4 days ago
Birthday boy Heimir Hallgrimsson critical of Ireland display v Luxembourg
Heimir Hallgrimsson refused to sugarcoat Ireland's lacklustre effort in Luxembourg that soured his birthday celebrations.
The visitors' performance in the scoreless draw bore the hallmarks of an end of season display with nothing on the line but, for the manager, the scoreless draw simply wasn't good few of the Ireland players rose above the torpid, scrappy nature of the the World Cup qualifiers kicking off with a home game against Hungary in exactly three months time, followed by the away clash with Armenia three days later, this international window didn't end the way Hallgrimsson wanted after the encouraging 1-1 draw against Senegal in Dublin."Let's be honest, we're not happy with this performance," he said afterwards. "It's good to keep a clean sheet but we all felt that in the first half we were sloppy - the game was boring in the first half."All the good things we did against Senegal were missing, all the quick movement, the press, the ball speed - so sloppy, we changed in the second half, more tempo, more duels etc."But not good enough. We always like answers to questions and this one is a negative one, so we at least know that. We go in September and play the higher ranked team first, like we did now, and then the lower ranked team away."So this is definitely something that we can learn from. We must play the same way against everyone, whether it's a friendly at the end of season or a group stage game, we need to play the same way all the time."Asked if the display had stalled his team's momentum, Hallgrimsson disagreed. Instead, he insisted, it is a lesson learned. "It is understandable that players are thinking after this game we have a break for some time, a lot of these players have been playing a lot of matches," said the Icelander."But credit to them, and you saw there were a few injuries from fatigue, so no, they were probably a bit careful at the end of the season as well, they don't want to start injured in the new season."We had some chances but still even if we won the game we wouldn't be happy with the performance. We must look at the performance first."On the plus side, Bristol City's goalkeeper Max O'Leary made his debut and produced a couple of important saves, while John Patrick Finn also made his first Ireland appearance off the bench."Max O'Leary comes in and keeps a clean sheet so we can always find something positive," Hallgrimsson said, before quickly returning to the reality of the performance. But first and foremost, the effort that we put into this game was so much less than against Senegal."
Midfielder Jason Knight commented: "It's been a long season, I think you saw it in a lot of the lads out there. It's time to have a rest now. Definitely things to improve but overall a decent camp and now everyone's looking forward to September."
