Stephen ireland withdraws from squad

Guy:Incognito · 09-10-2007 05:55PM

ntlbell wrote:

eh? lol how long do you think they spend training every day?

An away game would usually involve him being away for a few hours.

anyway as has been stated all ready which you seem to keep ignoring, and loooking more a a gobsheen each time, CITY PAY HIS WAGES, HIS MORTGAGE HIS FOOD ETC ETC

hello??

Hello????

If his head's not in the game, why would city want him playing as he'd be underpreforming and be a detriment to the team. As stated above he's been playing fine for them so this is sounding a lot like a cop out because he's not interested in playing for Ireland/scared to face the fans.

event · 09-10-2007 06:03PM

since this issue, he has played one away game, in London. probably away for a day at the most

if he joins up with ireland, it will probably be a week that he is away from her, so maybe he needs to be close to his family now.

im sorry lads, but put it into your own work situation.

You work in Dublin, and your girlfriend has had a miscarriage. you obviously keep working, as its only for a few hours a day, and you still get to comfort the girlfriend. You had to go away for a day a while ago but was just for a day. this job pays the bills.

Now, the irish section of your company wants you to go away for a week with them to a conference. You dont get paid, and will be away from your girlfriend for a week, maybe more. It doesnt matter how well you do at this conference btw

honestly, what would you do?

~Rebel~ · 09-10-2007 06:11PM

event wrote:

since this issue, he has played one away game, in London. probably away for a day at the most

if he joins up with ireland, it will probably be a week that he is away from her, so maybe he needs to be close to his family now.

im sorry lads, but put it into your own work situation.

You work in Dublin, and your girlfriend has had a miscarriage. you obviously keep working, as its only for a few hours a day, and you still get to comfort the girlfriend. You had to go away for a day a while ago but was just for a day. this job pays the bills.

Now, the irish section of your company wants you to go away for a week with them to a conference. You dont get paid, and will be away from your girlfriend for a week, maybe more. It doesnt matter how well you do at this conference btw

honestly, what would you do?

Except that, again, this isn't his reason for missing the match. If he said this, noone would have a problem. but he didn't. He didn't mention his family. He didnt mention his girlfriend. He said he doesn't think he can perform on the pitch. which to me says that he's not sure he could handle booing from certain quarters when on the ball, or the constant bugging from reporters etc.

eirebhoy · 09-10-2007 06:12PM

yom 1 wrote:

Dont let him near the team. Only player we have that is worse or lazier than him is JOS.

I won't let you get away with that one. McGeady has been absolutely diabolical for Ireland but that's 100% down to confidence and that's blatantly obvious. Calling him lazy is an insult. He tracks back more than the majority of players of his type. He always tracks back. I agree with the rest of your post though. I certainly wouldn't play him in Croker.

As for Ireland, it appears Kerr was right about him.

MrJoeSoap · 09-10-2007 06:42PM

The guy has issues, I think that is pretty obvious. Whatever they are, and I don't really want to know, if he thinks he can't commit himself to his country then why can't people accept it?

Would it be better if he said nothing, showed up and played rubbish, got slated and felt even worse about himself (given how much the Irish media and public get on players backs, and rightly so most of the time)?

purple'n'gold · 09-10-2007 06:50PM

Let me see if I have this right. His girlfriend had a miscarriage so he said his granny had died?

zAbbo · 09-10-2007 06:55PM

No point forcing someone to play if he doesn't want to, let him get his head right, back on form, and re-join the squad next year.
He's had a tough year, maybe the demoxinil is having some adverse effects on him.

MrJoeSoap · 09-10-2007 07:04PM

purplengold wrote:

Let me see if I have this right. His girlfriend had a miscarriage so he said his granny had died?

Yes, presumably because he didn't want people to know.

zabbo wrote:

No point forcing someone to play if he doesn't want to, let me get his head right)

How will you be doing this??

raheny red · 09-10-2007 07:09PM

DesF wrote:

And this bullshít about not believing him about the miscarriage. I've heard some cold hearted things in my time, but that is horrible.

Are you related to him by any chance, jesus?! :rolleyes: Since there has been lies about dead grannies then there could be easily be lies about the miscarriage. It's an unfortunate position for him and the gf to find themselves in but it's gotten so out of hand and ridiculous that they know look like idiots. I've no pity for either of them whatsoever!

MrJoeSoap · 09-10-2007 07:15PM

raheny red wrote:

I've no pity for either of them whatsoever!

Thats harsh, what has the gf done to deserve no pity?

Mr Alan · 09-10-2007 07:15PM

purplengold wrote:

Let me see if I have this right. His girlfriend had a miscarriage so he said his granny had died?

Actually he lied about about one grandparent dying....

then he was found out on that......

decided to say his other grandmother died......

found out that was a lie too......

said his girlfriend had a miscarraige.

MrJoeSoap · 09-10-2007 07:18PM

Mr Alan wrote:

Actually he lied about about one grandparent dying....

then he was found out on that......

decided to say his other grandmother died......

found out that was a lie too......

said his girlfriend had a miscarraige.

And until we find out otherwise we should probably accept it, if not for his sake then at least for his girlfriends sake.

leninbenjamin · 09-10-2007 07:32PM

at this rate lads, my own take on it is: who give's a crap? let him sort his own problems out first, be they the ones reported or not, then whenever he wants to come back into the fold then accept him with open arms because we'll need him.

GuanYin · 09-10-2007 09:48PM

Just for a clarification.

Stephen Ireland's girlfriend is the one who reported that Stephen's grandmother had died, apparently because she felt it was the only way the FAI would put her through to him on the phone.

Ireland presumably carried on this lie, for whatever reason, I imagine his head wasn't in the right place at the time.

IN ANY CASE, there has been alot of personal attacks on the player here, calling him whatnot. What he did may be called into question, but attack on the intelligence, morality or any other personality trait of he or his family will not be tolerated.

Just in case you think I'm kidding, I'll be handing out 2 month bans on this thread for those who ignore this warning.

Guy:Incognito · 09-10-2007 10:11PM

psi wrote:

Just for a clarification.

Stephen Ireland's girlfriend is the one who reported that Stephen's grandmother had died, apparently because she felt it was the only way the FAI would put her through to him on the phone.

Ireland presumably carried on this lie, for whatever reason, I imagine his head wasn't in the right place at the time.

IN ANY CASE, there has been alot of personal attacks on the player here, calling him whatnot. What he did may be called into question, but attack on the intelligence, morality or any other personality trait of he or his family will not be tolerated.

Just in case you think I'm kidding, I'll be handing out 2 month bans on this thread for those who ignore this warning.

Did she not just say it on the phone to the fai? "reporting" suggests she went to the press straight away in an effort to get through to him. He then went to the fai who went public. Then he lied again on the monday after the game saying it was the other granny. He dug himself in pretty deep with all the lieing.

GuanYin · 09-10-2007 10:47PM

Stekelly wrote:

Did she not just say it on the phone to the fai? "reporting" suggests she went to the press straight away in an effort to get through to him. He then went to the fai who went public. Then he lied again on the monday after the game saying it was the other granny. He dug himself in pretty deep with all the lieing.

Well I meant reported to the FAI as opposed to the national press.

kinaldo · 10-10-2007 12:44AM

I stopped reading this on page 2 because I now believe Mr Allen is the ultimate troll no matter what he calls himself.

Mr.Nice Guy · 10-10-2007 02:32AM

Stephen Ireland has my support and I admire him for admitting he wouldn't be able to perform to the best of his ability.

Hope he sorts out his problems.

Devious · 10-10-2007 04:59AM

I just hope this doesn't set a precedent for future games, where a player can get out of playing simply by saying that they dont think they could do themselves justice or whatever.

Mr Alan · 10-10-2007 09:27AM

Wasn't Stephen Ireland in one of the Sunday papers at the weekend all blinged up with pictures of him sitting on the bonnet of his land rover giving an interview? Or was that an old interview, anyone know?
Cheers by the way Kinaldo?!

ntlbell · 10-10-2007 10:42AM

Mr Alan wrote:

Wasn't Stephen Ireland in one of the Sunday papers at the weekend all blinged up with pictures of him sitting on the bonnet of his land rover giving an interview? Or was that an old interview, anyone know?
Cheers by the way Kinaldo?!

what has it got to do with anything?

ntlbell · 10-10-2007 10:43AM

Devious wrote:

I just hope this doesn't set a precedent for future games, where a player can get out of playing simply by saying that they dont think they could do themselves justice or whatever.

"get out of playing"

Do you want players playing for Ireland who are only playing because they couldn't "get out of playing" ?

bizzare!

raven136 · 10-10-2007 11:12AM

i dont know the guy or follow city but i feel really sorry for him.Anyoen check out Richard Sadloers cloum in the indo on sunday,excellent piece.
We all would give our right arm to play soccer professionally but he obviously isnt finding things in his private life easy.
Sometimes even in tjis 24 hour news cycle we should just step back and let him,his family and the city management deal with whatever the problems are.

Thats my tuppence worth on it

Xavi6 · 10-10-2007 11:16AM

The lack of sympathy on this thread has amazed me. Stephen Ireland has been consistently good every time he has pulled on the green jersey in what can only be described as an absolute failure of a campaign. He has matured as a player and is currently one of the few Irish midfielders playing a pivotal role in a Premiership club. So what if he needs a break for what are really a couple of meaningless internationals? If we want to have any hope of qualifying for the next World Cup we should not be alienating one of the few quality players we have left.

Mr Alan · 10-10-2007 11:28AM

I agree that he has been about the best player we've had in this campaign, which is why its even more disheartening for him to be displaying such a poor attitude. The guy is 21 and has already pulled out of three international squads, only 1 of which he had a valid reason for. I do hope he is able to get his head together, because he is an excellent player. Its also worth noting that the Manchester City management team tried to convince him not to pull out of the squad for the Irish match and that these next three games could play a MASSIVE part in whether or not we qualify for the next world cup, so they are not the meaningless games people are trying to make them out as.

BaZmO* · 10-10-2007 11:28AM

Mr Alan wrote:

The fact that he has not taken any break from playing for City would suggest that his gf has not needed his constant companionship. Surely if she did he would have taken a short leave from City, no one there would have be-grudged him that. So the sudden need for him to have time away from football coincides nicely with an international break where he may not be too well recieved.

He played in the Slovakia game on the 8th Sept then didn't play in the Czech game on the 12th because of the trouble with his girlfriend. The next Man City game was the 16th Sept which he didn't play. The next MC game was away on the 22nd which he played and has played their next 2 games which were at home.

This information is not difficult to obtain.

Mr Alan · 10-10-2007 11:34AM

Unfortunately Bazmo i dont have access to anything on the net in work other than Boards.ie (thank god:))

I think its interesting that all the papers this morning are not stating the reason as him not meeting up with squad as being because of the miscarraige, in actual fact it appears its more because he is afraid of the reaction he'll get from the media/fans and his team-mates. Sven and Staunton even got Richard Dunne (who he looks up to) to talk to him and try and convince him that he should hook up with the squad.

BaZmO* · 10-10-2007 11:39AM

Mr Alan wrote:

Unfortunately Bazmo i dont have access to anything on the net in work other than Boards.ie (thank god:))

So you'd rather just make your mind up about someone without actually checking the facts first?

Mr Alan wrote:

I think its interesting that all the papers this morning are not stating the reason as him not meeting up with squad as being because of the miscarraige, in actual fact it appears its more because he is afraid of the reaction he'll get from the media/fans and his team-mates. Sven and Staunton even got Richard Dunne (who he looks up to) to talk to him and try and convince him that he should hook up with the squad.

FFS! Want do you want from this guy? He has said that his head is not right, and by the looks of it he has good reason, so he should be left alone to sort himself out. Constant badgering and questioning won't help the situation.

Xavi6 · 10-10-2007 11:42AM

From the Manchester Evening News site:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_city/s/1019058_svens_praise_for_ireland

Sven's praise for Ireland
Chris Bailey
9/10/2007

SVEN Goran Eriksson has praised Stephen Ireland for the "incredible" work-rate he displayed in the game against Middlesbrough.

The Blues midfielder has held his place in the City side despite admitting last month that he lied about the death of his two grandmothers in a bid to be released from international duty so he could be with his girlfriend Jessica who had suffered a miscarriage.

However, Ireland has withdrawn from Steve Staunton's squad for the upcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers with Germany and Cyprus.

"I would like to see the statistics from the Middlesbrough game because the work-rate he produced on Sunday was absolutely incredible," declared the Blues manager. "He is a fantastic footballer and has shown that in the last few games."

Ireland was left out of the home game against Villa because Eriksson felt the player wasn't mentally in the correct frame of mind to play.

However, as soon as the manager could bring the youngster back into the fold, Ireland was restored to the righthand side of the City engine room where he has struck up a fruitful partnership with Elano.

"Not to bring him back would, as you say in England, have been to shoot ourselves in the foot," reasoned Eriksson.

"The last few games he has played for us, he has been fantastic. He ran for miles on Sunday against Boro, showed good discipline and was tactically very aware.

"He could have a couple of goals as well. He was very good. Stephen is a good boy and nice young man. He may have had some problems and we have had to try and resolve those as much as possible.

"Stephen will have all the help that he needs and as a footballer he can only get better and better."

He has been playing excellently lately and if not playing for his country keeps him at this level for us I'll be happy.

Mr Alan · 10-10-2007 11:47AM

I "want" him to want to play for Ireland, to show dedication and a good attitude.

If he is having physcological difficulties; i "want" him to get them sorted and come back and help us qualify for the next world cup.

I "want" him to NOT withdraw from the squad cause he holds a grudge against Brian Kerr as he did before.

and IF he is using physcological difficulties as an excuse to get out of these games, i "want" him to never play for Ireland again.

I really don't think that manchester city, a club with a massive invesetment in him, and massive interest in his well-being, would be trying to get him to play if they were in any doubt about the physcological stability.

Xavi: i agree he has been playing excellent this season.

Stephen ireland withdraws from squad

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