Heaviest defeat of the O’Neill era
IT’S THE HOPE that kills you.
After frustrating the Danes in Copenhagen over the weekend, tonight appeared to be a genuine opportunity to reach the World Cup finals for the first time in 16 years.
Age Hareide’s men were far from a top side, we convinced ourselves, and talk in the build-up of Christian Eriksen’s place among the best footballers on earth was exaggerated.
You could hardly have asked for a better start as Ireland went in front inside six minutes through some good fortune and Shane Duffy’s aerial presence.
From that point on, however, the evening began to quickly unravel and by the final whistle the Boys in Green had been handed their heaviest competitive defeat in five years — when Germany put six past Keiren Westwood at the same venue.
Where do you start with the post-mortem? The system didn’t work, the players were guilty of giving away sloppy goals through basic errors and the substitutions were questionable.
The day began with thoughts of Russia next summer but their latest showing, this Ireland team doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near a World Cup.
Eriksen shows his class this time around
The Tottenham Hotspur star had a couple of pot shots in the first leg but, overall, he remained on the periphery at Parken Stadium.
Eriksen was phenomenal for Denmark in the group stages — with eight goals and three assists — and Saturday proved to be a rare off-night as his class shone through in Dublin.
His terrific first-time strike to finish off a lightening-quick counter attack put the visitors in front just three minutes after Andreas Christensen’s equaliser, and the 25-year-old doubled his tally with a left-footed drive midway through the second half.
Stephen Ward’s mistake allowed him to rifle his third into the top corner and complete the hat-trick, and there was even time left for Nicklas Bendtner to enjoy a goalscoring cameo — coming off the bench to score from the penalty spot before celebrating in front of the delirous visiting fans.
Ireland get tactics all wrong
O’Neill opted to stick with the same starting XI that ground out a 0-0 draw with the exception of captain David Meyler, who returned from a one-match suspension in place of Callum O’Dowda.
That meant retaining the services of Daryl Murphy up front and leaving Shane Long on the bench. 34-year-old Murphy had run himself into the ground without little success before coming off 74 minutes into the first leg.
This time, however, James McClean was given a central role up alongside the Nottingham Forest striker in a 4-4-2 diamond with Harry Arter at the base of midfield, the returning David Meyler on the right side of midfield and Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick making up the quartet.
And Ireland started like a house on fire — pressing from the front, doubling up to win back possession and scoring early on. But after the goal, their formation failed badly and Denmark were afforded far too much space in the centre of the park.
Acknowledging the error and trailing 2-1 at the interval, the Ireland boss withdrew Meyler and Arter to bring on Wes Hoolahan and Aiden McGeady in an effort to add some much-needed creativity.
Instead, it left them even more exposed and Denmark picked off their opponents in the second half.
O’Neill vows to bounce back
It was announced last month that the current management team had agreed contract extensions with the FAI ahead of the play-offs — although they haven’t yet been signed. Now that Ireland won’t be taking part in the World Cup, questions about whether O’Neill is still the right man for the job were inevitable and the issue was raised tonight during his post-match press conference.
The former Sunderland and Aston Villa manager has suffered his fair share of demoralising losses down through the years, but it was evident that this result has clearly affected him. Having walked out of a tetchy interview with RTÉ’s Tony O’Donoghue moments earlier, O’Neill took his place at the top of the Aviva Stadium’s press conference room.
The issue of his future was raised and he took exception to being asked if his luck has finally run out. Although the 65-year-old said he will speak with FAI chief executive John Delaney about going forward in the job, there was no indication that he plans to step down after four years.
Changing of the guard now inevitable
So the latest two-year cycle ends on a bitterly-sour note and, with the Euro 2020 qualifiers not beginning until March 2019, you would expect quite a few of the current Ireland squad to call time on their international careers in the coming weeks and months.
John O’Shea (35) is likely to bow out, while Wes Hoolahan (35), Jon Walters (34) and Glenn Whelan (33) could all follow suit.
Although younger players like Scott Hogan, Sean Maguire, Conor Hourihane, Kevin Long and Matt Doherty have joined up with the group in recent times, those departures are sure to leave a significant void.
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What system?
@Brian Treacy: Hoof the ball up the field and hope for the best.
@Deviléire: And then panic and take off your midfield when it’s going wrong
Where do you start?
1. Reduce prices for coaches to obtain UEFA coaching badges in order to increase our “quality” coaches per capita number.
Likelihood: FAI have the prices so high so they make more money. Coaching costs more expensive here compared to other nations.
2. This player development plan, do we know if we have it fully in place?
Likelihood: FAI have real divide worj shooks stakeholders and seem to be doing nothing about it.
3. Use international friendlies to cap young players and play a whole new creative and attacking style of play (e.g. field an U25 team)
Likelihood: Capping promising LOI players would help exposure of suffering LOI but FAI dont care.
4. Realise that we have a domestic league that needs serious resourcing and funding.
Likelihood: “Problem Child”
Raise points about failures .
Likelihood : Peter nagle is an idiot with prepackaged answers on who is to blame & why.
We are a defensive team. We cannot play a passing game because when we do we get exposed. Denmark’s second goal was a perfect example. A good passing move then we lose the ball in a bad position, bang game over. The grumpy old men on RTE think we are a little Brazil. Getting sick of their spoof.
@prop joe: but we can be a passing team if we pass the ball. How in the name of Jesus are people missing this point? We have Premiership midfielders horsing the ball everywhere and anywhere. Are you trying to say that Denmark are that more technically gifted than us? The answer is is they are not. Not at all. The negativity of our ‘gameplan’ is an absolute disgrace. We gave Georgia 70% possession after going one nil up.
@prop joe: kinda need to press to win the ball back so then you can pass.
How about bouncing on Martin?
Qualifying for major tournaments is obviously a major feat but if we have to play the way we play in order to have a sniff of qualifying and then don’t, then I’d prefer we at least try and play ball for the next campaign and if we don’t qualify at least we tried it. I don’t expect we play like Brazil away, but I also don’t expect we play like Gibraltar at home.
@Shane Doherty: nice one Dad
Really need to get a few younger players into the squad, other than O Dowda, there was no one in the squad under 25. I reckon it’ll be the last campaign for a good few of the players, O Shea, Whelan, Hoolahan, Murphy and probably Walters will definitely be thinking of calling it quits at this stage
@COYBIG: the u21s look good
@Jordo: time to get a few of those 21s in and get rid of the back passer brigade. Rice Hourihane and Shaughnessy are better than what’s playing. They actually have a brain. I’d rather we got beaten trying to play than at the crap we are at. We’re a laughing stock
This team isnt for anyone who follows football because this isnt real football or anything that even resembles it.Christ the COYBIG and Irish fan culture is a bit of a cult. I dont know if these lads even follow football. We always fall back on ” the best fans in the world ” tag when we get spanked. The Irish will always be great fans. But the acceptance of this utter rubbish football is becoming a farce. It doesnt have to be this bad- no way. We know we dont have talented players but we have some good ones and everyone of them have a great attitude. Under Mick McCarthy and at various times under other managers we have played football with great results. But i have no idea what this ” hot potato football ” is??The players and the Irish football fan deserves better.
System? Pass it to the other team or hood if out of touch
Sick of Ireland getting manky groups though.. England etc always getting relatively piss easy ones.. I know they’re tier one, but it’s annoying when you see teams like Japan constantly in the cup
@Acedeuce: Japan are a lot better than us
It would appear that neither the author or any of the people commenting actually watched the match. When we tried to pass the ball we gave it away quickly. This directly led to their second goal. We play the way we do because we are not good at playing the way you all seem to want us to play.
It’s actually quite a conundrum. Overall, the quality of the players is average to poor, so out skilling and opponents is going to be unlikely, particularly against better teams. O Neil, for the most part as to combat this, has opted for high levels of concentration, tactical rigidity, a strong work ethic and as compact a system as possible. Last night however he compromised (pressure to win and be seen to be more adventurous perhaps..?) and opted for a less compact system, which ultimately greatly weakened the team. Due to what was at stake, I can’t help but speculate and suggest that the reaction would have been the same regardless of whether; we had lost 0-1 to a fluke, had lost on penalties following a nil all draw, or, as what happened, we were trashed 1-5.