The Republic of Ireland face the near-impossible task of beating European and World Champions Spain this evening, and anything but a positive result will almost certainly mean elimination from Euro 2012. Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni has been criticised for his decisions against Croatia in their opening game, and one of his biggest critics is Liverpool legend Ronnie Whelan, who is incensed over the Italian's failure to utilise Sunderland's James McClean.
Analysing the RoI-Croatia game in his column for Goal.com, Whelan criticised Trappatoni's 'baffling' decision to leave McClean on the bench, and suggested that the Italian's decision-making defied all logic. He said:
"McClean took the Premier League by storm and did not get a game, which was very baffling, and listening to the interviews with Trapattoni, I still can not get any logic out of it. It is not going to be the end of the kid if Ireland get beaten.
"It was not the greatest statement from Trapattoni to say that 'psychologically' McClean was not ready for the occasion. If it were me, I would be so fed up.
"To go over there as a left winger and he puts a centre forward on who has never played there before, psychologically, I think that would be more of a blow to me. He [McClean] is more psychologically hurt, now, that he did not get on the pitch"
I agree with Whelan - why replace a winger (McGeady) with a striker (Cox)? Additionally, McClean is not some inexperienced teenager; he's 23, which means he's surely old enough to handle playing international football. Just look at Alex Oxlade Chamberlain - he is 18, and he started England's first game.
In a press conference after the game, Trapattoni defended his decision to keep McClean on the bench:
"I was waiting for this question. I said Cox is also a winger and he can also play in a three as an attacking striker. Cox is one of the strikers but also at his club, can play right or left. I have a duty. It would have been his first [competitive] game. It's important we give them a quiet opportunity, not when we need their performance under pressure."
Such negative thinking like this is really depressing, and Liverpool fans heard the same defeatist comments about young players from Kenny Dalglish last season. As the saying goes: if you're good enough you're old enough, and at the age of 23, McClean is surely beyond the stage where he needs to be protected from the pressures of international football?!
Jaimie Kanwar
Analysing the RoI-Croatia game in his column for Goal.com, Whelan criticised Trappatoni's 'baffling' decision to leave McClean on the bench, and suggested that the Italian's decision-making defied all logic. He said:
"McClean took the Premier League by storm and did not get a game, which was very baffling, and listening to the interviews with Trapattoni, I still can not get any logic out of it. It is not going to be the end of the kid if Ireland get beaten.
"It was not the greatest statement from Trapattoni to say that 'psychologically' McClean was not ready for the occasion. If it were me, I would be so fed up.
"To go over there as a left winger and he puts a centre forward on who has never played there before, psychologically, I think that would be more of a blow to me. He [McClean] is more psychologically hurt, now, that he did not get on the pitch"
I agree with Whelan - why replace a winger (McGeady) with a striker (Cox)? Additionally, McClean is not some inexperienced teenager; he's 23, which means he's surely old enough to handle playing international football. Just look at Alex Oxlade Chamberlain - he is 18, and he started England's first game.
In a press conference after the game, Trapattoni defended his decision to keep McClean on the bench:
"I was waiting for this question. I said Cox is also a winger and he can also play in a three as an attacking striker. Cox is one of the strikers but also at his club, can play right or left. I have a duty. It would have been his first [competitive] game. It's important we give them a quiet opportunity, not when we need their performance under pressure."
Such negative thinking like this is really depressing, and Liverpool fans heard the same defeatist comments about young players from Kenny Dalglish last season. As the saying goes: if you're good enough you're old enough, and at the age of 23, McClean is surely beyond the stage where he needs to be protected from the pressures of international football?!
Jaimie Kanwar
i'm irish and detest traps style of football.
ReplyDeletewe'll be lucky to get a point,he constantly belittles the players saying they have to play his style of anti football because we aren't good enough to do anything else.
yes,he got us to a major tournament but what's the point when you won't play your best in form players and tell your midfield to sit so deep and not use the ball.
bellemy plays on the wing
ReplyDeletekuyte, sturrigde, torress for chelsea
Is this not the manager that got them to the tournament?
mmmm no comment.
how effective has torres been on the wing? i don't understand your comment in relation to the story.
ReplyDeletedid he not score in the champions league final playing on left wing?
ReplyDeletemy point is not many manager would of got them to the competition. its obvious he is doing something right. let the manager do his job .
surprised i had to explain.
sturridge scores goals from right wing . kuyte and bells.
need i explain more? ......
hat does bellamy,kuyt,torres etc have to do with trapatoni or the story?
ReplyDeleteit's ronnie whelan's feelings on mcleans omission and you just start spouting on about players scoring goals for their clubs.
hardly relative is it.
drogba scored for chelsea in the champions final-not torres.
ReplyDeletesurprised i had to explain.
Dick head
ReplyDeleteTrust in Trap!
ReplyDeleteDrogba scored in the champions league final, not Torres. Torres scored a goal against barca playing outright striker after they had already sent their whole team sans puyol into the opposing half to grab an equalizer in the final minutes. So you're analogy makes little sense. Kuyt has been playing winger since rafa Benitez took over, Bellamy is accustomed to that position as well. Ireland would nudged out france as well from the last big stage had it not been for thierry's handball, so it's not like this is some grand achievement for Irish football. Traps looks out of his league in here
ReplyDeleteLooking at the EPL, an argument that would be comparable would be how AVB played an outright striker (Torres) on the wing until he got sacked. Torres in return posted THE WORST campaign of his career getting what? 4 goals? Keep in mind this is against far easier opposition (bottom tier EPL teams) than the Italian national team, whom cox (a far less accoladed striker than Torres) is bein played out of position against
ReplyDeletei love this argument keep it up guys. If i may just add my own two cents here. I am following this argument closely but i don't know what players who score from the wing have to do with the poor performance of the Irish team or James McClean's omission. Carry on fellows.
ReplyDeleteIreland has a crap domestic league & the players the English graciously premit you to play in their leagues are some of the worst to ever come off the island ... in short Ireland are crap & have been & are over performing to get any kind of results anywhere .
ReplyDeleteTrapatoni is doing almost exactly what Jack Charlton done with the Irish , namely take a buncha delusional wannabe's with ideas above their station , structured tactics around the standard of player he has available , got them working hard & getting results & qualifying for tournaments .
In fairness to Trapatoni the quality of player he has to work with is much lower than what Charlton had to work with .
The Irish seem to have a problem with the actual reality that they arent really Brazil .
Bottom line is Ireland are playing to their potential & have zero right to complain until Shamrock Rovers & the like are capable of regularly getting out of the Champions League group stages & until then they will have to set their sights on the Danes , Norwegians , Scots , Welsh , Slovakians , Croatians & other similar sized competitive nations .
How the hell can they complain about being beaten by Spain or for that matter Croatia ?
Does Ireland even have a population of 4 million ?
They have a semi pro League .
They should be thanking Trapatoni , one of the very best coaches in the world .for getting them there not complaining about how he done it .
Poor performances of who ?
ReplyDeleteCompared to who ?
I dont know what you were expecting but jobbers like Keith Andrews , Whelan , Cox , Ward & Walters are hardly the best players Ireland can produce let along the kind of players that are capable of upsetting the odds against some of the worlds best teams like the better Irish sides of the past done .
You cant judge Ireland by Englands , Frances , Germany etc standards .
Every so often Ireland will produce a good side , a side capable of competing like in 1990 but the resources simply arent in place for them to compete at that level year after year .
As for McClean ?
For me he hasn't produced enough for a call up to the final squad let alone a place in the team playing in the finals , especially at the expense of the players who actually got them there .
You may be right with some points, but bloody hell the English also have a problem with reality and they are no brazil either.
ReplyDeletei missed you.
ReplyDeleteso basically in totalitarian brehon land we can't say we find a paticular style of football dull just because it qualifies us for a tournament?
ReplyDeletei'm going to go out on a limb here and say something-
i think nearly everything you type on here is ridiculous and is mainly done to antogonise rather than actually debate with other board members.
What has England got to do with the delusional Irish thinking they are International powerhouses ?
ReplyDeleteIs it that you think that because I dare to speak openly about poor wee Ireland that I must be English ?
The English psyche is completely different to the Irish psyche , they view the game from completely different planets !
If Ireland wants to complain they will first have to lay the foundations & do the work from the ground up & quit trying to wing it by depending on a big name manager & the handful of players they have playing in England's top 2 divisions .
Otherwise they are in the exact same boat as Wales & neither has any grounds for complaint .
'delusuonal wannabes'
ReplyDeletewho in the ireland squad is a delusional wannabe?
and who in the charlton era was?
Ronnie Whelan like so many ex players is merely a wind bag being puppeted by whoever pays him to makes the comments to sell their rag .
ReplyDeleteWhelan played under Charlton & that was brutality by comparison to the sophisticated way Trapatoni has them going about their business .
In the early days Charlton totally bypassed the midfield , lumping it into the channels for Stapelton to get a flick on it in the hope of support from a breaking midfield .
How the hell he can complain about Trapatoni is beyond me .
Well i'll be sitting back with a few cold ones tomorrow night laughing at the English c**ts
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how the Irish bury their heads in the sand & delve into fantasy .
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying you have to love the way Trapatoni has them at it .
I'm not saying that at all .
I'm saying beggars canne be choosers & its an achievement to qualify & anything beyond that is a bonus .
Ireland needs a reality check & I am giving you it in believe it or not , friendship .
Perhaps you would prefer it if I too suckled on the nipple of appeasement ?
Tough Luck ! , Lifes Hard init ?
If you dont like my comments & find them antagonistic then that says more about you & your own perceptions of your inferiority than it says anything about me .
I'm here for critical realism like its advertised , sorry if you were expecting hand holding , hugs & kisses but that isnt me .
Toughen up .
Believe me I will be laughing my ass off if they fail to get out of that group .
ReplyDeleteCare to share with us "delusional wannabes" where you are from so?
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the players parents that England so Graciously permitted us to take were Irish and moved to England because of the crippling recession the country was going through at the time.
I didnt say that England permitted you to take anything or one .
ReplyDeleteIf I was to comment on the amount of foreign nationals in any Irish side I would say it makes a mockery of the country's identity & that if anything England forces its 3'rd rate players on the Irish because Ireland definitely has better kids playing non league football in & around Dublin alone without any need for the likes of Walters or Cox , Bruce , Green , St Ledger & many more & as a matter of fact I'd like to see FIFA produce irrefutable proof that they have any kinda Irish heritage whatsoever .
In my time , apart from Andy Townsend , John Aldridge & Ray Houghton Irelands foreign players have been in no way better than what they already have & the English players are only preventing genuine Irish players from making it into the senior squad .
So it makes no difference where I am from therefore I'll be tellin you nothing other than if you cant stand the heat then get out of the kitchen because I didnt ask you to wave any international flag in a Club forum .
Pre Charlton Ireland were nearly men , playing good football but qualifying for nothing , they were delusional that it was the way to play because the bigger more powerful European Nations were having success with it .
ReplyDeleteIn stepped Charlton , he done away with the tinsel & pretty decorations & built a solid functional team unit that actually qualified for tournaments at the expense of pointless pretty , fashionable , football .
Under Brian Kerr Ireland played proper traditional , stylish attacking football but again it got them nowhere so they brought in Staunton who was a disaster , then they landed one of the best & arguably THE best manager in European football in Trapatoni .
Trapatoni introduced the patient continental philosophy , got them conserving their energy , holding their shape & not throwing the kitchen sink at everyone every time without a plan b .
Ireland might not like it , it may be too deliberate & continental for their hap hazard kick & rush mentality but they most definitely cant complain its sub standard management .
The Irish are very disrespectful towards their opponents & if anything the results we are seeing in these finals are exactly what Ireland deserve .
Irish talk about their team & complain about a great manager like they are under performing by not beating Croatia !
Croatia are a good team !
Football is a team game & therefore if there is a delusion it is a collective delusion so to answer who is delusional ?
Everyone who canne see the woods for the trees !
Simples !
No Brainer !
Shiney Tings !
Gadgets !
Unga Bunga !
Beam me up Scotty !
I cannot understand how he played Whelan and Andrews ahead of Gibson. He did really well as a regular starter once he left Man Utd and is better than them two. My EFC colleagues cannot also understand why Seamus Coleman was overlooked for other inferior players.
ReplyDeleteKeane is well past it should of been McLean and Long.
England cricket team has more South African born players in it than English
ReplyDeleteKevin Sheedy born in Hereford, but a a quality left foot.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest, the Premier League only enjoys its very dubious claim to be the best league in the world because of the foreign players. The English have little excuse, however, for producing a series of dull and uninspiring international teams when they have 50 million bodies to choose from!
ReplyDeleteROI has what, 3.5 million? NI, 1.2 million (40 per cent of those give allegiance to the Republic), Scotland, 5 million, Wales, something less! Before you ask, yes, I am actually English-yet objective-unlike most little Englanders. This Hodgson side is ghastly. Not a wonder Harry Redknapp took the hump. All the teams on these islands are light years behind-it starts at school-he's a big 'un' get him in at Centre Half-he's got a good engine-midfield-he's speedy, make him a winger- and so on. It's all sadly inevitable. The ball must become your FRIEND not your enemy. Ireland reached their threshold by qualifying and could achieve no more-end of story.
Its funny because if you look at the team, Keane makes his money in the MLS. Ward got relegated along with Wolves. Dunne is done. Walters plays for hoofing Stoke. Do I need to go on.
ReplyDeleteCan I just say you left out Mick McCarthy's time at the helm, when he had Ireland playing great football, while also qualifying for a World Cup and taking last night's opponents to penalty kicks in the knock out stages....so to say we need a dose of reality is far from the truth. We know better than anyone where we stand and we certainly don't need some onnoxious gimp coming along spouting off like he knows it all telling us how it is and that we should be grateful for Trappatoni...!!! Trappatoni left behind Wes Hoolahan and instead took Paul Green (a guy who has no club vs a guy who had an unbelievable season in the PL). We couldn't hold onto a ball for more than 5 secs last night and Hoolahan would of been just the man to help us, but Trap's sheer blindness and stubborness that his way would work no matter what and took like for like players was found out. Trap will get you so far but the problem was not the players it was the lack of Options of the bench...pure and simple...!!! And that is completely Trap's fault.
ReplyDeleteTo Brehon Law:
ReplyDeleteI was taking most of your comments with a pinch of salt until I saw the one about the Irish disrespecting opponents. Would you care to give some examples of that because you are talking absolute rubbish and obviously getting us confused with England. Even when the group was drawn for this tournament, the English media were already talking about the Quarters saying it was a good group for England. They were already talking about who they would possibly meet in the Quarters before a ball had been kicked. Now that is disrespecting your opponents.
outstanding ignorance.... please do tell who the most successful captain for any club is since the start of the Premier League? what? who's that? Roy Keane is it?
ReplyDeleteoh and please do tell, when was the last time the irish lost to the Mighty English? what? whats that ? when???? oh 1985 is it??? you are a child i am guessing of no more than 15 years old, or else you are just amazingly ignorant, perhaps both
it appears you are just a fool, you make no valid points, go watch the cricket there's a good lad, you seem to get confused when talking football
ReplyDeletebrehon law is suffering from severe depression, sad sad little man, bitter because ireland got to the euros - did you not happen to notice how the irish fans enjoyed the tournament? did u see how many went to support the team??? not one fan realistically thought we had a hope but the great nature of the irish people shone through, the fans were and are amazing, best fans in the world. how many engerlish were at the match against france? a couple of hundred non vocal passionless free ticket won a competion wimps. england, shit team, shit fans, ireland shit team great fans
ReplyDeleteronnie whelan is an ex player, a brilliant one at that who won euro cups and scored in major competitions. who did you play for brehon? 5-a-side with your buddies? oh i guess you are an expert then. well done man, well done, you have proven yourself to be a fool - yes the irish expect more, because we have high standards. As the great bill nich said, better to fail aiming high than succeed aiming low. you got to have standards boy, which you obviously dont...which is why you come over as such a bitter little loser :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for proving my point you illiterate numbskull...have they not taught you how to spell properly yet(this is in reference to your post below...just there was no reply attachment to that comment)...Lol.
ReplyDeletewhat a shite hawk brehon, as an irishman in poland at the moment it is hard to take your comments, what are you basing your comments on about the irish team thinkin they are a 'powerhouse'. hang your head in shame and go back to watching tv on your own cause i doubt you have a single friend in the world . what a loser ,. big man on a forum,lonely man everywhere else
ReplyDeleteHoolahan up to Spains level...the same Hoolahan who ran the Spanish side Deportivo ragged when playing for Shelbourne in the first leg of a Champs Lge qualifiers a few years back....Yeah that Wes Hoolahan. !!! And f*ck being disrespectful to Spain, the fact you of all people actually try to state someone is disrespecting is like Pot, Kettle and Black sunshine. Also your understanding of Mick McCarthys tactics shows a complete lack of knowledge of how Ireland played under him.
ReplyDelete