This is one of the worst Irish performances I've ever seen. I can only think of the loss away to Cyprus and a draw against Lichtenstein as being worse. It was coming. Ireland are an abomination of a side under O Neill, relying on hoofing the ball up the park and hoping for the best most of the time. We got lucky against Wales. I'm not impressed by O' Neill's tenure at all. Finished third in euro qualifying group and got easy play-off match, finished third in euros group after beating Italy second string, finished second in relatively easy WC qualifying group that was there for the taking and now this disaster. . But would anyone else get more out of this current crop of mediocrities? I don't think so. We don't have the players; two of our best are from Northern Ireland. How bad was Stephen Ward tonight? Bloody hell. Pity Walters and Coleman weren't there to provide a bit of...something. Why don't we have the players? Because the coaching in Ireland is all wrong. Technically we are shown up even against a run of the mill team like Denmark. And they are run of the mill in my opinion. Take Eriksen out and there's not much to fear. They brought Bendtner off the bench for goodness sake. I thought the Danes played well tonight, especially Sisto, but it's not hard to play well against nothing. It's a good thing the euros and world cups are expanding to let every tom, dick and harry in, otherwise we would be facing a long drought. We've got nothing coming through.
It’s difficult to know where to begin with Tuesday night. It’s almost as if aliens, (Danish loving aliens!) took over O’Neill’s body. The Copenhagen game showed that O’Neill had the measure of the Danes if shutting them down was the sole aim. The adjustments required for Dublin after Copenhagen were modest enough - continue to keep Eriksen under wraps and find a way to be more attacking minded. If the change was going to be Meyler for O’Dowda, then it required McClean, Brady and Hendrick to play further up, with Arter/Hendrick slotting in beside Meyler anchoring the midfield. That’s not to say that the 3 Amigos would only be focused on going forward. As Copenhagen had shown, this was always going to be all hands to the pump, midfielders covering ~10kms and working the ball forward to keep the Danes honest. Personally I would have found a way to start Hoolahan which would have absolutely required 2 holding midfielders and only one forward. On the night, Brady and Hendrick played much further forward and didn’t cover back and instead of the suffocating blanket we had seen in Copenhagen, suddenly there was space between the lines and Eriksen had time. And for all the the Danish superiority, they only went in at the half 2-1 up courtesy of a dodgy own goal and a well taken one. The game was far from gone but did need management. And this is when the aliens landed. Shore up the midfield, bring Hoolahan on to pick the passes and hopefully there’d be an early goal. O’Neill, as a manager, has a great ability to make more from less and allied to a very good tactical acumen his teams are very difficult to beat. They’re probably set up better to defend a lead than actually gain one. But it’s not often that you find him making tactical errors. His forte is getting the other manager to make them. It’s difficult to fathom the thinking that sees Meyler AND Arter making way for Hoolahan and McGeady. The midfield, the defensive portion, is immediately eviscerated, Eriksen and Sisto are allowed to roam free and a hiding is on the books. McGeady? Yesterday’s man. If O’Dowda was good enough to be selected in a defensive game in Copenhagen, why not Dublin? And who exactly did O’Neill think was going to watch Eriksen? I’m not sure I heard Hoolahan’s name more than twice in the second half. There was a serious disconnect between an attack that then found themselves having to defend more than attack with more holes in the midfield than Swiss cheese. What was McClean’s role in the second half? O’Neill doesn’t usually make such huge mistakes and rarely gets found out so badly, but after a real defensive master class in Copenhagen, he absolutely got it a lot wrong in Dublin. And all wrong in the second half. At the end of the day, maybe it wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference, maybe Denmark would still have won, but I can’t help thinking had the second half been managed better, the final score would have been 3-2. (Not certain which way, however!). Balls out to the wall was not the way to go. Not then, not so early.
I agree with that analysis but I also thought the players on the field were rather naive after we went ahead. We were gifted a lucky goal so early but then Denmark came at us and had a number of chances before getting their first. They should have had enough leadership/experience on the field to realize the situation after they scored and consolidated their positions.