IN THE WAKE of tonight’s home defeat to Sweden, both John O’Shea and Robbie Keane appeared to issue a measured criticism of Ireland’s tactical approach.
Giovanni Trapattoni’s side consistently looked to create chances against Sweden by asking Shane Long to win headers on the edge of the visitors’ box.
Once there, Robbie Keane, a recovering Long and anybody else on hand would begin the scramble to try and get the bouncing ball under control and attempt to create an opening.
“It’s certainly been a good weapon for us in the past and I think we got the first goal from that,” said Robbie Keane as he picked the bones out of the defeat.
Perhaps it was his final chance to appear at a World Cup about to go up in smoke, but every reference to the style of plan came with a forlorn facial expression and the heavy hint that he wishes things were very different.
“We do what we always do; try and get to second balls and try and nick a goal from that, win headers off Shane and try to get a few flick-ons. You know?”
He adds: “The first half hour was good. We played well with high pressure and don’t let them out of their half, but then we let them back into the game.
“It’s important at home to get an early goal, but unfortunately we didn’t capitalise on that – last 15 minutes of the first half they started getting their play going and they were a better team in the last 15. Consequently they got the goal.”
Asked whether such a hectic style of play was a frustration for him, Keane replied: “For anybody, of course it’s difficult. You want to get clear enough chances and we didn’t have that.”
Tempo
O’Shea was equally despondent about the manner in which the game unravelled for Ireland after taking the early lead. Both men are hugely experienced, not only as footballers, but as men trying to downplay and dilute any strong feelings they have.
“The tempo we started with,” O’Shea says, “it’s gonna be hard to maintain that for 90 minutes , but when we started so well and you get a great goal, if you just get to half time at 1-0 it would be such a massive carrot to hang onto.
“Credit to them, they’ve put a great ball in and 9Johan) Elmander’s got across and buried it well.
“That’s where we need to be professional enough to kill teams off .Especially from that first-half point of view when we get the goal up.
“Then in the second half, to show a bit more imagination to get that equalising goal after they go 2-1 up. That’s something we need to improve on.”
Trap door
The issue of Trapattoni’s future was put to both men. Notably, neither felt the urge to issue an unequivocal backing.
‘That’s a lot of ifs’, O’Shea said to the possibility of a new coach coming in for the final two games of the campaign.
“I’m certainly not going down that road,” Keane stated at the suggestion that the Italian’s reign was coming to an end.
“Because, I think as professionals we’ve got the manager and as far we’re concerned he’s the manager and we’re going to give him 100%.”
