Wednesday 24 October 2007

By Mutual Agreement




Hi All,

We all knew it was going to happen, but the Football Association of Ireland wait until past our bedtimes to tell us that Stan had parted by mutual consent. We were deprived of sleeping soundly and dreaming of Jose because those buffoons thought it would lessen the media attention by not sacking him until after the deadline for the morning papers. What do they take us for?

In a way it's sad to see a player with more than 100 caps have the mickey taken out of him in the media, and have torrent of abuse reign down on him at matches, but his hapless, distrustful & shambolic management style has brought it about. Ireland had a bad manager, but some very good players (Given, Finnan, Dunne), good players (Ireland, O'Shea, Doyle, Keane) and they failed miserably,. most importantly, in terms of performance, and in terms of points. Stan wouldn't have been sacked if we achieved plucky moral victories while showing team spirit and resilience, he was sacked because of the players attitude, his attitude and the inability of anyone to change things effectively.

I'm sure there will be more about in the coming weeks, but the managerial position now up for grabs should not go to any of - Souness, Venables, any Irish ex-pro with no experience, or mercenary types like Philippe Troussier. Please FAI, pick up a youngish manager from Europe with some experience of success and pay him what he wants, performance related, on a contract until the World Cup.
****************************

The Champions League last night threw up plenty of great goals. Arsenal's 7-0 victory was superb, as was United's attacking play in Kiev, while Rangers did well to get a draw with Barca. All 3 British teams should be in the last 16.
To tonight's matches - Liverpool are away to Besiktas in a kinda-have-to-win-but-must-not-lose encounter, but they are lucky in that Turkish football is absolute crap these days and Besiktas have lost their first two matches in Group A without scoring a goal.
They do have a couple of decent player to trouble old man Hyppia though - Edouard Cisse (ex-West Ham), Ricardinho (21 caps for Brazil, World Cup winner & ex-Boro!), Rustu Recber, Matias Delgado and Marcio Nobre.
So, not all plain sailing for the 'Pool, who have a few injury problems, but they should be strong enough.

Benfica play Celtic, and they really should look to break their Champions League away form hoodoo, and Benfica are not up to much really. However, it is more than likely that Celtic will remember their 3-0 thrashing in Portugal last year, and cave in again.

Finally, Chelsea play Schalke, and I fancy them to scutter through it, primarily for the reason that German teams have been poor in the CL for a few years now and also that John Terry is injured, so they should be more solid at the back. Peter Lovenkrands and Kevin Kuranyi could cause trouble however but it is hard to see anything other than a home win.

Mark,
http://www.okeydokefootball.com/

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Jed Houllier is a snip at 18-1 on PP at the moment. What an appointment that could be - remember how he nearly got plucky underachievers France through to WC'94. Man's a genius.

Anonymous said...

unfortunately he's technical director for france, otherwise we'd be laughing!

Anonymous said...

For the pure craic of stirring shit I hope dick advocat gets the job. Former rangers man at the helm, plus he's a decent manager. Would upset the scumbag on the street which I'm in favour of.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Benitez should be available for the Ireland job v. soon. Described last night as a "spanish Jack"(Charlton)so....should be a perfect fit then. Jeez following liverpool is becoming truly depressing. By the way Hleb looked pretty decent on Tues.

Anonymous said...

Shocking stuff, if kuyt and voronin are ever again announced over the tannoy as the striking partnership to start a game there will be riots.

Brutal. Viva la crouchigol.

Anonymous said...

I'd say Arsenal are shitting themselves at the thought of visiting Anfield on Sunday!!!!!!I wonder if things aren't going to plan,will Rafa take off captain fantastic again?It would be nice to see the little bitch nearly bawling,while he hands over the armband to fellow scouse cunt and Judo expert Carragher!Liverpool are there for the taking,Come on the Gunners!!(LUHG)

darmcv said...

I heard Dundalkians/Craptownians were wearing black armbands after their favourite son bumbled his way out of a job...happy days.
Pool are in trouble, if they don't get out of the group they'll have nothing to mask their crablike football(not actual crab football) and long ball merchantry. Benetiz is on his last legs.

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