UEFA Nations League Report: England 5 - 0 Republic of Ireland

Macdara Ferris reports from Wembley

When Ireland last played at Wembley there was a lot of talk about the motivational video shown to the players ahead of the game. The video of the defending from this second half will be looked on as a video nasty. It was a horror show after the break as ten man Ireland following Liam Scales’ red card unravelled against a five goal England onslaught. 

The Boys in Green were mostly undone by a six minute early second half spell where their defensive discipline abandoned them, conceding three quick fire goals. Heimir Hallgrímsson had spoken ahead of the game about how England are not a League B team and so it proved.

The win for Lee Carsley’s men confirmed their promotion to League A while Ireland have a play-off to remain a League B team. 

“It’s a team that if we give them a chance they will probably take it,” said the Ireland boss and that is exactly what they did scoring five unanswered goals after the break.

In the first half Ireland were well in the game against a much changed England team from their lineup in the dominant display in Dublin when the sides last met.

The work that Heimir Hallgrímsson has done with the squad since then, coupled with their back-to-back wins over Finland, looked like it was paying off but the talk of that was too soon.

Hallgrímsson brought Mark McGuinness in for his debut and deployed his skipper Nathan Collins in an unorthodox role where he sat in front of the back four and then slotted into a back five which turned into a back ten at times.

The green shirts lined out in a narrow band in front of their box denying space in behind for Jude Bellingham to run into. Even with their 72% first half possession, the Three Lions failed to force Caoimhín Kelleher into any real save of note in the first 45. He would spend the second half busy picking the ball out of the back of the net.

At the other end Jordan Pickford in his orange kit could have joined the stewards wearing the same colour in the stands for all the action that Ireland brought into his penalty area. However, the Boys in Green did have a couple of shouts for a penalty kick but both were denied.

The first one was correctly ruled out as Kyle Walker got a head to ball to take it away from Josh Cullen before falling and taking the Burnley player down. However, when Marc Guehi had a fistfull of Evan Ferguson’s jersey as the two tussled in the box, the expectation was that VAR would take a look.

The fussy Belgian referee Erik Lambrechts didn’t give a foul and wasn’t called aside to look at the pitch side TV.

The Ireland fans were enjoying the backs-to-the-walls display from their team, goading the home supporters about Wembley being a library. When Liam Scale put in a James McClean style reducer tackle on Harry Kane taking the ball and man, it raised the biggest cheer of the first half from the visiting fans.

England’s best play came from Noni Madueke down the right and his team forced five corners but with Ireland lining out with four centre-halfs they were able to cope admirably with those set pieces. 

After a couple of early errors Sammie Szmodics came more into the game but Festy Ebosele brought the biggest threat to the English defence with a couple of marauding runs that didn’t get the reward they may be deserved. 

The first half concluded with Kane and Walker getting involved with Jason Molumby off the ball before the whistle went for the break. That was as good as it got for the visitors.

It all unravelled for Ireland six minutes into the second half. Kane split Ireland open with a diagonal ball wide to Bellingham who beat Liam Scales and he left a trailing leg behind him for the Real Madrid man to fall over. Penalty.

The Celtic player picked up a second yellow card and Kane dispatched the penalty kick sending Kelleher the wrong way. It would soon get worse for the Boys in Green as Anthony Gordon doubled England’s lead as Cullen and Collins couldn’t stop the cross from reaching him and he volleyed home with his right foot. 

Then England finally made their set piece delivery pay. Madueke swung a corner and Marc Guehi’s flick on fell kindly to Conor Gallagher at the back post to prod home the third.

The fourth came in the 75^th minute with substitute Jared Bowen slotting it home as he was given the freedom of the Wembley pitch for his left foot effort.

On debut Tylor Harwood-Belles then scored with a bullet pack post header off a brilliant Bellingham centre 11 minutes from time. 

The result has no knock on effect for World Cup qualification for Ireland and the team will be third seeds for the upcoming qualifiers but this bruising defeat will knock the confidence gained from wins over Finland.

With two teams ranked higher to be dropped into their World Cup qualifying group, this result shows the challenge that faces the Boys in Green against such high qualify opposition when the qualifiers come around next Autumn – first up though will be a play-off to stay in League B in March next year.

England: Jordan Pickford; Valentino Livramento, Kyle Walker (Taylor Harwood-Bellis 62), Addji Guéhi, Lewis Hall; Curtis Jones (Joseph Gomez 79), Conor Gallagher; Chukwunonso Madueke (Jarrod Bowen 75), Jude Bellingham, Anthony Gordon (Morgan Rogers 75); Harry Kane.
Subs not used: James Trafford, Dean Henderson, Jarell Amorin Quansah, Rico Lewis, Oliver Watkins, Dominic Solanke-Mitchell, Morgan Gibbs-White.
Booked: Jude Bellingham (42), Chukwunonso Madueke (42), Harry Kane (45+3)
Sent off: None.

Rep. Of Ireland: Caoimhín Kelleher; Dara O'Shea, Mark McGuinness, Liam Scales, Callum O'Dowda (Finn Azaz 66); Nathan Collins; Festy Ebosele (Ryan Manning 66), Josh Cullen (Andrew Moran 76), Jayson Molumby; Evan Ferguson (Troy Parrott 66), Sammie Szmodics (Kasey McAteer 86)
Subs not used: Max O'Leary, Mark Travers, Jake O'Brien, Conor Coventry, Michael Johnston, Matthew Doherty, Thomas Cannon.
Booked: Liam Scales (43 and 51), Jayson Molumby (45+3), Dara O’Shea (85).
Sent off: Liam Scales (51).

Referee: Erik Lambrechts (Belgium)
Attendance: 79,969 
extratime.com Player of the Match: Noni Madueke (England)