Thoughts pre-Germany game (October 2012)

This is a strange feeling. I'm actually dreading this game. I wrote on here before the Serbia squad announcement that if we didn't see widespread changes in selection, tactics and formation, it would be a long two years. Now we're going into the Germany game, and it looks like O'Shea and Ward at full-back again, Whelan and Andrews in the middle again, and the added idiosyncrasy of Cox or Keogh in midfield. With two centre-backs who have never played at a higher level of club football than second-tier in England, and a veteran striker who has looked off the pace and remained goalless in his last eight internationals.

I've always been a strong supporter of Trap. The discipline, organisation, purpose and common-sense he brought to the side in 2008 was refreshing, the tactics were spot-on for the players we had available, and the performance in Paris was one of the most compelling we've ever shown, under any manager. Despite qualification, the last campaign was, if anything, less convincing performance-wise, and wrong options were taken with regard to blooding new players, but we got the results we needed. Even now, the only games we've lost under Trap have been against teams who are seeded and ranked higher than us. Disappointing home draws with Slovakia and Bulgaria were cancelled out by good performances and fine points in the away games. You can't fire a manager for merely failing to over-achieve once projected targets are met, which is what Trap has done.

However, the Irish player pool has changed and evolved since 2008, while the selections, the approach, and the tactics have not. In the last couple of years, we've had a number of excellent young players coming through to play regular EPL football. The focus should be on accommodating and getting the best from these players. It hasn't been done. The likely starting line-up in a week's time will contain six players (Ward, O'Dea, St. Ledger, Andrews, Cox/Keogh, Keane) playing at an inferior level of football to the contenders for their spots (Wilson, Coleman, Clark, McCarthy, McClean, Long). Arguments can be made that the incumbents have done little wrong while playing for Ireland, but their misfortunes at club level are worrying - if they genuinely still had the quality to play in a successful international side, they wouldn't be plodding away in second-rate leagues, for second-rate clubs. True, the likes of Alan Kelly, Alan McLoughlin and David Kelly had decent international careers while playing in the second-tier, but players like that are generally the exception. You need a core of players who are in form, playing for good clubs, and attuned to playing against the best. We have a number of those players, but they're not being used. If we steadfastly accepted the logic that 'if they've done okay for Ireland, it doesn't matter what level they play at for their clubs', we'd still have Liam Miller, Martin Rowlands and Eddie Nolan stinking up the squad.

Trap's insistence on sticking with the more 'workmanlike' players could be justified if our defensive record was as impressive as before, but we've conceded 14 goals in our last 12 games, leaking goals even to Armenia, Estonia and Kazakhstan in competitive games. The signs aren't good. Trap's tactics are built to compensate for our lack of technique, and to play to the traditional Irish strengths of attrition, stubbornness and hard-nosed physicality, which are admirable traits in sport, but useless in a modern era, where soccer has been changed (and arguably emasculated) by Blatter and Platini's insistence on undermining the physical, combative element of the game.

The squad actually looks weaker and less-developed now than at any time in the last four years, and the manager has to carry the can for that. Unfortunately, I think the direction from Trap, which was refreshing, purposeful and pragmatic at the beginning, has become wayward and lost. He is a legendary manager, and I'm not convinced that we'll get an ideal replacement at the end of this campaign (because let's face it, he's going nowhere until his contract runs out), but his ideas are not sitting well with Ireland right now.

I can only hope that our seeding does not suffer too badly in this campaign, and that the next manager doesn't have to build from a 'McCarthy 96' type of wreckage. Or that Trap surprises us all by making the calls that need to be made (O'Shea at CB, Ward and Whelan dropped, Coleman, McClean, McCarthy and Long in). On all counts, I'm not too optimistic.