Hallgrimsson rows back on 'passive' criticism of Ireland players ahead of second leg

IRELAND MANAGER HEIMIR Hallgrimsson has rowed back on his view that Ireland became too “passive” in the second half of their Uefa Nations League first-leg play-off win against Bulgaria in Plovdiv on Thursday, saying he spoke out of post-game emotion. 

Ireland scored both of their goals in a 2-1 win in the first half, and so take an aggregate lead into tomorrow night’s second leg in Dublin. Victory on aggregate will secure Ireland’s status in League B of the Nations League. 

Speaking at his press conference ahead of tomorrow’s second leg, Hallgrimsson said, having re-watched the first leg, he preferred to accentuate the extent to which Ireland limited Bulgaria’s attacking opportunities. 

“As a coach I have always been too emotional, that’s why I don’t like to talk to players after games, I like to analyse the game before I speak. It is probably emotion speaking a little bit there, when I watched the game on TV. Even though we gave them a little bit more possession, there was never any danger they would create something. 

“The principles and what we do when we don’t have possession: we have some really good clips from those moments. We absolutely controlled the game even though they had possession. Once we go to finals, hopefully next summer, we need to be perfect in these areas. Sometimes against good opponents you don’t have the ball and can’t do anything about it. You need to be compact and solid and that is what happened against Bulgaria. 

“After looking at the game, it’s not like it affected our chances of winning the game. We had some really good opportunities in counter-attack and should have done better in those.” 

The Irish manager also confirmed he told Nathan Collins to take fewer risks in possession at half-time of the first leg. Collins was guilty of sloppy giveaways shortly before half-time, including one pass to an opponent in the Irish penalty area. 

“At half-time we addressed that, two/three occasions where we overplayed in our own box. As the pitch was, we thought that was not really sensible, we talked about that and it didn’t happen in the second half.”

Hallgrimsson says he has a fully fit squad from which to choose for tomorrow’s return leg, though he will assess his players’ energy levels at training later today.