Ireland v Bulgaria- opinion

So it all ended in disappointment. We must ask though, was the perfect start the beginning of our downfall? It was obvious that the forever stubborn Trappatoni was going to stick to his usual tactic- take the lead and sit back. The Irish were victims of a successful opening minute last night.

While painful to watch, it also seemed unrealistic that a team with Paul McShane and Kevin Kilbane as the full backs would hold onto a 1-0 lead for 89 minutes. If the Irish went looking for a second, the outcome might have been another three points in Group 8.

We have already seen that Trappatoni likes to employ two defensive midfielders, despite the majority of fans wanting a more attack minded player in the middle. Both the Reid and Ireland situations have been dwelt on far too much, but without the both of them it looks like the nation is short on somebody who can advance forward from the middle of the park. Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews are both too similar and possess little in attack minded play. Ideally, a combination of one plus Reid or Ireland would work, but as time moves on it looks less and less likely.

One of the main problems last night was Aiden McGeady. He constantly seemed to be playing too central when it was clear that he should have been given more width, where he is clearly much stronger. Was this a personal decision or Trappatoni’s making? I’d be inclined to go with the latter but even if that was not the case it made McGeady seem much more ineffective. Duff was also a loss on the opposite wing. Recently, we’ve become used to seeing McGeady and Duff swapping wings nonchalantly but this feature was missing for most of last night due to Hunt being such a one sided player.

While we could sit here and discuss the poor decision from Trappatoni to play this boring style of football for hours upon hours, he isn’t going to change his mind after reading this. I’d imagine, anyway. What left most of the 60000 inside Croke Park astounded - most have now come to accept that the Irish will play defensive if in the lead - was that Trappatoni waited until injury time to make a substitution. Was the introduction of Andy Keogh a time wasting measure?

Bulgaria weren’t even that great without their star player, Dimitar Berbatov, yet they still thoroughly deserved the point. The Irish fans were clearly unhappy with the outcome, booing at the final whistle. The 60000 who did go to Croke Park, paying what must be said too high a price for the product being served up, gave the boys in green some great encouragement. On a couple of occasions the whole ground was on its feet cheering the side, who returned the favour with some pretty ugly football.

It must be asked, will the Italian mentality continue against the purveyors of arguably the most boring style of football in the world? Unfortunately, it looks more than likely. However, it will be more suited in Bari on Wednesday in comparison to the previous games. A draw would be more than acceptable too but it’s now time for us to accept that the Irish national team was never going to be as beautiful as a Milanese model strutting around the Piazza del Duomo. In fact, it’s about as ugly as a Cilla Black and a Pete Doherty love-child.

Ultimately, we’re still in second place, but it will be next autumn that matters not now. The question is, will Trappatoni’s philosophy of anything but a loss be enough? The nation will just have to wait and see.