real conviction.

None of our midfielders offer that (Molumby at a push, but even he is limited)

I don't know if or how this issue can be fixed

Glenn makes a good point. The big problem with the match last night was the the heads of a few players dropped after we went 1-0 down. Hallgrimsson himself alluded to this in the post-match interview.

Can't be having that.

These are professional footballers who are playing at a decent level, they were 1-0 down against a team who hadn't been particularly impressive. I don't think it was unreasonable to have expected more from some of them.

I am kind of glad we had this sort of game early on in Hallgrimsson's reign. At least now he'll be confronted directly with some of the problems. There's a few things that he will be able to have an impact on. Firstly, he's going to need to cobble together a team of committed players who want to be out there and won't hide. Secondly he's going to need to be able to rebuild the confidence levels of the lads. We've Finland next month, it's a lot to ask for but let's see what he can do.

Any league on this island will never be popular because you have the UK and Europe on your doorstep, and all the talk of merged teams and merged leagues will not change that.

The best you can hope for is that LOI clubs develop young players to a high enough standard that it becomes a valuable shop window for the bigger leagues.

And I think they have come on in leaps and bounds doing that in the last few decades.

A lot more international players are spending longer in the LOI than ever before.

But then again the national team has gone to pot over the same period, so I'm not sure if it's doing any good.

We are in a false group.

We aren't at that level. Probably deserve to be down 1 more league.

The game v Finland will tell us a lot. I think we are at their level, and perhaps a draw will confirm this.

Completely agree - Shels wouldnt even share a ground with Bohs - so how are we going to have one big Dublin club.

Plus, its a bit of an insult to LoI and Irish League fans to say - yeah lets rip this whole thing up that you love, just so that maybe the national team will get a bit better (or maybe it wont).

Even a consolidated league would still be far smaller than the Greek league, or the Czech league.

Our single biggest 'advantage' is our proximity to England - thats what we need to leverage. Build stronger connections with the top clubs there (our whichever clubs are interested).

I did like some of the changes Halgrimsson (I assume because Sheasy wasn't changing anything) made.

The formation was much better suited to us.

Omobamidele RB was adequate tbf but I wouldn't try it again. He could be seen as a full back option but should stay central, I'd like to see O'Shea out full instead.

Other side Brady was fine he was good at pressing high - possibly too agressive at times and was lucky to stay on the pitch.

I'd like to see Brady with Robinson infront of him. I thought Knight wide was a stupid idea under Kenny and its still stupid now. We have wingers use them put Knight #10.

Even if McAteer and Johnston are to be held on the bench until the second half just start Robinson. Knight is just wasted out wide, and doesn't offer anything from there imo

Ferguson should not have been called up this window. I'm really getting somewhat worried he'll be back in the LOI in a few years a broken shell. Hes either been "injured" or "recovering" for the last 12 - 18 months. Hes too young for that theres no way thats going to stand to him and is surely just shortening his career at this stage.

I said before as inept as Kenny was the long range shots were not his fault. Its also not Bazunu (or even Kellehers) last night. Post-Whelan there hasn't been a DM in the squad. All our midfielders are game and will chase and put in a shift but they don't have the actual positional sense to fill at DM and that gaping hole is always there for an opposition player to fill and get his shot away. Frustrating but it is what it is.

Doherty shouldn't be called up again. Idah shouldn't start for us, hes an off the bench option but certainly not a starter again. Coleman can be in squads as captain if he wishes but no play time.

But thats a single game in the year - its a bit like LGFA finals getting 50'000 at Croke Park, but only 500 go to the semifinal.

Its the league attendances that really matter. And the fact is (i) there are too many clubs in Dublin area to support really large attendances for any one club and (ii) the stadiums are really crap apart from Tallaght.

Having said that, the debate is probably about what 'success' looks like - if we had 10 league clubs here averaging league attendances between 6-8000 that would be a really big improvement on where we are now (avg about 3,000). But to get there will stadium improvements. Which will cost a lot of money.

And also, thats a completely different debate - even if the league doubles in size (in terms of revenue) there still wont be any LOI players in the national squad. Any more than you'd want English League Two players in the squad.

Attendances are rising every year.

I think the top division average attendance is around 3700.

It'll be over 4000 next year with Cork City and Derry's new stand.

Once the new Dalymount and other stadium upgrades are completed, average attendance will be over 5000, which is pretty decent when you compare to other European countries.

Yeah - was disappointed with that.

The saddest thing was seeing an empty Landsdowne Road before the game even finished. I used to go to a lot of the games before but stopped going about half way through the Kenny Era. I felt I was wasting my money watching that rubbish on offer and I'm afraid it could be a while before I get the gra to want to go back to watching the ROI

We really have hit a low, growing up the team was always so competive , 80s and beyond - a year ago, we had hope for Ferguson , whether its injuries but doesnt seam the superstar some were making out.