Stephen Ireland

[VillanousOne]

sorry if i wasn't clear

i meant that people always defend Ireland with the words "he will do better with better players around him"

but IMO if he can only shine when there are more talented players around him then he is extremely limited as a footballer...

Robbie Keane didn't need help from other people

Is keane the same type of player as Ireland?

I think you need to change the record and find someone else to throw your blame and hate at.

[ozvillafan]

If Ireland was genuinely playing "behind the striker" or "in the hole" yesterday then he should have been much further up the pitch than he was.

Good spot.

I was surprised at just how well we are one-touch passing around midfield, but our lack of penetration was obvious. We needed 1 midfielder higher up the pitch but it looked like Ireland, Holman and KEA all expected each other to do it.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Funny how some of you don't rate Ireland yet expect him to play miles better than every other player on the pitch.

Well that's a sweeping statement right there with no evidence to back it up...

people (including me) are saying that a player in his position should be producing more and questioning whether he actually has the ability to make a difference for us

I agree, it's complete and utter ignorant nonsense. What he has 'produced' at Villa, if you can call it that, is simply not good enough. It's not unfair to ask of more of him.

[CI]

Yeah but Ireland always claps the away fans so we mustn't criticise him

[beasley14]

I watched the game whilst doing some work on the house so i can't give a definative answer but i would like to give these buys a little more time to get used to this style of play. Ireland should thrive in a possesion based game and im still hoping this will be the case.

[Keyblade]

The Ireland hate is baffling. Granted, he didn't pull up any trees but ffs he was no more horrible than anyone else in our team. And the very few sparks of creativity yesterday all came through him.

It really isn't that baffling when a guy paid to unlock defences got only 1 goal and 2 assists last season....

he has no pace, he can't use skill to get past a player, never even bothers to get beyond the Darren Bent himself (why do other players have to do it?) and his "through balls" are never "throughy" enough....

but do you know what really pisses me off about Ireland?

the fact that he NEVER **** SHOOTS.....he is playing behind the striker and not once does he ever try to create a bit of space and have a go, absolutely criminal...

put Robbie Keane in his position and he would be shooting left right and centre and scoring the odd goal with it...

he is a waste of a position at the moment and if he is in the team it means we have to play 451....

i would like to see him dropped and us play 2 up front

It's not easy to thread a ball to a single player through an ever present line of 4 or 5 defenders. Now, if he didn't try them that's one thing but the fact that they're not coming off has less to do with his ability on the ball than to how WHU set up to play. Also, his job isn't simply to play 'through balls' as he wasn't playing directly behind Darren but instead in a rotating midfield 4, so he had other responsibilities assigned to him by Lambert. And besides moast of the few penetrating passes we played were actually by Ireland (some were played by Delph). That one ball out wide to N'Zogbia that completely blindsided their defence comes to mind which left him in acres of space if he but had a half decent second touch.

And lastly, Ireland had the only meaningful shot on Target (apart from Vlaars speculative 30 yarder).

[Brumstopdogs]

For the wages Ireland is on he offers us at present a very poor end product. A big season for him - if he doesn't do it this season then get rid please Lambo.

[Woody1000]

Yeah but Ireland always claps the away fans so we mustn't criticise him

Clapping the away fans? Irrelevant, a bit like your opinion on anything!

[andym]

For the wages Ireland is on he offers us at present a very poor end product. A big season for him - if he doesn't do it this season then get rid please Lambo.

yep, i keep hearing about his supposed ability to create out of nothing, to control games, to set up and score from behind the striker. but so far i have seen nothing of that. he cant keep living off that 1 good season at city forever.

he was tidy in possession on saturday, and the odd very nice pass, but no more attacking threat than KEA or delph. at least both of those 2 attempted to run at players, drive at the box. ireland kept dropping deep to get the ball, but he was meant to be playing off the striker. it just left bent isolated and crowded the midfield.

i get the impression he likes to play a deeper role, in which case we need someone to play behind bent who will actually support him. and it begs the question would ireland be better than KEA or delph as 1 of the sitting 2 midfielders. he might be better on the ball but has he got the pace, workrate, strength and tackling to do it?

[8pints]

I think the criticism of Ireland is a direct result of the biggest gap in the squad and the argument concerning if he is or isn't the player we do or do not think he is...

Confusing? Yes.

We're missing this presence, this player with a cutting edge, a game changer who takes the game by the scruff of the neck who is clinical and decisive.

Some say this player is Ireland, some say it could be Ireland, others say it isn't and is never going to be

Personally, I still think this game changer is yet to come in, and, along with El Ahmadi being a rock/anchor in the centre I see Ireland floating all over the pitch linking the play.

[stanthemanisgod]

Ireland is never going to change a game on his own, he's not going to get the ball in his own half and skin half the opposition before sticking it in the corner.

If you look at when he had his 'season' at City he had clever players making clever runs, creating gaps in even the most organised defences meaning he could pick his pass to the best option. If at Villa he's only got Bent making intelligent runs, it's not hard for a defence o double up on him making Ireland's ability on the ball ineffective.

Ideally he needs 2 wide players dragging the full backs awayf from the penalty box, leaving one CB to close down the ball and one to cover Bent (who should be able to find some space). It's abit like when we had ash Young and everything had to go through him, teams would double up on him and we'd struggle to create anything.

Could Ireland do more, probably, but he's showing enough to warrant a starting place imo and I think as the players get used to each other he'll become more effective, especially at home and against teams that like to play more than W Ham do.

[Ulver]

I think it's probably time people stopped hoping Ireland would turn into this mythical creative force once and for all

[Big_John_10]

If you look at when he had his 'season' at City he had clever players making clever runs, creating gaps in even the most organised defences meaning he could pick his pass to the best option. If at Villa he's only got Bent making intelligent runs, it's not hard for a defence o double up on him making Ireland's ability on the ball ineffective.

I have no idea why this gets ignored.

It's spot on.

Ireland is getting hammered for not being able to thread the perfect ball through 5 players and finding 1 man. And that also requires bent's movement to be super human in order to find space for that ball.

[stanthemanisgod]

I would argue it's not mythical, but as I argued above he's not Messi, he's not going to create something out of nothing.

He is probably the most talented footballer we have at the club with the ball at his feet, but he needs options, any player we replace Ireland with would still need options.

What Lambert needs to figure out is if the other players in the squad can play the 4-4-1-1 system, if we need to play 2 out and strikers and go a bit more direct or if we need to find a striker in the style of Rooney who can play that link up role with more of a direct attacking threat.

But as we stand Ireland is the best/only option in that floating position.

[sonic_bouma]

If you look at when he had his 'season' at City he had clever players making clever runs, creating gaps in even the most organised defences meaning he could pick his pass to the best option. If at Villa he's only got Bent making intelligent runs, it's not hard for a defence o double up on him making Ireland's ability on the ball ineffective.

Ideally he needs 2 wide players dragging the full backs awayf from the penalty box, leaving one CB to close down the ball and one to cover Bent (who should be able to find some space). It's abit like when we had ash Young and everything had to go through him, teams would double up on him and we'd struggle to create anything.

.

Brilliant!

So all we need to do is go out and sign about 4 new attacking players just so Ireland can demonstarte his array of clever balls....

OR

we should not bow down to his needs for the sake of 20m and go and buy a player similar to Michu and Sigurdsson (bought for peanuts) who actually shoot from outside the box and actually try to be a threat on the opponents goal.....

I think Ireland is simply not worth the hassle of building our entire attacking players around....

he has done nothing to warrant that respect at all...

The one player we should be thinking about building our attack around is a guy who has delivered all his career, is our captain and has produced the goods already for Villa...

Darren Bent....

If Lambert is signing players thinking "I wonder if this will help Stevie" im gonna be disappointed.....

Focus on Bent Paul!

[PieFacE]

If you look at when he had his 'season' at City he had clever players making clever runs, creating gaps in even the most organised defences meaning he could pick his pass to the best option. If at Villa he's only got Bent making intelligent runs, it's not hard for a defence o double up on him making Ireland's ability on the ball ineffective.

I have no idea why this gets ignored.

It's spot on.

Ireland is getting hammered for not being able to thread the perfect ball through 5 players and finding 1 man. And that also requires bent's movement to be super human in order to find space for that ball.

Yeah doesn't take a genius to work out that Ireland can only play through balls to players making runs, to which we don't have any at the minute. So what are people really expecting him to do. We need to work on attacking movement as a team to get the best out of Ireland. I still hold hope for him.

[stanthemanisgod]

I'm not indicating we should try to sign players to build a team around Ireland.

But bar some shots from outside of the box players like Michu and Sigurdsson would still need options in order to play as well as they have done for Swansea.

For Bent to score we need to provide him with service, we either do that by getting the ball wide quickly and getting decent balls into the box ( would require 2 new wingers and another first team striker to be effective imo) or we try to play the ball through teams in a 4-4-1-1 or 4-3-3 formation with a player like Ireland/michu/Sigurdsson pulling the strings (requires the other attacking midfielders get get into positions to free up time and space for the playmaker and Bent in order to make sure the ball into the striker is good enough to create a chance).

As the squad looks at the moment I think we have more chance of making the latter work, but we can't single out Ireland as the weak link when he only has Bent in front of him and 4 or 5 players to pass through.

Now I'm not arguing that he's the best payer in the world in that position but he is the best player at the club in that position, so we either need to fully commit to that style of play which may take a few games to 'click' or we need buy the players that would make a 4-4-2 work.

[Valhalla]

bent doesn`t make intelligent runs.

[PieFacE]

bent doesn`t make intelligent runs.

Bent spends most of the game offside

[stanthemanisgod]

bent doesn`t make intelligent runs.

I disagree with this, I think his goalscoring record is testament to his ability to find space in the box, however up top on his with 2 or 3 players covering him makes finding that space more difficult. And that's the crux of this whole argument an isolated Bent will not score regularly.