Can O'Neill's men change gear for Luxembourg


Just a very quick pre-match comment on the progress of Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland. 

The trip to Russia ended in disappointment, but not disgrace.  There were tentative signs that O’Neill is beginning to drill some organisation into his side defensively.

The team kept its shape quite effectively while the Russians played their fluid passing game and the best chances were created because of individual errors.  That said, Northern Ireland gave the ball away much too easily, and there were few signs of the clever, mobile offensive tactics which O’Neill wants to introduce.

2-0 was as good a result as the fans had a right to expect, especially since Russia’s second goal was a contentious penalty (although Cathcart’s challenge on Kokorin was clumsy).   They will demand more against Luxembourg tonight.

 Under Nigel Worthington Northern Ireland failed to change their defensive game when they played weaker opponents, or to dominate possession.  O’Neill’s task this evening is to show that his side knows how to play against minnows, as well as sides like Russia.

 On a tangent, the trip to Moscow, via Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod was amazing.  But that's for another day. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
I am often to blogging and i really appreciate your content. The article has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your site and keep checking for new information.
16 September 2012 at 22:21
Anonymous said…
get cheap rgsuYmFd [URL=http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/]fake bags[/URL] for more DNKHCUAz [URL=http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/ ] http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/ [/URL]
15 March 2013 at 12:11
Anonymous said…
purchase YSeqceAS [URL=http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/]fake designer bags[/URL] , just clicks away TxVwSEww [URL=http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/ ] http://www.cheapdesigner--handbags.weebly.com/ [/URL]
16 March 2013 at 13:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retaine...
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro...
Read more