But why didn’t he change the team for the Italy game and give other players some tournament experience? Tuesday night was a great example of what Ireland can do. The opposition may have been poor but if it had been a competitive match, it would have been the same old way with the same old players and they would likely only have ground out a result.

The youth he finally gave a chance in that match won’t get a look in in competitive games. Tuesday night was probably the first time he’s gone with youth in a friendly even.

Great, we qualified for the Euros. But if Trap doesn’t give chances to young players like McClean, McCarthy and Coleman (even Long, whose omission from the first team is baffling), Ireland will have a very old team when Trap leaves. And it could take a long time to repair the damage.

In as much as any team are i suppose but this spanish side are nigh on unbeatable and have won the last 3 major tournamants they have entered.The main dissapointing result was croatia imo.

par 5-”ignores reality”

the only cast iron reality/fact is that we won the game.By definition a result is positive.The rest is opinion.

par 13- so trap going to watch say gibson when he was at man utd playing with rooney,giggs,scholes,berbatowen,ferdinand,vidic etc will give him a good idea of what gibson can do when he lines up say with ward,long,kelly,mclean,st ledger,andrewes etc? like for like comparison?

He has absolutely no faith in youth. Four years in charge yet how many players has he brought through in that time? If everyone was available for the Kazakhstan game, how different would the line-up have been to line-up at the Euros?

Whoever eventually replaces Trap is going to have to rebuild the squad from fresh. It could take years to recover. That is why he has to go sooner rather than later.

Also, a couple of side notes: qualifying for Euro 2012 ahead of Armenia, Slovakia and Estonia is not so great an achievement that it can be used to defend Trap as doing a good job.

As for style of play, look at the free-flowing stuff Armenia played in Euro qualifying. What world beaters do they have? While we’re playing hoof football against Kazakhstan?!

Paragraph 4 – Spain, Italy and Croatia are better than Ireland. But they are beatable. Ireland didn’t just lose to them, they had no chance at all, and that was because of the players, the tactics and the lack of “plan B” when we conceded early. No one thought it was going to be that easy. Few thought it was going to be that easy for them. It didn’t have to be that way. Believing otherwise is fine, I think Trap and the team didn’t do enough.

Para 5 – My issue with the “result” argument, is that it ignores realities which hold the team back. Beating lower ranked teams, settling for draws against equals, dismissing defeats to higher ranked teams has led us to a point where we act like this is all we have, that we are playing at the best possible level right now. This is a fundemental disagreement between pro and anti-Trap people I suppose. I think we can be better, that we can a play a game that can beat the likes of Slovakia, and get better results against the likes of Croatia – and do better against Spain than 4-0.

Paragraph 7 (“When Trapattoni took the job of Irish manager…”) I don’t believe that such an awful managerial performance in Poland can be so easily dismissed in favor of celebrating qualification. I guess that’s just me though. Again, I think we could have been better.

Paragraph 8 – If we had lost every game 1-0 and put up a challenge I doubt the outrage would have been as loud. Again, I suppose this is just a fundamental difference of opinion. I think we could be better.

Paragraph 9 – I’ve never hoped retiring players would blast the manager. It’s easy to cast those who no longer want Trapattoni in charge as wanting Ireland to fail, but that’s simply not true. Well, not for me anyway.

Paragraph 10 – Trapattoni has had problems with a rather large amount of players though. That can’t be denied. I’m not saying he’s “lost the dressing room”, but he has serious communication issues.

P 11/12 – I never criticized Trapattoni for playing Given because he was a cap collector. I’ve criticized him for playing Given when the man wasn’t fit, and better options were available. As for Gibson, I tend to agree about him specifically, but seeing Paul Green placed ahead of you would be hard for any player to take.

P 13 Going to see his players actually play is not an unreasonable expectation for people to have, but Trap isn’t interested in seeing his team play the way they do for the vast majority of the year. Taking a pay cut from his monstrous fee is not going to get much kudos from me.

p 14/15/16/17/18 – This is just the difference right here. You seem to think it’s a straight choice between “bad football, results” or “good football, losses”. I don’t think that is true. I think we can play more attractive football and be effective, get results of a similar or better level then we do right now. I think our players are better than Trapattoni and others give them credit for. I don’t expect Ireland to beat Germany – I didn’t a week ago either, for the record – but I don’t even expect them to have the ability to challenge for a point as it stands, with this team, this attitude and this system.

If they do, great. Something will have had to change since Friday for that to happen. Trapattoni will get praise and criticism from me in the measure that he deserves.

Ireland won’t grow under this system. I suppose that’s my key complaint: under Trapattoni we have decided we have reached our highest level and will never be capable of really competing with those above us. Qualifying for a play-off is our highest ambition now. And something about that attitude makes me really sad.