{"id":123890,"date":"2025-10-15T15:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/123890\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:28:17","slug":"ireland-are-going-down-a-dangerous-road-with-heimir-hallgrimsson-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/123890\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland are going down a dangerous road with Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything about the performance against Armenia on Tuesday night<\/a> was unfamiliar. I cannot remember an Ireland<\/a> team being so \u201cpassive\u201d, so \u201cnervy\u201d \u2013 the manager\u2019s words \u2013 and so defensively minded when faced by a minnow of world football in a must-win World Cup<\/a> qualifier.<\/p>\n

Ireland sat in against Armenia and invited them to attack us, at home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never known an Irish side, even at its lowest point, to collectively agree that it was a good idea to start with a back five and two defensive midfielders against such poor opposition. <\/p>\n

Despite the noise coming from the Ireland camp, Armenia are ranked 103rd in the world for good reason. They would be ranked lower, only they beat Ireland in Yerevan last month.<\/p>\n

What was the point of the past 13 months? <\/p>\n

The Ireland manager has abandoned his own formation. Since Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> took over after the 2-0 loss to England at the Aviva in September 2024, when he admitted to not knowing the players well enough to pick the team or formation, he reintroduced a back four with two attacking midfielders playing off Evan Ferguson.<\/p>\n

It worked well enough to beat Finland and Bulgaria before everything unravelled in Yerevan.<\/p>\n

Hallgr\u00edmsson, by what he did next, only deepened the fear and passivity that has gripped a young squad. <\/p>\n

The decision to overlook S\u00e9amus Coleman in September, with Matt Doherty, Jake O\u2019Brien and Jimmy Dunne called up to cover right back, was a disastrous miscalculation that proves the manager does not know his players well enough to be in charge.<\/p>\n

The selection of Killian Philips over Jayson Molumby last month only re-enforces my view.<\/p>\n

Festy Ebosele was arguably Ireland\u2019s most effective attacking weapon this past year. He can be unplayable down the right wing. But Hallgr\u00edmsson said that Ebosele\u2019s lack of game time for Istanbul Ba\u015fak\u015fehir and Coleman being benched at Everton behind O\u2019Brien were valid reasons to leave them out of the group.<\/p>\n

\"SéamusS\u00e9amus Coleman has played well since being recalled to the Ireland team. Photograph: Nick Elliott\/Inpho <\/p>\n

These decisions severely damaged the campaign from the off. The fact that Coleman, Ebosele and Molumby came straight back into the team last weekend, ahead of players such as Kasey McAteer and Jack Taylor, is further evidence that the manager\u2019s judgement is unreliable.<\/p>\n

Coleman, when fit, plays for Ireland. I trusted the Irish coaches had more information to hand. But now S\u00e9amus is openly saying he was fit and ready to go in September.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d believe Coleman. <\/p>\n

Honestly, and I don\u2019t say this lightly or with any satisfaction, but this has not worked out. We\u2019re trying to survive games rather than going out to compete in them.<\/p>\n

I am continually frustrated by Hallgr\u00edmsson trying to frame the 2-2 draw with Hungary last month as a positive performance. It was worse than what we witnessed against Armenia. <\/p>\n

It set the tone. <\/p>\n

Ireland only picked up their four points in the campaign after Hungary\u2019s Rolland Salai and Armenian captain Tigran Barseghyan completely lost their heads and got sent off.<\/p>\n

That is why Ireland are not rooted to the bottom of Group F without a single point \u2013 the unprofessional behaviour of opposing players.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe turning point in Tuesday’s Ireland-Armenia match. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho <\/p>\n

The 5-4-1 approach was revived for Portugal on Saturday. We\u2019ve seen it employed before when John O\u2019Shea was interim manager and under Stephen Kenny. <\/p>\n

At Crystal Palace, the Ireland assistant coach Paddy McCarthy coaches a back five every day.<\/p>\n

The plan to secure a 0-0 result in Lisbon fell just short after Coleman was replaced by John Egan and Ruben Neves scored Portugal\u2019s late winner. <\/p>\n

Inexplicably, Hallgr\u00edmsson retained the same cautious approach for a game against a country that Ireland should never fear. By sticking to a back five with two defensive midfielders against Armenia, Ireland raised the white flag in this World Cup campaign. We should never sit back and defend in a must-win game at home.<\/p>\n

This is a dangerous road for the Ireland team to go down. If fans and players accept these tactics from the head coach we are moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m hearing excuses such as \u201cpassive\u201d and \u201cnervy\u201d for over a year now. Hallgr\u00edmsson was brought in to fix these established problems.<\/p>\n

Most of us know that the people who recruited him were the wrong crowd to be running Irish football. And we all know how long it took and how many people were interviewed before they settled upon an Icelander coaching in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

Scrambling for results when Hungary and Armenia have been reduced to 10 men is not an \u201cIrish performance\u201d \u2013 the latest catchphrase being offered by the camp.<\/p>\n

Far from it.<\/p>\n

The Ireland men\u2019s football team have become passive observers of their own descent into mediocrity. My fear is it could get worse. <\/p>\n

Confidence is approaching an all-time low. Portugal come next in Dublin, needing a result to win the group. Batten down the hatches to secure a scoreless draw? Fine. But then what? Go to Budapest needing to beat Hungary having not played any attacking football for the entire campaign?<\/p>\n

I was an Ireland player for plenty of tough days, but I have never known the team to be too afraid to play a country such as Armenia off the pitch. Our pitch. Lansdowne Road.<\/p>\n

It was an incredibly tough watch. The players need to take control of their own destiny. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything about the performance against Armenia on Tuesday night was unfamiliar. I cannot remember an Ireland team being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,17065,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,6634,6370,7,8,35350],"class_list":{"0":"post-123890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","23":"tag-seamus-coleman","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}