Duff's worrying loss of form

was 1-1 the final score?! sack the manager!!

Ah lads come on, cool the beans. Theyre on holidays after all. Let The Trapster work his magic over the next few weeks whilst he gets to know the squad, especially the senior members. You can be sure he is going to work the socks off the back four and get them organised, the Serbia Game will maybe give an indication of how he's getting on, maybe.

Ah come on now, when he first went to Chelsea he was brilliant, or the 2002 world cup where he was clearly our best player. You never see him just run at defenders anymore, I know youtube can make a great compilation out of Gary Breen but just look at some of the videos of him on there and you wonder what has happend. I think he has lost his confidence after a couple of terrible injuries, and hopefully he can get back to his best for this campaign. With a club manger like Keegan who you think would be urging him to get forward and commit defenders rather than Big Sam who was probably more interested in him chasing back, he might just find a bit of form.

Were did yis watch the match lads? Like are yis over in Portugal?

Slash/ED wrote: »

The biggest shame about Duffs career is we wasted having him in his absolute prime by having McCarthy in charged who was somehow determined to make him a striker when he was one of the best left wingers in european football at the time and hjim and Keane blatantly could not and would not work together up front...

Well it wasnt like we had Rooney sitting on the bench, we had Quinn, Connolly and Morrisson. Hardly world stage strikers. Quinny was good for a late substitution and a route 1 situation but thats about it

Duff is a write off. Has been for the past two seasons. Meh, part of being a great player is being able to withstand the physical and mental demands of keeping in shape and producing week in, week out for years. He has tailed off dramatically since he left Chelsea in terms of maintaining fitness and avoiding injury. And when he does play now he has clearly lost a lot in terms of pace and acceleration - and considering that he was a dynamic winger who's strength was beating the first man and getting behind defenses - it isn't hard to understand why he is a shadow of what he was circa 2002 - 2003.

It is unfortunate and frustrating because when we got knocked out of the 2002 WC the idea that we could build around long productive international futures for Duff and Robbie Keane was the stuff that we were supposed to be optimistic about. It hasn't happened for Duff - but there are many players who regress as they move through their mid to late twenties due to injury; personal problems; the wrong transfer; lack of confidence etc, etc, etc. Harry Kewell anyone?

Not that it is Duff's fault of course. Having physical problems and constantly picking up injuries is probably beyond his control.

However, when Greece won the European Championships they did it without having a player to compare with the Damien Duff who terrorized Spain in the 2002 WC. The emergence of Stephen Hunt over the past two seasons makes up for the loss in many ways. Yeah, he's no Duff on a good day - but he can beat players and put in a decent ball - and he takes up good creative positions and can finish when he gets a chance. He makes for a positive replacement on the left hand side.

Ultimately, our chances of qualifying for the next world cup will depend upon us maximizing the talents at our disposal to their fullest. Under Staunton we lacked the synergy that was a feature of successful Irish teams and we suffered laughable decisions in terms of player selection and tactical approaches. Duff or no Duff, I am confident that Trappatoni will have a good eye for properly assessing the fit and motivated players he has to select from - and get us out on the field being organized, disciplined and playing as a team. After that, the rest should fall into place. Scotland went close to qualifying for Euro 2008 without much more than we have in terms of playing personnel. We aren't as far off progressing as the Staunton era would suggest.