A DOWNTURN IN form for Ireland skipper Katie McCabe has been at the centre of Eileen Gleeson’s side’s two recent defeats vs Sweden, according to former Cobh Ramblers boss Shane Keegan.

“The biggest area of concern, I think everybody will agree, is the drop off in performance levels from Katie McCabe,” Keegan told Gavin Cooney on Wednesday’s Football Family podcast.

“The easiest narrative to jump to is ‘Should she just have been concentrating on her football instead of getting wrapped up in the Vera Pauw thing?’

McCabe certainly struggled to come to terms with the task of dealing with Johanna Rytting Kaneryd in both Swedish encounters, something which was caused by multiple factors such as being forced to play at left-wing back and coming off the back of a strenuous season in London.

Despite her struggles, Keegan noted that it’s unfair for fans to jump the gun considering the exceptional performances that McCabe has put in whilst representing her nation in the past decade:

“It’s not the world’s greatest barometer but if you look at the social media reaction to last night’s game, Katie McCabe is getting a lot of heat. Whilst I can understand people making the point that her performances haven’t been at the level that they had been at, for people to say that she’s massively overrated is a ridiculous statement.

“This is somebody who was probably our best player for almost ten consecutive international games and at her club is operating at the highest level. She is absolutely not overrated.

“Are we getting close to the stage where you’re maybe saying ‘her very best days are behind her?’ That’s a different argument. It’s not beyond possibility that it could be the case.

“It’s going to make life tough on Ireland if we’ve seen the best of her and we’re not going to get her back at that level again,” Keegan concluded.

Elsewhere, Ireland’s dramatic victory over Hungary thanks to a Troy Parrott goal was not enough to convince Keegan that John O’Shea should be named as the permanent Irish boss.

“I think if you didn’t see the game and you just purely went off the headline that Ireland have beaten a Hungary side that haven’t lost in 14 games… that looks good on your CV.

“If you had to watch the game, the manner of the performance and the manner of the result… I think you could probably make as equally of a plausible argument that it could be used as a justification for why John O’Shea shouldn’t get the job.

“Based off the 90 minutes, I think the result could very easily have been 2-1 or possibly 3-1 to Hungary. We had two shots on target in the entire game and managed to score from both of them. They had multiples of that. I’m not saying they destroyed us or ripped us apart but…

“Could anyone put forward an argument that Ireland were the better team in this game? I doubt it very much!”

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