Trap Must Go
When you strip away the disappointing performance, a second World Cup qualifying defeat at home and the long ball tactics what are you left with? A team devoid of ideas, confidence and incapable of raising their game against a Swedish side – Ibrahimovic apart — we should be more than capable of beating.
The buck stops with the manager and Trapattoni simply cannot fob this performance away with broken English and talk of ‘mentality’. It is simply not good enough.
If this Swedish performance is the best a manager of Trap’s experience can get out of this current Ireland team then the best thing for Irish football, heading towards Euro 2016, is a parting of the ways.
New manager, new ideas and restoration of some hope for the future is needed and fast.
Playing caveman football will get you nowhere
Seamus Coleman and Marc Wilson have forged a career for themselves playing in the full back positions of Everton and Stoke City in the Premier League. Coleman and Wilson are noted for their ability to get forward on either flank, link defence with attack and provide marauding overlapping runs.
Within Trapattoni’s suffocating structure however, both full backs most potent weapons have been rendered useless and never more so than tonight when launching long balls into the opponents half was the order of the day rather than looking to take a short pass and build patiently from the back.
If it is depressing for Irish fans to look at this spectacle then spare a thought for Coleman and Wilson who are constantly restricted from playing their natural game.
Hoolahan and Brady deserve better
Wes Hoolahan and Robbie Brady are not the messiahs a lot of Irish fans would have you believe capable of rescuing Irish football from its current impasse. Yet both players are capable of improving this current Irish team and both should have started against Sweden.
Brady’s impressive start to the new Premier League season and recent eye-catching displays in friendly internationals should have warranted a starting berth whilst Hoolahan’s inclusion would have forced Ireland to play more constructively in the final third.
Neither player would have altered the result but both individuals deserve a better run in the first team whoever takes over once Trapattoni is gone.
We can still qualify… but does it matter?
Ireland could well travel to Vienna next week and pull off a shock away victory and Sweden could still possibly come a cropper away to Kazakhstan on the same evening. Highly unlikely and even if those results did pan out not many Irish fans would be rushing to purchase tickets for the next home international.
The situation facing John Delaney and the FAI is stark. No one wants to watch the rubbish served up by Ireland tonight and is more likely to go and watch their local GAA or Rugby team rather than sit through another 90 minutes of the dreadful fare served up against Sweden.
A new manager is needed but a more attractive playing philosophy is much important if the FAI intends to pay off outstanding bills and fill the Aviva ever again. Irish supporters aren’t fools and have been loyal to their players for many years but unless a more attractive playing method is introduced to the Irish senior setup a generation of young players will simply choose another sport and Irish soccer will suffer.
Follow Ger on Twitter: @germccarthy74
