Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Sports: O'Shea wary of looming Armenian threat

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Sports: O'Shea wary of looming Armenian threat

    Irish Independent
    Oct 8 2011

    O'Shea wary of looming Armenian threat

    By David Kelly

    Saturday October 08 2011


    John O'Shea bounds for the bus. Seemingly as eager as the rest of us
    to banish the previous hours into a far, distant place in the memory
    bank.

    Three points. Move on. Tuesday will define this group; not this
    evening of torpor.

    "We found out the Russian result as well and we just wanted to get the
    three points and get out of town," he says. "We've played on some bad
    pitches as kids but you think when you get to international level that
    it might be better.

    "You have to get on with it. Be professional. It would have been nice
    to score a few more goals, it would have been a lot nicer. All roads
    lead to Tuesday night against a team who are scoring lots of goals at
    the moment. It will be a good test for us."

    Ireland declared at 2-0 after 20 minutes and submitted to a tame
    stalemate thereafter.

    "The manager wasn't happy at half-time, he didn't want us to
    underestimate them," reports O'Shea. "We did put them under a lot of
    pressure in the first 20 minutes but we fell away a bit after that and
    the manager wasn't happy with that. The second-half was disappointing,
    not scoring. We defended comfortably enough and Shay Given handled
    anything he had to deal with."

    The dangerous Armenians lurk with more menacing intent.

    "You go into a game against Armenia thinking about a draw... they've
    scored a lot of goals so we're going to have to be on our guard at the
    back. Having Richard Dunne back will be a bonus.

    "But obviously we lose Stephen Ward, which is disappointing. I think
    he was fouled, at least he says so. He didn't dive over like a swan.
    But we have the players. You see Aiden McGeady has become a
    world-class player. We need to give him the ball because he's
    destroying teams for us at the moment.

    "We would have taken this position at the start of the group but then
    you see the games against Slovakia when we could have really nicked a
    win in both of those, especially away from home when we deserved it a
    lot more."

    Kevin Doyle agreed. "We always had that hope that maybe we could go on
    and win the group. We have been in the play-offs before and we know
    what it's like.

    "Armenia will be full of confidence. We knew when we won 1-0 that it
    was a very difficult game and since then they have picked up some big
    results. They won't be fearing us."

    "We won't be going for a draw," added Shane Long. "We know exactly how
    good Armenia are. They were a great side in the first game and we knew
    a 1-0 win away from home was going to be a big result. Hopefully we
    can back that up with a home win to get us to the play-offs."

    - David Kelly

    http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/oshea-wary-of-looming-armenian-threat-2900104.html




    From: A. Papazian
Working...
X