Cyprus v Rep of Ire
I wouldn’t touch Ireland this weekend (at that price of 4/9 anyway). I’ll be backing Cyrus on the Asian Handicap and might even have a nibble on the outrights. We are missing literally ½ a team and we’re not the side that can afford that - Shay Given, Stephen Carr, Steven Reid, Graham Kavanagh & Kevin
Doyle are all out. Of them only Reid would have been likely to have been on the subs bench. Staunton is in the stands (although that might be an advantage
). Our recent record is abysmal – we have failed to score in the last 3 and have lost 5 from the last 7. I have 0 faith in Staunton
(something I think the players might share). He seemed on drugs in his post match interview in Germany and he subbed Duff in as bizarre a decision as even the terminally crap Brian Kerr managed). We only beat Cyprus by a single goal the last time in Nicosia. Cyprus got tanked by Slovenia admittedly but prior to that they have been
relatively competitive at home.
The paper last week carried a story that said the FAI had only sold 2,000 tickets for this game. In 2004 we took 18,000 fans. The 2,000 seems awfully low but expectations for this are not of a walkover.
Cyprus are IMO well worth supporting on the Asian Handicap and if there is a long odds shock this weekend it might well be in Cyprus.