Dear Sir/Madam,
I really do not know where to begin with the aticle "Vendetta is an Italian word" published Sunday, 17th October 2010 - http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/vendetta-is-an-italian-word-2382953.html
Quote - "Giovanni Trapattoni is making a mess of the Irish manager's job. And if he doesn't get his act together pronto, the FAI should give him the boot "
A fair comment, and the opinion of the author, but who would you replace the manager with? Also, given that the Independent have dedicated several articles to the state of the FAI's finances, should you really be advocating sacking a manager, which will result in paying off the rest of his contract, as well as the backroom staff, and then start paying a new man at the helm?
Quote - "We've become so used to Reid's omission from the Irish international squad that there's a tendency to treat it as a fait accompli"
Andy Reid has played a grand total of 39 minutes this season, only 6 of which were in Premier League games, the others were against Colchester United in the League Cup, and he failed to make it off the bench in a further two league games. What evidence is there that he would have made a difference against Russia?
Also, the phrase is "au fait accompli"
Quote - "Stephen Ward of Wolves, injured at the moment, was left out of the squad when he would have been a better bet than the increasingly ludicrous Kevin Kilbane at left-back."
Stephen Ward is not injured, he played in Wolverhampton's game against West Ham on the 16th October. He has only been omitted from the starting XI in two games for Wolves this season, both League Cup games. He's started every Premiership game, and only failed to complete two so far this season, so he was also not injured in the build up to the Russia/Slovakia double header either. Seriously, who is doing the research (or lack thereof) at the Independent in recent weeks?
Quote - "Marc Wilson moved up from Portsmouth to Stoke in the same deal that took Ireland first-teamer Liam Lawrence in the other direction. No place for him either."
Not only was Wilson in the squad, he was on the bench against Slovakia. Daniel McDonnell made the same error in his article "McCarthy certain to figure in future plans but Trap unlikely to change 'the system'" published Thursday, 14th October 2010 - http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/mccarthy-certain-to-figure-in-future-plans-but-trap-unlikely-to-change-the-system-2378540.html
Quote "His club colleague Marc Wilson, who failed to make the bench in Tuesday night's 1-1 draw with Slovakia, is in line for an international debut as well." A rudimentary search using google, not to mention reading any review of the game on any relevant site (rte.ie, uefa.com, wikipedia, fifa.com, fai.ie, soccernet, football365.com, skysports.com, etc) would have told you the correct lineup.
The title of the article is "Vendetta is an Italian word", which is ironic considering the tone and direction of articles in the Independent about the Ireland team and management in recent months.
The entire article boils down to "Giovanni Trappatoni should be sacked because he plays Paul Green instead of Andy Reid".
Yours, etc
