Gavin Cooney

HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON IS now wrestling with a seemingly eternal question for Irish managers.

How to convince his players to play aggressively and on the front foot before they fall behind? 

It has been an issue for Ireland for years. Think back to the quality of the Irish performance in the second leg of the infamous 2010 World Cup play-off against France, when Ireland trailed on aggregate and played with the kind of abandon that Giovanni Trapattoni would have called a mutiny. 

The general trend: Ireland often played their best football when they were losing, sometimes struggled when drawing, and occasionally played their worst football when they were winning. 

It has played itself out under Trapattoni’s successors. Under Martin O’Neill, how often did you hear the illogical lament that “in many ways, we scored too early?” 

And under Mick McCarthy, Ireland were at their best when coming from behind to draw against relative heavyweights Switzerland and Denmark, and at their worst when they were expected to dominate lower seeds Georgia and Gibraltar. 

Stephen Kenny’s ambition was effectively a vision to conquer these mood swings, by controlling games through possession ignorant of the scoreboard. The FAI deemed it a failure. 

It should be pointed out that this characteristic applies to all teams to some extent. It’s why stats departments have coined the phrase Game State, to contextualise a player and team’s performances against what is needed of them at any particular moment. 

But with Ireland, these Game State lurches have always felt very pronounced. 

Hallgrimsson has now spent sufficiently long enough familiarising himself with his squad to have spotted it. 

“What we are missing is more and longer spells”, he told journalists this week, amid a back-and-forth on how to improve his side’s attacking output. 

“The good times are increasing but we still have parts of games where we are not good. “First half against Finland: not so good. First half against Greece, I think we were okay even though we had to defend for a long time, but second half, once we had nothing to lose, we were really good. It was the same against Finland, once we had nothing to lose. It’s something we need to improve better.”

It’s a pithy diagnosis: Once we had nothing to lose, we were really good.

Hallgrimsson is considering hiring a sports psychologist to try and address the problem. 

“It is in part psychology, for sure”, he says. “Do we need to bring in someone in that area? We have discussed it. Maybe it is not that good a moment now in a seven-day camp to bring in someone and change some things, but I think if you want to bring in someone like that, [they would act] as an observer in the beginning and then build the trust with the players.” 

Hallgrimsson’s other solution to the problem has been a frequent refrain of the early months of his reign.

“It comes with playing more together, the same players again and again, this trust, this belief and maybe this courage that’s needed when you’re an underdog playing against a strong nation.” 

The stuttering rhythm of international football is sadly hostile to consistent selection. Ireland finish their Nations League campaign with a home game against Finland on Thursday before the daunting finale at Wembley on Sunday, but Hallgrimsson’s squad has been hit with injury. 

Robbie Brady, who set up the equaliser and then scored the winner in Helsinki last month, is out with injury, while Chiedozie Ogbene won’t play for Ireland until next September at the earliest following an achilles injury. His most likely replacement, Festy Ebosele – who assisted Brady’s winner against Finland – is now a doubt having been withdrawn from Watford’s win over Oxford on Friday. 

Seamus Coleman is a doubt too, while all of Andrew Omobamidele, Jamie McGrath, Will Smallbone, and Jack Taylor are out. More encouraging is the fact that Evan Ferguson continues to nudge himself back to a state of confidence. Since Ireland last gathered, Ferguson has picked up more minutes at Brighton and ended his 11-month goal drought. 

Ferguson remains on the fringes of the Brighton team, but he will be central for Ireland next week. 

“He is amazing in front of goal, converting chances to goals”, says Hallgrimsson.

“I can see that in training, from other [games]. I think it’s just opportunity meeting that at the correct time. He’s getting more and more playing time at Brighton so he must be showing that more and more regularly at training and I felt from the first camp to the second camp there was a big difference in him, and hopefully the second camp to third camp, we’ll see even more progression.

“I think it starts with the club and he’s one that is now getting more playing time and more trust from the coach, which is a really good sign. We would like it to happen much quicker but this is the tempo he’s at at the moment and we can’t change that.” 

Ireland will stave off automatic relegation to League C of the Nations League if they don’t lose to Finland on Thursday, but even a miracle win at Wembley on Sunday is unlikely to be enough to avoid a third-place finish. If Ireland do finish third, they will play a League C runner-up next March in a promotion/relegation play-off. They would discover their opponent at a draw to be held on 22 November.

In that scenario, Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign won’t start until next June, or potentially even September if they are drawn in a four-team group. That draw is slated for 13 December. 

Hallgrimsson’s contract runs to the end of the World Cup campaign, which may come as early as next November. Regardless of the length of his stint, he is committing to learning the national anthem. 

“I have been trying to learn, it’s hard”, he says. “It’s one thing to know how to sing it but then you forget the words, you don’t know what they mean. I will get it at one point.

“The national anthem is something you should take pride in learning, even though you are a foreigner you should learn it, maybe not sing it, there’s probably a word that is wrong. It’s a nation’s pride to have the national anthem, I am trying my best.” 

Hallgrimsson is also hoping to arrange a camp for fringe and home-based players next January, but admits it may not happen as the FAI have not budgeted for it. 

“We are trying make this happen but there’s not a budget for it, that’s the point we are at, we are trying to bypass this and make it happen”, he said. 

“I think it’s necessary to broaden your perspective, [players] not in the frame at the moment but it might be in the future. It’s important for us, going forward, but at this stage, me coming in late after the budget is closed, we need to find a way to find the money for that.”