David Sneyd reports from Fadil Vokrri Stadium, Pristina

HEIMIR HALLGRÍMSSON ADMITTED his Republic of Ireland players lacked initiative and were simply unable to cope with Kosovo as they fell to a 1-0 defeat in Pristina courtesy of Vedat Muriqi’s 83rd-minute winner.

The Ireland manager was making no excuses for the defeat, insisting the home side were full value for the victory and ruing the fact too many of his own men failed to turn up for this Nations League opener.

“I think the overall assessment is we are very disappointed with the performance. We could have survived with the draw. The performance was below what we expected. Individually, a lot of players had an off day,” Hallgrímsson said.

“Collectively, we were lacking initiative, being more on the front foot than we were. We know exactly, what kind of a game this would be, the attacking threats they offer and we didn’t cope with it.

“It was a deserved win in the end. It’s hard to say it, it was a deserved win, they were just better than us on the day.”

Hallgrímsson cited Chiedozie Ogbene as one of those players who was struggling after the pair chatted together on the Ireland bench during the half-time break before heading back down the tunnel to the away dressing room.

The Cork native had Ireland’s best chance of the game in the first half but blazed over the crossbar in the box after a neat pull back from James Abankwah on his full competitive debut.

Asked why his players struggled and not making any changes before the hour mark, Hallgrímsson replied: “I wish I knew, I would have changed in that game, we wanted to be safe, we wanted to be compact. We wanted to keep a clean sheet, first and foremost, and almost manage to do that. Like I said, we were missing that aggressiveness, the pressing element, the initiative in defending, closing players down.

“It felt like we had too many players off in this game. The positives will be the start of the second half, we talked about a few things at half-time. We started pretty good second half, our best spell in the game but that faded as the game went on and they gained the upper hand in the end of the second half.”

The issue of preparation for this game was brought up with the Ireland boss, and whether he felt there was too much pressure on the players with regards the upcoming games with Israel for them to deal with and focus on the task at hand against Kosovo.

“I’m not a psychologist. We felt that the focus was there. You never know. It’s been a strange camp, a strange and difficult preparation for this match, and a good team we are playing.

“I’m not a psychologist and can’t give you an answer to this one but it’s definitely an unorthodox preparation. It’s different between individuals. That’s the only answer I can give you. Every individual needs to answer this question.”

Hallgrímsson told RTÉ before kick-off that he felt there was a “seriousness” about his players ahead of this game

“I thought it was a big focus before the game. You never know inside a player, what a seriousness means. We are just disappointed, the main thing is we can make it right in two days, three days.

“The good thing about this format, we can’t dwell on this and need to accept it was a bad performance for us. We know we can do much better. We can change better and play against Israel.”