Having initially been optimistic about their prospects of making next year\u2019s finals, Shay Given said it now feels like a disappointing start to World Cup qualification in the past week has put the Republic of Ireland back to square one.<\/p>\n
In their Group F opener against Hungary at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday, Heimir Hallgrimsson\u2019s side fell two goals behind inside 15 minutes before eventually rallying in the second half to earn a 2-2 draw.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Armenia, on the other hand, suffered a heavy 5-0 reversal at home to Portugal on the same day and had to dust themselves down quickly for a subsequent showdown with Ireland in Yerevan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Yet even though Evan Ferguson bagged his second goal in as many games on 57 minutes, earlier finishes from Eduard Spertsyan and Grant-Leon Ranos earned the hosts a deserved 2-1 victory. This was a significant win for an Armenian side that are currently ranked 105th in the world and Given believes this lowly position may have led some people to underestimate their challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have said this before, we have to get off to a good start in the qualifying campaign. It’s like copy and paste again, we’re back to [square one]. It feels like we’re not going anywhere. That’s the frustrating thing, for the fans as well. 700 fans went out, it’s a long journey to Armenia and you can see their faces after, just gutting,\u201d Given remarked at a Premier Sports event in Dublin on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know what the answer is, it’s difficult. I know you’re asking for answers, but it’s difficult for me to even give you any because it’s just frustrating. You’ve got to give yourself a chance. The first games of every campaign are so important. Maybe we underestimated Armenia because of the world ranking. We were outdone on Tuesday and now it’s a real struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n
While they aren\u2019t completely out of the running in Group F \u2013 Hallgrimsson\u2019s men are just two points adrift of Armenia, who currently occupy the play-off spot \u2013 Ireland have very little margin for error in their four remaining qualification games.<\/p>\n
Before renewing acquaintances with Armenia in the Aviva on October 14, the Boys In Green will take on Portugal in Lisbon three days earlier. As the group\u2019s top seeds and pace-setters, the Portuguese will be heavy favourites coming into this contest.<\/p>\n
Had they emerged with a haul of four or six points from their opening two qualifiers, Ireland could have potentially gone into the Portugal game with the pressure off. However, after picking up just a single point from the September international window, former Irish shotstopper Given (who represented his country at senior level on no fewer than 134 occasions) admitted a positive result will be required from this encounter to reignite their qualification hopes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s two games coming up, Portugal away and Armenia at home. Armenia at home is you\u2019d think in the past an easy game, but they were the better team the other night. Portugal away, you don’t know how that’s going to pan out. If they don’t get a result, it’s over. It’s just frustrating because we should have won the other night,\u201d Given added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you lose to Portugal it’s not the end of the world, but 1757747226 it actually is the end of the world. It’s a real struggle to get that second position. It’s hard to say what happened the other night. [Nathan] Collins spoke after the game and he just didn’t really know himself. He looked a bit shook. I think we were all a bit shook.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having initially been optimistic about their prospects of making next year\u2019s finals, Shay Given said it now feels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2957,61,60,43,1842],"class_list":["post-18286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}