Halgrimsson admits Ireland lacked initiative in sobering defeat to England
Jayson Molumby, Republic of Ireland during the UEFA Nations League game between the Republic of Ireland and England Credit: Conor Ryan (ETPhotos)
Heimir Halgrimsson admitted that his Republic of Ireland side lacked initiative and were second best to England in what was a sobering first game in charge.
There would be no repeat of his Icelandic Euro 2016 heroics at the Aviva Stadium, as Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, both once of this parish, sucked the life out of the game with two first-half strikes.
It could have been more for England had it not been for Caoimhín Kelleher, but a thunderous atmosphere turned into a damp squib with Ireland unable to land a punch on the pitch.
“We have to admit that we were second best in this game by far,” Halgrimsson conceded.
Halgrimsson was only appointed in July after Stephen Kenny was relieved of his duties last November.
Two friendly windows passed without a permanent appointment from the FAI, with Halgrimsson looking to go back to basics after Kenny’s footballing fantasy yielded nothing.
In truth, Ireland struggled to do the basics, and the consequences of going into a competitive camp without previous matches under a new manager hit hard, with a serious lack of cohesion on show. Halgrimsson admitted his side lacked initiative.
“It’s confidence in decision-making, initiative that was the big difference between the teams. We can talk about individual quality, but when you are defending collectively, you need to make decisions and believe in action and reaction."
"We were not good at this compared with England, who are coming from a good Euros, winning the U21. All their passes, decisions, and moments were taken with the belief that they would be successful.
“I felt like we were always hesitating, especially from the defence, more individual actions rather than collective.
“When we had chances to cross, we didn’t take them. To shoot, we didn’t take them. We got into good positions but did not have the confidence to make the decision to do things. That was the big difference for me.”
Ireland have won just two of their 17 Nations League games since the competition’s inception, while they have won just twice in the last 12 months, signalling a morale issue within the squad.
“We played a really good team who exposed our weakness, and we can use a lot from this game. I am not talking about all the negatives, we can show what we can do better,” said Halgrimsson when asked how he plans to change the fortunes of the players.
“It gives us an opportunity to look at what we are doing. We can react in two ways when we lose a game: we can restart with something totally different, which could get us nowhere. We tried to do something, and in the second half, we were much better than the first half. We had more initiative, we were higher and more compact. We can learn and grow from this.”
Kenny’s reign played out with five at the back to no avail, and Halgrimsson stuck with that formation but saw his midfield pair of Will Smallbone and Jayson Molumby run ragged, while one long ball from Trent Alexander-Arnold split the defence for England’s opening goal.
“Given that we had five at the back, we were too open,” admitted Halgrimsson.
“The first goal should never happen at any level of football. If you played at youth level, you would not be happy. The second goal was give-and-goes. It shouldn’t happen.
“We had a lack of initiative, and we conceded like we did.”
