IRELAND MAY HAVE won by two goals against Andorra last night, but the win was far from an emphatic one. Plenty of talking points came out of the win, but here are a few of the more thought provoking ones.
1.TACTICS
There wasn't anything particularly interesting about Ireland's tactics last night when taken at face value. They weren't ultra-defensive, nor were they the 'Ireland unleashed' we saw in Paris. The opposition were of a very poor quality, so it's hard to gauge exactly the efficacy of Ireland's formation and style. But at times, particularly in the first half, Ireland were extremely poor at passing.
-Midfield: Paul Green and Glenn Whelan were the main culprits, with more than a few passes going away from their original target. Whelan was hauled off, while Green picked up his performance in the second half and started to boss the midfield. The return of Keith Andrews from injury is being marked as a possible solution to Ireland's lack of midfield steel, but the Blackburn player has got no match practice this season. Russia, with midfielders like Arshavin and Dzagoev, will be a wholly different test for Ireland.
2.RUSSIA
Russia have only lost twice in their last twenty-three matches at home, but those two matches have been their last two, against Germany and Slovakia. Yesterday the Russians had a dire first half, allowing Miroslav Stoch to capitalise on a mix-up between Igor Akinfeev and his defence. In the second-half though, Russia attacked with real menace and were unlucky not to score. One thing which stood out was their midfield. Most of their creativity came from midfield through the aforementioned Andrei Arshavin and Alan Dzagoev, who will cause Ireland immense problems. Pavel Pogrebnyak up fronnt misfired, but Ireland's central midfielders need to dramatically up their game to shackle the Russians.
3.AIDEN MCGEADY
The one Irish player who should be a bit more used to playing Russians was impressive last night. He caused his opponent, the Andorran left-back Cristian Martinez, plays his club football for FC Andorra- a semi-pro team. Next month McGeady (if he plays) should be up against Yuri Zhirkov of Chelsea. There's not too much that can be drawn from last night, even if McGeady did terrorise the Andorran defence.
