Do us all a favour Robbie - Retire from international football, effective immediately.

Thanks for everything Robbie.

You’ve done your best.

You really have.

But being honest - it just wasn’t quite good enough.

Now don’t you think it’s time you did us Irish a favour and retired from international football?

Preferably before the European Championships.

Preferably before Tuesday’s return leg against Estonia.

Let’s just say your performance in the first leg was the final straw.

Quite simply, you were muck.

I know you got 2 goals in an important match.

Again.

But 1 was a peno in fairness...

I know you set up Jon Walters with a brilliant cross.

As well as playing Stephen Hunt through to win the peno.

And you were also the player who drew the 2 fouls which saw 2 Estonians sent off.

But to be honest Robbie, I’m looking for more from an Irish striker these days than 2 goals, 1 and a half assists and getting 2 players sent off through your quickness of thought and speed of movement.

I want to see more to strikers in general than just goals and assists actually.

People will argue that you have 53 international goals.

More than Shearer, Owen, Lineker, Keegan or Charlton.

More than Rush, Hughes, Dalglish, Law or Best.

In fact, more than any British player.

Ever.

Even though most of them were playing for far superior teams than you at the time.

But I always just felt your goals came against lesser nations.

And while Ireland never had a player good enough to score against the lesser nations until you came along, it’s the big games that count.

Like a Play-Off for a major tournament.

People will say you played in 4 Play-Offs and scored in 4 Play-Offs.

But I see the fact that you only scored 5 goals from those 6 games as being the reason we didn’t qualify from more of them.

I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself that you scored 3 goals (plus 1 more in the shoot-out) in the World Cup in 2002 and they were big games.

But one of those was against Saudi Arabia.

I don’t even know where that is Robbie.

I’ll give you the goals against Germany and Spain.

You deserve some credit.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that you are only really capable of scoring at home.

Away games against Holland, Italy and France excluded of course.

Or that cracker you got against Holland when we won 1-0.

Cause that was only a friendly.

But now it’s time for change.

Kevin Doyle is a much better player anyway.

He is 28 now and although Mick McCarthy is the only manager to spend proper money on him, it was €7.5m well spent.

Unlike yourself, who has had Gordon Strachan, Marcello Lippi, Dave O’Leary, Glenn Hoddle, Rafa Benitez and Harry Redknapp spend over €90m on you.

Kevin could get a move to someone like Internazionale, it’s just Wolves won’t sell him, that’s all.

Then there’s Shane Long as well.

23 goals in the Championship and West Bromwich Albion immediately threw €5.2m at Reading for him.

Yes Robbie, West Bromwich Albion.

And now we also have Leon Best.

He’s scored in 2 separate games in the Premier League this season.

He must start.

Along with Jon Walters.

He is also 28 and despite the fact that when you were 28 you had 33 internationals to your name, this guy has scored 3 goals in the Premier League this season.

3 goals Robbie.

He has to start ahead of you.

So, I appreciate your commitment and loyalty to the Irish side over the past 14 seasons but really, we’re not looking for someone who will turn up for every game and give 100% commitment no matter what.

You have given more to this country on the football pitch than anyone could ever ask of a player and have never once complained - but it’s time to move on now Robbie.

So all the Irish supporters who aren’t ‘fans’ of yours can experience what it’s going to be like when we’re well and truly fucked without you...

Go Giovanni Go. (In the supportive way of course)

If you want entertaining football and want success with your national team these days, then you’re going to have to hail from Spain, Germany or Uruguay I’m afraid.

Cause if you’re born in any of the other 205 nations, it’s a choice of wanting one or the other.

I for one, want success.

Success like the Holland side that won every qualifier for the World Cup in South Africa and every game all the way up to the final in 2010 - yet were absolutely slated in the press for their brand of football.

I want success over the entertainment that is the Armenian side who banged in a whopping 22 goals in Ireland’s group this campaign, making them the 5th highest scorers out of the 51 nations involved.

They won’t play a competitive game for almost a year.

I won’t lie - given a choice, I want to replicate Greece rather than go all Kevin Keegan on it and enjoy our summers off.

Kevin entertained the socks off my generation in the mid-nineties with his attack minded Newcastle side.

Countless 4-3 thrillers mixed with 3 goal comebacks almost every second week.

Entertaining - So entertaining.

But at the end of it all the only thing he won was the guarantee of being the extended highlights match every week on Match of the Day.

No Champions Leagues.

No league titles.

No FA cups.

Not even a mickey mouse cup.

Unlike Giovanni Trapattoni.

The third most successful manager in the history of the sport.

He is to winning what Kevin is to entertainment.

The perfect man to be in charge of the Irish national team right now.

In a period were we have no world class players for the first time in almost 50 years.

Giovanni has his team brilliantly organised, completely disciplined and making the absolute most of what they have at their disposal.

This team is full of passion, guts and a determination to punch above it’s weight.

There are more ways to play than the British style of frenetic pace and hard man defending.

There’s the successful way of playing too.

Like the Italian way which has yielded 4 World Cups for the national side.

That’s the Giovanni way.

Which has seen him manage some of the biggest teams in the world - AC Milan, Inter Milan twice, Juventus twice, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Fiorentina and Italy.

Having success at them all.

No manager in the history of Irish managers has ever won a major honour with the exception of the 1955 FA Cup.

Yet ‘fans’ are calling for his head?

Mick McCarthy got us to one major Championship in 3 attempts - He had Roy Keane in all of them.

Brian Kerr couldn’t even manage a play-off in 2 attempts - Even he had Roy Keane for a campaign.

Steve...

Staunton...

Giovanni takes over - And from 3rd seed gets us to within extra time of a World Cup in his first attempt.

That group had Italy, Montenegro and Bulgaria in it.

And from 3rd seeds this time round, he has split Russia and World Cup last 16ists Slovakia.

Just 2 games away from only our second major tournament in 18 years.

Doing it the Italian way.

Yet an increasing amount of Irish fans are calling for his head.

I’m not sure exactly who they think will take over if Giovanni were to leave?

Martin O’Neill, Sven Goran Eriksson, Carlo Ancelotti - Good Luck.

Dave O’Leary, Paul Jewell, Chris Hughton - More likely.

In reality, if we lose Giovanni, we will get a manager who will be out of work, in the Championship or an ex-player who has never managed before.

And fans want this over the 3rd most successful manager of all time?

Cause they want to be entertained!

Do me a favour - get behind the greatest manager we have ever had and enjoy the success that will come with it.

I don’t want 7 goal thrillers like we had against Cyprus.

I want 4 draws to set-up a World Cup quarter final against Italy.

And no, we can’t have both.

We don’t have the players to give us both.

Not even England do.

Our players play for Stoke and Wigan.

Wolves and teams from the Championship.

And L.A. Galaxy!

But they are showing the sort of heart and character that should make every Irish supporter stand up brimming with pride.

These heros haven’t got all the ability in the world.

But they have got all the courage.

The sort of thing this country used to admire and respect.

We made heros of these players under Jack.

Now let’s do the same for Giovanni...

Nothing about FIFA says ‘fair play’ right now. Especially not the play-offs.

The draw for the Euro 2012 play-offs took place a few days ago.

Unsurprisingly, nothing about it screamed fair play.

It just showed what a crooked organisation FIFA really is right now.

Everything they do demonstrates them favouring the bigger nations.

Especially when it comes to play-offs for major tournaments.

All this came about two years ago when it became apparent there was a chance Germany might not get automatic qualification.

If they hadn’t qualified for the World Cup in South Africa it would have been a disaster.

Not just for FIFA, the financial department and South Africa - but for everyone involved.

And whilst we all wanted Germany to qualify, we all wanted them to earn it - albeit if they had to knock out another top nation in a play-off.

But they were now faced with a situation were they had to go to Russia and get a result.

Not an easy task.

Cue FIFA to the rescue.

How about we seed the play-off teams so that Germany get a weaker nation if they fail to qualify straight off, they thought?

And let’s make sure they play the second leg at home cause that’s another advantage.

Oh and we can decide all this 2 weeks before the end of a 14 month qualifying campaign.

Finally, let’s seed it on the coefficients as well - instead of seeding it on what has just taken place in the current qualifying campaign.

That way - ‘big’ nations like Germany can go through a bad patch in a qualifying campaign and still have an advantage because of what they did four years ago.

Afterall, most big nations will be able to produce a good team over a 4 year period.

Unlike a small country such as Estonia.

Or Ireland.

Or Slovakia.

They don’t have the resources of the superpowers, relying instead on golden generations to qualify.

Golden generations that lead to the game developing in the smaller nations.

But FIFA want the bigger nations there instead.

They’ll make more money off them so they’ll give them every advantage they can.

No matter the ‘cost’.

And yet FIFA continuously try to promote fair play.

So why not lead by example?

They already give the bigger nations an advantage by seeding them in the draw for the initial groups.

If a nation hasn’t done enough to qualify by winning this group then they don’t deserve the right to any more benefits.

Every team who finishes second should be seeded according to what they did - just in that group.

Whether it be Germany or Estonia.

Of course being an Irish supporter, I’m delighted we got Estonia.

But Ireland and Portugal did no more this time than Estonia or Montenegro.

Why should they have any right to avoid each other?

I much rather we got Estonia over Portugal - but in an open draw.

At least that would have been fair.

It would have been right.

And people would be saying ‘fair play’ to FIFA for a change.

But that’s something nobody’s said about them for a long time...