Trappatoni

The FAI have released a statement that they are on course to qualify for Brazil. If this was a cartoon in the Hotspur or the Victor comics of the 1960's it would be accompanied with the words "snigger-snigger" "ha-ha-haaaaa"
 
Leper said:
The FAI have released a statement that they are on course to qualify for Brazil. If this was a cartoon in the Hotspur or the Victor comics of the 1960's it would be accompanied with the words "snigger-snigger" "ha-ha-haaaaa"
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Leper , your knowledge of comics is comparable to your knowledge of football

The Victor & Hotspur contained adventure stories , cartoons were the staple diet of the Dandy & Beano !

My speedos are already packed for Brazil !
 
Deiseblue said:
Leper , your knowledge of comics is comparable to your knowledge of football

The Victor & Hotspur contained adventure stories , cartoons were the staple diet of the Dandy & Beano !

My speedos are already packed for Brazil !
Click to expand...

Didn't the Victor have Roy of the Rovers, the fish and chip eating, plumber who sidelined as a footballing dynamo..........and hotspur I didn't read, but did it have a lot of football?
 
Roy of the Rovers featured in the Tiger.

Roy was a full time footballer if I remember correctly.

Alf Tupper aka The tough of the track dined/trained exclusively on a diet of fish & chips & it never did him any harm , Alf was a welder .


The Hotspur featured plenty of football related tales but to my mind wasn't a patch on the Victor !
 
You're not going to believe this guys, but once I had the entire collection of Victor comics complete with the freebies that came with it occasionally. It was a mighty collection collected every Thursday afternoon.

Alf Tupper was running in the colours of the Lone Wolf Athletic Club. Incidentally, this was my favourite feature. Then there was Morgan the Mighty, truly great adventure epic from week to week. The front and back page contained a different story each week of British adventures in WW2. The Germans and Japanese were made look like second rate soldiers.

Alas, my collection disappeared (probably sold off by prime suspects my brothers).

Back then, it was normal to graduate to 64 page comics after the Victor and from then to Zane Grey westerns (adventure books without pictures). Audy Murphy was the hero in the films and always wore the white hat.

Now, where does this leave the Rep of Ireland soccer team? Oh yes with Desperate Dan in The Dandy or was it the Beano? But, one way or the other we could do with Roy of the Rovers on discovering that his grandfather was from Killenaule or Hackballscross.
 
I know certain people in the media are screaming for Giovanni's head. But, Ireland put up two creditable performances in the past few days. At least, they are seen to be trying to play and not like earlier matches when they appeared not to give a damn.

I reckon we wont qualify for Rio but the team is improving and I think we should stick with Trappatoni.
 
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Cases for and against I suppose. Team has show signs of improvement,but Trap still seems to be making errors of judgement. Hoolahan should have been on instead of Greene. And taking Long off, when he was clearly still full of running, was a major error.
 
On balance I tend to agree with Leper, but only for the remainder of this campaign. I think Brady was spot on last night in that some of the questions by Tony in the interview of Trap last night were stupid. Asking him if he should resign after a draw with Austria - Trap was completely right with his reply!
On the negative side, he is infuriating with his unwillingness to use the subs. Last night the midfield pair of Whelan and McCarthy were shot after about 65 minutes, anyone could see they needed and extra body in there to help out. Even Trap said it himself yet did nothing about it. Also I still find his selections hard to figure out at times, for example choosing Sammon last night and ignoring McCarthy, Wilson, Coleman and Long for so long.
However on the flip side, I do think the spirit in the team is great which is a long way from where we were under Staunton and even Kerr. When you look at the squad on the whole, we really only have a very average pool of players to pick from so I think to be in with a shot of second spot in the group is really the best we can hope for. Our playing pool is not that much different from that of Wales and Scotland and look at both of them.
 
I think he should go, why are we always at the mercy of his 'senior moments'. His stuborness stifled getting the best players on the pitch for so long (& still a bit of an issue). His communication is atrocious & this occasionally has real implications - various unnecessary run-ins with players, the latest being the 'basket casing' of Robbie Brady.

He continually tells us we're just donkeys, he obviously believes that, however there is an almost unanimous view that we should have continued to play in that 2nd half, not attempted to park the bus. Its not like we got no warning, Austria had about 6 fair to good chances before they scored, it looked like only the clock could spare our blushes. So even on the 80th minute he should have said "this isnt working, its only a matter of time before they score, lets get control of the ball, control of the game, play in their half and finish out this game".

I think most people would accept results if the best players were on the pitch playing a style/styles that suit us. Its one thing to not achieve, but to not achieve because you are not properly utilising what you have is the galling thing.

When should he go?, probably no point damaging a new guy by starting him off with an impossible task, so suffer it out until the maths are done. Of course I hope we qualify but hard to see it at this stage.
 
Well he did get us to the euros, where we got spanked by three of the best teams there.
He doesn't pick the team that the press and fans generally call for, but we do tend to make stars out of players that are out of the team. Hoolohan is the latest name to be thrown in as the player that will get the ball down and keep possession, but maybe Trap agrees, but feels that there isn'e another 4 or 5 players to assist in keeping it. We saw last night that when we had to wind down the clock for the last 5 minutes, we couldn't even take it into the corner; was Hoolohan going to do it alone?
I would have like to see him play a part, but there has to be reason for the decisions made.
I don't think that you can simply say that Ireland should control the ball and control the game, because that has never been the way, and we don't have a culture of keeping possession, even England with all there stars can't do it at international level.
I have enjoyed the last two games, and that for me is a start, because it shows that there is a way forward with these players, and maybe we are not that far from assembling a decent team to compete.
 
He should go after this campaign... I was at the game last night and how Trap and Tardelli could'nt see what was happening for the final 30 mins is beyond me.
We were pinned back for so long, Whelan was just back from injury and looked wrecked, as did Walters, Sammon was never up to it....and what did he do...brought on Green and put him in right midfield and left Sammon and Whelan on!!!!
It beggars belief such an experienced manager could do this.

And in general, hist attitude towards and the way he deals with the players is all wrong.

Time to go is fast approaching
 

I was there last night too, the whole bleeding stadium knew we had to bring on a third sub, someone who could either pass the ball or keep it, really couldn't understand not bringing hoolahan on.

I think the players still lack confidence, walters and green playing for their club sides would have stood over that free near the corner flag and just played it to each other and drawn a free or won a throw, count down the clock, letting the austrians win that ball was criminal.

They played a lot of good stuff last night but we really should have had another goal or two, wilson's miss was awful. Ref didnt' do us many favours either.

Don't really see the point in replacing trap now much as I would like to.
 
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