A giant screen that rolled onto the Ireland training ground yesterday confirmed there\u2019s only one show in town for Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson and his players.<\/p>\n
No matter how many permutations are available through different channels, tuning into beating Armenia is all that matters.<\/p>\n
One can assume the footage of Armenian joy in the reverse fixture last month was a hard watch for those part of the Yerevan wreckage.<\/p>\n
Their words of hurt testify to that, as did the improvement in Lisbon on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Sentiments and actions will be redundant unless they mould it into a victory over the group\u2019s bottom side.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s more possible than probable based on recent evidence.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s steely display away to Portugal could prove Armenia was an outlier, whereas the problems Armenia caused Hungary in boisterous Budapest at the weekend illustrated their growing maturity and confidence to upset the order.<\/p>\n
One goal scored 11 minutes into the second half was the difference between the teams until stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Captain Tigran Barseghyan went close to equalising before the Magyars broke in stoppage-time to plunder a second.<\/p>\n
Armenia will be content to operate on the counterattack, as they did with devastating effect in the first meeting.<\/p>\n
Four weeks on, Nathan Collins was still at a loss to explain the ineptness of that showing. \u201cFootball is mad; anything can happen,\u201d was the best the skipper could rationalise.<\/p>\n
The search for answers was reflected by a quiet dressing-room, both at half-time after the initial concession and afterwards when a fifth straight qualification failure seemed imminent.<\/p>\n
It was curious that Ryan Manning was the one who spoke loudest about accepting responsibility. The returning S\u00e9amus Coleman is similarly minded when it comes to avoiding excuses.<\/p>\n
Lessons from that humbling, when Ireland were overrun in midfield, could convince Hallgr\u00edmsson to retain the back-five formation he employed in Lisbon but the onus on the hosts to take the initiative will likely involve the Icelander\u2019s default setting being mobilised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed preparation time to work on the back five in the lead-up to Portugal,\u201d explained Hallgr\u00edmsson.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was only the second time in my reign, and the first since the first camp, to play that system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s much easier to switch back to four – if we\u2019re talking about those changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were worried about that switch back, we would have used time before the Portugal game to plan for the next game after.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only really one session between the games. All that\u2019s used for is checking player fitness, rather than tactics.\u201d His subsequent on-pitch video session suggested otherwise.<\/p>\n
A full house is expected by kick-off and the mood could turn pretty ugly if the team from the Caucasus repeats the feat by nudging ahead.<\/p>\n
A single point from a possible nine in the first half campaign has Ireland playing catch-up from the foot of the table.<\/p>\n
One win will alter the landscape, according to the manager, but it has also forced him to balance on the tightrope between sticking and twisting in front of a crowd pining for goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatience is important, not just only for us but also the media and fans, because sometimes they underestimate the opponent,\u201d asserted Hallgr\u00edmsson.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo much patience is maybe not good because you must have urgency at times.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must also have a Plan B, if we feel that we\u2019re not creating enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
One goal will do. It\u2019s tempting to predict a series of outcomes from the run-in, many of which entail Ireland needing to win on the final day in Budapest \u2013 by more than the minimum margin.<\/p>\n
How Hungary fare tonight, and Ireland next month, against Portugal will shape that conclusion but points, and making one after the Yerevan horror show, are the priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could go down to one goal either way but we\u2019re not thinking about that now,\u201d emphasised Hallgr\u00edmsson.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing only 1-0 to Portugal, when you look at it, could also be an important thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cArmenia will be thinking the same, so we need to be smart.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a tight group of four nations, stakes are of equal importance. Armenia\u2019s manager feels Ireland will be a stiffer proposition to the fallible version they faced in the campaign\u2019s second match.<\/p>\n
“I understand Ireland\u2019s motivation because we are both in the same situation after losing on Saturday,\u201d proffered visiting boss Yegishe Melikyan in his Lansdowne Road press conference before declaring a rallying cry. \u201cThis game will be a war.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
They have designs of that runners-up spot too. Were they to emulate Ireland\u2019s breakthrough of the 1980\u2019s, it will be built in a similar core of ancestral recruits.<\/p>\n
Eduard Spertsyan, the tormentor-in-chief of Ireland in the last two campaigns, was born in Stavropol, Russia and plays there.<\/p>\n
Lucas Zelaray\u00e1n, hailing from C\u00f3rdoba, Argentina, was another component in the 2-1 victory while their latest convert, match-winner Grant-Leon Ranos Gehrden, is a native of Germany.<\/p>\n
As opposed to Armenia attempting to write history, Ireland\u2019s realistic aim in his perilous position is to avoid a video nasty. Time to raise the curtain on what Hallgr\u00edmsson considers his team\u2019s belated premiere of this campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A giant screen that rolled onto the Ireland training ground yesterday confirmed there\u2019s only one show in town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,1842],"class_list":["post-79008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79008","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=79008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}