World Cup Group F qualifier: Republic of Ireland v Armenia, Aviva Stadium, Tuesday, 7.45pm – Live on RTÉ 2
A month on from that defeat to Armenia in Yerevan and Republic of Ireland captain Nathan Collins still can’t make sense of where it all went wrong that night. “Football’s such a mad sport, anything can happen,” he said on Monday. “We just never got going. It really hurt because we knew as a team we were so much better than that.”
Well, if they don’t prove it at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday evening when they meet Armenia again, then they can, most probably, bid adieu to any hope of qualifying for next summer’s World Cup. What they need, said Collins, is a performance much more akin to the one they produced in Lisbon last Saturday, albeit, need it be said, with a different result.
It goes without saying too that they have to be considerably more adventurous, one Portuguese newspaper suggesting that Ireland played the game with a 10-0-0 formation. So little service did Evan Ferguson receive, Troy Parrott too when he replaced him late on, he probably felt that that was indeed how they’d set up.
“It wasn’t fun to be a striker in our team,” Heimir Hallgrímsson conceded, “they had limited chances to show their attacking qualities”. He didn’t, though, rule out playing five at the back again, because of how “comfortable we felt defending”, but if he goes down that route he’ll expect his wing-backs to spend a lot more time in the opposition’s half this time around than in their own.
RM Block
Josh Cullen’s suspension, after he picked up his second booking of the campaign on Saturday, means Hallgrímsson has one enforced change to make, Charlton’s Conor Coventry now among his midfield options after he was called up on Sunday.
Will Smallbone is the more likely replacement for Cullen alongside Jayson Molumby, although Hallgrímsson said he would assess the “freshness” of those who played in Lisbon and wouldn’t shy away from making more changes.
Mikey Johnston might, then, fancy his chances of taking Festy Ebosele’s place on the wing, but Hallgrímsson brushed over queries about the possibility of Parrott, by far the squad’s most in-form striker this season, starting the game. Considering he only returned for AZ Alkmaar a week ago, after a knee injury kept him out since August, the more cautious option would be to use him off the bench again.
Armenia suffered their own frustrations in their 2-0 defeat to Hungary on Saturday, head coach Yegishe Melikyan left rueing their lack of a “classic number nine” to put away the chances that they created in Budapest. He’ll worry too about his side’s away record – they have just one win in their last 13 games on the road – but Hallgrímsson saluted the impact Melikyan has had since he took over his national team in August.
“The biggest change since then is their fighting spirit, there’s more intensity in everything they do, more aggression in them from the games that we analysed before we played them in Yerevan. Their individual skill has always been there, they can use their speed, running power and dribbling skills to hurt us, but that aggression was not there before this coach came in.”
The Football Association of Ireland say that there has been a late surge in ticket sales for the game, with over 45,000 already sold, perhaps an indicator of a hint of renewed hope in the side’s prospects after a gutsy display in Lisbon.
“I was ashamed after the game in Portugal not to mention the Irish fans,” said an apologetic Hallgrímsson. “It was just in my disappointment, I forgot to give them thanks for coming and supporting us through those 100 minutes. It was amazing. Hopefully they will show up again and give the same support in the Aviva because we definitely need it as much as we did in Portugal.”
Whatever the attendance, Collins is hoping the team can give the crowd something to shout about. “We have a chance to put right what happened last time against Armenia. In those moments, when you’re down, you want to feel sorry for yourself, it’s hard to keep going. I hate losing, I really hate it, it takes so much out of you, but you just have to pick yourself up and get back on the horse again.”
“You have to have people around you who want to push you, and in this squad I have that. The likes of my clubmate Caoimhín Kelleher. He always wants to win. He’s coming from a winning team at Liverpool. He has the habit of winning, and that’s something good. We want to get that pride back in the shirt. The pressure of putting that green jersey on is something I always wanted and it’s something I’ll never take for granted. The pressure of playing for Ireland is a privilege.”
