This was worse than anything I’ve ever seen before<\/a>. Worse than losing at home to Luxembourg, far worse than the 5-2 defeat in Cyprus under Steve Staunton.<\/p>\nThere are many people to blame. There are a lot of players who simply don’t deliver when they play for their country.<\/p>\n
It’s clear too that the quality is lacking in crucial areas – especially in midfield.<\/p>\n
The FAI have to take a huge chunk of blame too as the governing body has made a habit of making bad decisions.<\/p>\n
Look at the various labour disputes going on. It’s a dysfunctional organisation that has been an embarrassment for most of its existence.<\/p>\n
But, in terms of the past week, the buck has to stop with the manager.<\/p>\n
He has to go, go this week, and the FAI should appoint a caretaker for the games in October and November.<\/p>\n
This campaign is dead so what’s the point in hanging on to the Dentist for another couple of months.<\/p>\n
He is a bluffer who has promised much but hasn’t delivered.<\/p>\n
Last week, there was so much optimism around – a lot of it coming from out of the Irish camp. All the talk was of them having grown up as a team, and of now being ready to go and make their mark at major tournaments.<\/p>\n
To borrow the sarcastic question once posed by the former US vice-president candidate Sarah Palin: ‘how’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?’<\/p>\n
Only for Caoimhin Kelleher, Hungary would have won comfortably in Dublin and Armenia would have won 5-1 last night.<\/p>\n
It’s not just the Dentist’s inexplicable tactics that have to be questioned. Ireland don’t look to be motivated properly. I really wonder about their preparation. What on earth do they do on the training ground?<\/p>\n
This is the third qualifying campaign in a row that is effectively over after two games.<\/p>\n
Ireland have become minnows. Everybody wants to play against Ireland. A few days ago, Portugal filleted Armenia 5-0. They hadn’t kept a clean sheet in three years but they came into this game feeling they could do something.<\/p>\n
![\"Armenia's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_JS380453826.jpg\")
Armenia’s Erik Piloyan and Sergei Muradian celebrate their side’s second goal(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne)<\/p>\n
That tells you about Ireland’s standing on the international stage now. We’re seen as pushovers.<\/p>\n
Armenia are ranked 105th in the world by FIFA, but Kosova are ranked just 10 spots higher. On Tuesday, they beat Sweden 2-0 in a World Cup qualifier.<\/p>\n
It’s not as if they lucked out, hanging on by the skin of their teeth either.<\/p>\n
Kosovo scored twice in the first half and saw out the game comfortably from there. This was against a Sweden team that could afford to hold Alexander Isak of Liverpool – the most expensive player in British football history – in reserve as a second half substitute.<\/p>\n
This was a Sweden team that had Arsenal’s new striker, Viktor Gyokeres, up front. Also in attack was Anthony Elanga, who made a big money move to Newcastle United in the summer.<\/p>\n
Still, Kosovo – which has a population of just 1.5 million – won with players from Kolos Kovalivka in Ukraine, Poland’s Motor Lublin and CFR Cluj in Romania.<\/p>\n
Look at the fright Northern Ireland – with a population not that much bigger than Kosovo – gave Germany in Cologne on Sunday. They gave as good as they got for much of the game.<\/p>\n
Michael O’Neill started players from the likes of Blackpool, San Diego FC, Preston, Stevenage Borough and Swansea.<\/p>\n
![\"Northern](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1_inpho_02783237.jpg\")
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill(Image: INPHO\/William Cherry)<\/p>\n
North Macedonia have already played five qualifiers and are top of a group that includes Belgium, who are ranked eighth in the world. Look through their squad and you’ll have to resort to Google to identify quite a few clubs.<\/p>\n
Kosovo, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Armenia – they’re able to punch above their weight. That used to be an Irish strength. Now we are consistent in only one sense – we’re poor in game after game after game.<\/p>\n
We can get bogged down in where our players play because we don’t have any at the big Manchester clubs or Arsenal or Liverpool anymore but most of them play at a higher level than many national teams in Europe.<\/p>\n
David Moyes is no mug and he’s definitely not a sentimentalist. He gave Seamus Coleman a new contract for this season because he felt he could still cut it in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
That the Dentist didn’t have the basic cop-on to call up one of Ireland’s most consistently important players begs belief.<\/p>\n
Management is largely about making the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The likes of Kosovo and Northern Ireland are managing that, but Ireland simply aren’t.<\/p>\n
Nathan Collins, who was really poor, makes rash decisions and bad mistakes in game after game for Ireland but, with Brentford, he looks a different player.<\/p>\n
He’s not alone in this. Far too many Irish players seem to be diminished by playing for the national team, rather than growing with the challenge.<\/p>\n
He doesn’t deserve to be captain. He barely deserves to be on the starting 11, to be honest.<\/p>\n
This is as bad as it gets. And I really hope that’s the end of Hallgrimsson. Why he didn’t start Adam Idah beggared belief.<\/p>\n
What is particularly bizarre is the fact that there is talk of Hallgrimmsson being in talks with the FAI for a new contract.<\/p>\n
What on earth is going on? I hope those talks are parked, and the Dentist can go back to filling in cavities many miles away from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Management is largely about making the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The likes of Kosovo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,72263,82],"class_list":["post-132669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ireland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_JS380456125.jpg\")
Ireland’s manager Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson dejected after the match in Armenia(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne)<\/p>\n