No Luck of the Irish Clarets...

One of those weekends where Footy fans are at a loss what to do as the Championship takes a rest to allow the Euro 2008 Qualifiers to proceed.

Of course we could watch the formality of an England game against lowly Andorra as indeed it proved with a thumping 5-0 win over the part-time minnows. It does beg the question why these small clubs including the likes of the Faroe Islands, San Marino, Luxembourg, Andorra etc etc cant play each other in a pre-knock out tournament. We must stop cluttering the Euro 2008 competition with these no-hopers in a situation where players are always complaining about the number of games they have to play in a season! The regular slaughter of these minnows in these high profile competitions needs to be addressed by FIFA as it clearly does no good for the teams concerned. The fans also sit there feeling slightly embarassed for the minnow and there is no excitement or inducement to shout and show some passion. Its also not particularly entertaining to watch on TV either although probably a lot of you like me went through the motions of watching it.

I loved the commentator's question from Mark Lawrenson to John Motson early in the second half 'Has Paul Robinson touched the ball yet?' ; this being a match where its difficult to remember Andorra in our half of the field at all, ever!

Oh well job done, lets hope we dont rest on our laurels in our next match away in Macedonia next week. A much tougher challenge.

So what about Northern Ireland v Iceland? Would our three Clarets in the squad feature? Would Duff keep out the ice worshippers? Would Jones nip in and out and put in some delightful crosses for Lafferty to continue his new found cult status and slot home the winner?

Er, in a word..NO!

Mind you they did not really have a chance since Jones on the bench stayed there all the match and Duff and Lafferty only came on fairly late in the second half when the damage had already been done. By all accounts this was a very poor Irish performance as Iceland froze Ireland into submission with an impressive 3-0 win.

Oh well, I cant be having with all this International nonsense so lets return to our true passion of supporting the Clarets. I will hopefully see some of you next Saturday at the Turf for some proper football as the Clarets take on Colchester.

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