Gavin Cooney reports from Wembley

HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON LAMENTED “six minutes of madness” in which his Irish players collapsed at Wembley. 

Ireland held England scoreless across a diligent, disciplined first half but everything fell apart when Liam Scales picked up a second yellow card five minutes after the break for fouling Jude Bellingham in the box. Harry Kane converted the spot kick, and England scored twice more across the next five minutes. Subsequent goals from Jarrod Bowen and Taylor Harwood-Bellis meant Ireland were routed 5-0. 

“I am kind of lost for words”, said Hallgrimsson. “Six minutes of madness, it was a shock conceding a penalty, conceding a goal, losing a player. We probably lost our heads at this moment leading into a second goal, a third goal. We lost our heads, gave up.

“We are struggling with confidence and it clearly took away all confidence from what we did really well in the first half. You cannot explain things like this, it just happens. A slap in the face and difficult to come back from.” 

Asked to clarify what he meant by the players giving up, he said, “We lost what we were doing in the first half. Maybe too harsh to say ‘give up’, we had a gameplan that was working perfectly but all of a sudden in six minutes there’s no way out.”

Hallgrimsson faced the media trying to balance the positives of Ireland’s first-half performance with the collapse that was to come after the break. 

“Excuses when you lose 5-0 is kind of pathetic, to be excusing or talking about positives”, said Hallgrimsson. “It’s embarrassing to lose 5-0.”

Hallgrimsson did say he believed Ireland should have a first-half penalty, when Evan Ferguson was pulled by Marc Guehi in the penalty area.

“I thought it was a penalty for sure. We asked, I don’t remember what the referee said or why he didn’t give it. It would have changed the momentum of the game but I don’t want to make excuses. 

“Let’s take that as a positive, building this team forward. We need to play teams like England, that have better players than us. First half gave us an idea how we can play against teams like this.” 

Asked whether he now worried he would never be able to improve the confidence levels in the Irish squad, Hallgrimsson said, “if we can play like this for 50 minutes, let’s hope next game we can do it longer and with a little luck. If we had gotten a penalty and scored a goal, it would have been a totally different game. 

“I believe in these guys but the past has been tough. We just need to…use this to our advantage, and look at the positives we can take from this game. A lot of it was negative but for me I think it’s important to look at the positives and build from that.” 

The game was Lee Carsley’s final match in charge of England: he now returns to the U21s to vacate the premises for Thomas Tuchel. He won five of his six matches in charge, losing at home to Greece in October. Today’s win secured top spot in the group for England, and automatic promotion back to League A. 

“I think it is fair to say there is a bit of relief. If we had spoken at the start of the campaign then you would have said ‘well, you are expected to get promotion’ but it is difficult”, said Carsley. “No team has rolled over for us and just let us carry on.

“I have found it challenging personally and the rest of the staff have so it is good that we have finished the campaign with such a strong performance, and I spoke to the players at half-time when it was 0-0.

“I was really happy with the way the crowd responded to the players when they went off the pitch. You could tell that they felt the energy with the team, they intent they had and played with, especially when we lost the ball.

“I said to them that we are going to score. I had total belief that they were going to score so just keep going. And it was pleasing, obviously, to get five goals.”