Robbie Keane out

Well done on not being the only idiot in the village then.

no loss

Must be Long on his own up front?

The man has scored 50+ international goals for his country.

I don't see any other player - with the greatest respect to all concerned - coming close to that from current,
or even future pools of squad at our disposal.

A one-off, like other erstwhile servants such as Dunne, Given & Duff.

Eaten bread is soon forgotten.

From a tactical perspective, I would like to see Wilson/McCarthy/Fahey as our midfield trivariate.

Which ironically, lends itself best to 4-5-1 and the lone target man upfront [i.e. one of Doyle/Walters/Long].

You do realise his legs are gone? Would you still be picking him at 83 because he scored 50+ goals for his country? Question mark over if Keane could play alone up front as well. This is blessing in disguise.

Eaten bread and all that. No doubt we will score five or six goals on Friday!

Ireland XI to play Germany: Westwood, Coleman, O’Shea (captain), O’Dea, Ward, Andrews, Fahey, McCarthy, McGeady, Walters, Cox.

Not a bad team; no dought they will fight hard; a draw would be a great result but hard to see it happening.

have watched irish football from the 60s onward ..i'd safely this is one of the worst defences i've ever come across ...can see the germans putting 4 past us tomorrow...

lol agree rider

they should put out the BOHS defence

as they did beat ROVERS this season in Tallaghtfornia

bohs first team beat bohs 2nd team in tallaght ....they'll all be gone at seasons end ...thank god ...kenny and his bohs rejects...

no way germany score 4, the irish heroes will battle hard for a 0-1 at worst

RF,

At the risk of staining my own sanity by conversing with you...

A world of difference between delighting in a loyal servant being injured vs. objectively stating that RK has been an incredible servant to his country.

His age is a moot point as the man picking the team believes he's still good enough to be in the squad.

Of course he's getting older - BUT it still didn't stop him being a cool head last month when we needed all his experience & guile to level the Kazah game with a late penalty.

He scored a penalty, so your basing that he is a loss because he scored a penalty. Come on if you watch football you can see his legs are gone. Anyway he certainly would not suit the lone striker role SJ.

experience and guile to score against kazakstan?ffs..robbie scored 50odd goals for ireland?so should he be playing wen hes 60?why isnt don givens still playing?or aldo?!?..hes gone for 3yrs.he shouldnt even be on the panel.shane long is a handful for every prem defence he has faced this year..hes at the peak of his powers and hes not playing.and people on here saying robbie is a loss?hes playing in a league the same standard as the loi b division.

So you didn't celebrate when he equalised for us last month?...

You didn't even exhale the merest sigh of relief?...

Of course you didn't, of course not.

As for the frankly pedantic LOI B reference - I'm sure Waterford United would've struck upon the unique chance to have such an esteemed player in their side; the league challenge vs. Limerick & Co. could've been put to bed along time ago...

There a booze-sodden winos on Dublin's broadwalk boulevard more capable of constructing lucid, constructive, objective & insightful debate than some of the more "prolific" citizens of this forum.

All together now..."FFS"

That must have been a different Robbie Keane who scored 7 times for Ireland in Euro 2012 qualifying then.

who did he score the goals against?3 v macedonia 1 v andorra 2 v estonia.very good!!were there many penaltys among them?and steering job nap can i ask you do you think if he was fit it would benefit the team?is he a better option than shane long?

He scored them against the teams in the group and play off that we had to beat to progress. I don't know who else he could have scored them against. I didn't realise that penalties don't count. My mistake.

He remains our best goalscorer. He showed while on loan at Villa in February he was still a premier league quality striker. We should hope that he doesn't retire anytime soon because it will be a long time before we have a man to score goals like him again.

i fear your looking at him thru rose coloured spectacles.if he was that good why didnt villa keep him?he done his usual thing started with a bang and ended with a whimper.and i dont dislike him .its just that his time is gone.he was an average player at the highest level who done well for himself.

He's a year slower a year older, you can see what the big players think of Keane that with the news he is missing the price has contracted.

Yes, Kavvie I would play him.

Off the top of my head, I remember Long scoring more than one goal for Ireland in the same match only once, an away friendly vs. Denmark several years ago.

I am 100% open to correction on this, but it is the only such game of his springing readily to my mind.

Robbie remains our best "go to" player on the big occasion, against bigger/the biggest teams, since Duff retired after 100 caps of sterling service.

He has a natural goal-poacher's instinct, proven time & again.

Regardless of the mismatch between ANY two teams in a football match, both teams always will create at least one decent goal-scoring chance.

Hence, play your most predatory striker.

Whether our style of play best suits his skillset is a differing point; arguably the more "bustling" type of striker is better suited [Walters/Long/Doyle] to this rigid, structured, defensive style of "play" that Trapatoni favours.

But I believe the old GAA adage of "best player in their best positions" is apt.

I fear that you don't respond to logic and fact.

He has scored 126 premier league goals. Hardly 'average'. His international record is absolutely superb. You claim that he has been 'gone' for 3 years, which is quite patently nonsense.

Villa didn't keep him because they can't afford him. He is an Irish legend and still our best chance of actually scoring a goal. A class act.

we will agree to differ!!

villa wanted to keep him