Gavin Cooney

HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON IS in the Results Business but seems to have dispensed with our favourite of those results.

Seven games in, Hallgrimsson is yet to draw a game as Ireland manager. 

His record reads three wins and four defeats: Thursday’s win in Bulgaria has been added to the home-and-away double over Finland, and stands apart from routine losses against England and Greece. This is hardly the stuff to quicken pulses across the country, but it is the stuff of gentle improvement. 

Ireland have now won three of their last five games, having won three of their 15 games prior to that, a run that stretches back to March 2023. 

The victory in Plovdiv was also the second time in five games that Ireland have won a competitive match in which they conceded the opening goal. Prior to the comeback in Helsinki, the most recent of these comeback wins was against Kazakhstan in 2013. 

You can apply all the correct caveats about Ireland’s wins under Hallgrimsson – the low quality of the opposition; the persistence of glaring defensive errors – but the judgement remains that this team is slowly getting better. 

It would still be a leap to suggest they have improved to the point they could finish second in their World Cup group and make a play-off, but sealing the deal against Bulgaria on Sunday will stir enough optimism to begin our hopeful cross-examinations of our opposition. 

What if we land Denmark rather than Portugal? What if we are catching a Hungary team in decline? Surely wins against Finland and Bulgaria are enough to feel confident in facing Armenia? 

Given the low ebb to which we’ve sunk in recent years, this is decent frame of mind with which to approach a qualifier campaign. We’ve long-since abandoned all expectation, but we might yet recoup some hope. 

Central to the team’s improvement has been their manager’s flexibility. The FAI hired Hallgrimsson as they felt the team needed a manager less wedded to certain ideas. This always felt a little harsh on Stephen Kenny, or at least an instance of taking Kenny on his words rather than his deeds. Kenny devised clear and effective game-plans for high-level opponents like Portugal and France, and obviously threw out his preferred system early in his reign for a back-three formation which always felt like a shotgun marriage of convenience. 

The fairer criticism of Kenny was a lack of in-game flexibility, and the nadir of his reign, the 2-1 Euro 2024 defeat to Greece in Athens, formed part of Hallgrimsson’s job interview. Hallgrimsson was shown footage of the game and asked what he would have done differently. 

He has since added more flexibility to Ireland’s approach, and has shed any notions that Ireland deserve to be any night’s protagonist. Instead they react to what the opposition will do.

Hallgrimsson has started 24 different players across his seven games so far, and while some of those changes were enforced by injury and suspension, some have been made specifically with regard to the opposition. 

This was most obvious at Wembley last November, when Mark McGuinness was pitched in for a debut to allow Nathan Collins step into midfield. Shane Duffy was a surprise pick in the initial squad before he was forced to withdraw with injury – safe to assume Duffy was earmarked for what became McGuinness’ role. 

This explains how Ryan Manning went from being left out of the initial squad entirely to starting in Bulgaria. Callum O’Dowda was initially meant to start in Plovdiv, but when he was ruled out with injury, Hallgrimsson looked for a similar profile of player. 

“That was the plan, to play two left-footed players on the left wing,” said Hallgrimsson post-game. “There is so little difference between these players. They all have really good attacking qualities, whether it’s Robbie [Brady], Ryan or Callum. For us it was it a no-brainer.”

Ireland’s adaptability was in evidence on the pitch, as they set up in a 4-4-2 without the ball but in a 3-2-4-1 when they did have it. Robbie Brady pushed high to a left wing-back position, with Manning tucking in-field to play as a number 10. Finn Azaz meanwhile drifted slightly right to play inside Mikey Johnston.

We have seen Johnston play on the left to cut inside on his right foot – his assist for Evan Ferguson in the home win over Finland stands out in this regard – but in Plovdiv Hallgrimsson wanted central areas kept free for runners from deep. 

He also wanted a runner to stretch Bulgaria in behind: hence why Troy Parrott was preferred to Evan Ferguson and, perhaps, why Sinclair Armstrong was a slightly surprising call-up and why Johnny Kenny was under consideration. 

“We analysed the game and we thought it was going to be played like this, with the spaces in behind, meaning we needed a good runner in behind, good crosses etc,” says Hallgrimsson. “I think that was the case.” 

Ireland’s analysis would have spotted Bulgaria’s tendency to switch off and allow opposition runs from deep, and it was with this flaw that Ireland made hay. First Azaz ghosted in to nod in Parrott’s clever touch from Brady’s cross, while later Matt Doherty made a trademark deep run to meet Josh Cullen’s pass. Manning might have scored twice with similar runs to the back post. 

Ryan Manning in action against Bulgaria. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

Ireland were undoubtedly helped by a slapstick goalkeeper, but Hallgrimsson was unimpressed post-game when a Bulgarian journalist suggested his side only scored because of opposition mistakes. 

“I knew if we did what we planned in training we would have a good game,” says Hallgrimsson. “The plan here was to surprise them and press them, first half we did that and second half not so well, we became a little bit passive.”  

Hallgrimsson was worried about Bulgaria’s counter-attacking threat, and pre-game he spoke of the importance of Ireland’s “rest defence” – effectively how they are set-up to snuff out counter attacks when they have the ball.

They therefore kept a narrow back three and a sitting midfield two in possession, and it worked: Bulgaria created virtually nothing from quick counters. It was generally a back trio of Doherty, Collins, and O’Shea with Cullen and Knight sitting in front of them, but they were diligent about retaining the shape. Cullen, for instance, dropped into centre-back when Doherty found himself a bit further forward. 

It’s this area of Ireland’s game that Hallgrimsson has had the most profound effect upon. Across 2023, Ireland’s opponents averaged 2.75 counterattacks per game, with 41% of these attacks ending in a shot. In the six regular Nations League games under Hallgrimsson last year, that stat dropped to just 0.17 per game.

This is admittedly skewed a little by the fact Ireland hardly ventured forth to allow for any counter attacks in the games against England, but Plovdiv showed a side that has given itself a more secure foundation from which to launch their attacks. 

Focus now turns to the manager’s plans for the return leg on Sunday. Given he felt he had to surprise Bulgaria once, does he feel he will have to do so again?

“No, I think now it’s their turn, they need to do something different, because they need to win,” he says. 

The manager was coy on the need for changes, and he may be minded to stick with a successful formula, though repeatedly emphasised that Ireland grew too passive in the second half for his liking. The means of addressing that will be more energy in Ireland’s pressing, so he may feel the need to refresh Ireland’s forward line. 

“Now it’s a different scenario,” he continues. “They need to come to Dublin, win the game and score goals. But I always think defending higher up the pitch is easier. If you try to win it there it makes it easier for the defenders to defend higher up the pitch. We need good legs from the guys up top. It’s a lot of work for them defensively and that’s what we want in Dublin.” 

There are some recurring problems, most obviously Ireland’s awesome ability to concede from shots outside the box along with glaring individual errors. Bulgaria weren’t good enough to punish the latter in Plovdiv, but Ireland’s World Cup opponents will be. 

Given Bulgaria were not good enough to punish Ireland’s individual defensive errors in the first half in Plovdiv, it’s hardly a result worth getting carried away with.

Hallgrimsson arrived to the job knowing he needed to effect an enormous improvement to put Ireland into contention for World Cup qualification. Meeting the scale of that challenge may eventually be beyond him, but seven games in, there are clear signs of some improvement.