Subject: Ireland Vs...

Great. That's a word of a determinated coach ! I like that.

I think i'm going to be watching the Norway/Australia game first. It's not unreasonable to expect a win against Malta so that can wait. It's more important that Norway win. Anything else and we're in trouble regards qualification.

Australia are 2 up. Norway have assassinated us by a suicidal defensive formation.

* Sighs *
Well it's almost an impossible task now. We need at least 8 points from the 4 remaining games. Realistically that means wins against Norway, Greece and Australia.
I suppose if Norway defend like that again then it's possible but i doubt they will.

Oh come on, thats 3 Ireland players injured this weekend already. We've not even played our league games yet.

And thats another one.

its gonna be a tough one today. good luck.

Yeah it's almost impossible but i suppose if Norway can beat them then there is some slim hope.

Ok admittedly Brunton playing as a mid was an error but am i wrong in feeling we've been a little hard done by by the result?
I'm genuinely looking at this group and thinking "We're more than capable of beating Norway and Australia"

you dominated the midfield and maybe, maybe if Matthews was on the side and on the offside line, he could have score. Or maybe if your defense was deeper, you could have prevented those goals. but these are just maybes, solid performance, but a loss.

how about the other matches ?

Freyne needed to be pulled back a bit further. He was pretty much by-passed constantly and looked very slow.
Moving the defence deeper wasn't an option, it'd only give them more time and space to shoot.
I was most disappointed with Lizrraga, he takes far far too long to distribute the ball. You have to expect when you've got a striker as good as Matthews that he's going to play better than that as well.
As i said i've gone from thinking we can qualify to thinking we will qualify. It's a difficult task but providing i dont make any mistakes i think we'll beat the other teams.

I agree, I am sure you can win all the three remaining games and the performance you showed only proves that.

As i said i've gone from thinking we can qualify to thinking we will qualify. It's a difficult task but providing i dont make any mistakes i think we'll beat the other teams.

Er, no.

Er yes. We had you beaten last season before a late own goal. I messed up in our game this time.
Take a look at the Lietuva game and you'll see we had posession, equal shots and were in their half more than they were in ours. If we can outplay them we can outplay you :D

you can compete with Lithuania as long as I dont edit tactics... [;

We could argue that we messed up last season, so I don't really see that as an excuse. I'm not getting too far involved but yes it's possible, but you require 3 wins and hope that either Norge or us to lose 2 of our last 3 games. So it's possible but I'd rather be in our position than yours ;).