Five things we learned from Ireland v Slovakia

Ireland's Euro 2012 hopes are hanging by a thread after last night's hapless old 0-0 against Slovakia. Here are five lessons to take from the game.

By Niall Delaney

The Whelan-Andrews axis needs the axe

There have been many games when Trapattoni's favoured system of two holding midfielders has been exposed, but given the importance of this match, the beatable opponents in front of us and the fact we were playing at home, it has never been truly exposed as it was on Friday evening. Anyone who goes to Irish games regularly will realise that this decrepit and antiquated game plan forces our defenders to be hapless playmakers. On countless occasions against Slovakia, when Whelan and Andrews got on the ball, they simply passed it directly back or diagonally back, for either one of our back four to clip it down the line in a vain hope that Kevin Doyle would get an eyebrow to it. Andrews had a shocker and Whelan was no better and while we all completely recognise their painfully limited attacking ability, its about time Giovanni / Marco / the interpreter / somebody connected with the Irish management woke the hell up and realised  neither of them are can run fast ,win a header or even tackle that robustly, so what exactly are their supposed defensive virtues?

As bad as plan A is, we simply don't have a plan B

For the last ten minutes of the game, Ireland changed from clipping it down the line, to launching it into the box. To who exactly? Robbie Keane is 5 foot 10, but plays as if he's four foot nothing, so every long aimless ball sent forward by St Ledger and Dunne was meat, drink and Slovakian stew to the likes of Martin Skrtel. To think that we have a manager getting paid €1.6 million a year to concoct these amazingly basic footballing strategies, while the country hasn't a pot to piss in, beggars belief. Ireland, despite having a healthy crop of players to pick from, is now one of the most predictable teams in Europe. Vladimir Weiss had his homework done and did a number on Trapattoni.

Shane Long was a huge loss

To have lost Long to injury proved to be a major blow. Kevin Doyle looks unusually leggy and seemed to lack a bit of confidence after been originally omitted from the the starting line up. The Tipperary man's power and pace would have been the ideal way to take the fight to the rugged and physical Slovakian defence. His absence left us sorely lacking on the bench and Jon Walters or Leon Best should have been drafted in to the squad. Instead we were left with Simon Cox, who is not the answer. He does seem, however, to have answered at least one long asked footballing question, namely 'who ate all the pies?'

Friendlies mean nothing

For all the run of unbeaten games, for all the clean sheets, for all the embarrassed celebration after lifting the Carling Cup of Nations, where exactly has it left us? The answer is of course, no better off. When the chips were down, when we needed a result, we delivered damn all. I for one would have given up all the friendly wins and all the clean sheets for one scuffed Robbie Keane penalty and the team flying out with three points safely tucked under their collective arm.

Trapattoni needs to go

This is the most obvious lesson of the whole lot. Trap has been a good servant for Ireland. A costly one, but he’s served a real purpose, smoothing things through after the embarrassing awfulness of the Steve Staunton regime and giving us a team that could compete, really compete, at international level again.

But the FAI should call time on his time now. Maybe it’s because Trap is too intransigent and set in his ways to change, maybe it’s because he doesn’t trust the players at his disposal, but Ireland’s old 4-4-2 is so shoddy these days that any team with a tactical heartbeat can suss us out. Cast your mind back to Russia at the Aviva last October – the Russians ran at our midfield directly from the kick-off, knowing that the match-up of three technically superior midfielders against two Irish workhorses was one that was always going to go in their favour.

Ireland are overrun in midfield, in virtually every game. It’s a freak of the fixture list that we’ve now had six clean sheets in a row. Can anyone really see our anachronistic set-up emerging from Moscow on Tuesday with a seventh? Not me.

The game has moved on, and it’s now time that Trap was moved on too.