{"id":48553,"date":"2025-09-07T04:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T04:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/48553\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T04:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T04:30:08","slug":"caoimhin-kelleher-recovers-well-evan-ferguson-shows-his-smarts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/48553\/","title":{"rendered":"Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher recovers well, Evan Ferguson shows his smarts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher (Brentford)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Powerless to prevent the early goals, wafting a bit at the second especially. But he was terrific the rest of the way, three times denying Hungary a third goal that would have killed the game.<b> Rating: <\/b>7<\/p>\n<p>Jake O\u2019Brien (Everton)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Made a passable attempt at being an attacking right back but he\u2019s nobody\u2019s idea of a creative force. Got in behind in the first half but his pullback for Azaz was too heavy. His crossing was excellent in the second half, in fairness. <b>Rating: <\/b>6<\/p>\n<p>Dara O\u2019Shea (Ipswich)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Caught flat-footed for the opener and had Varga not buried the chance, O\u2019Shea would likely have given away a penalty and a red card for a blatant push. Late chance to win it just went over the bar. <b>Rating:<\/b> 6<\/p>\n<p>Nathan Collins (Brentford)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Frequently gave away possession with overhit passes. Made no impression on Sallai at the corner for Hungary\u2019s second goal. Tried to redeem himself with a couple of chances as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\/\">Ireland<\/a> chased the game but to no avail. <b>Rating: <\/b>5<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Nathan Collins speaks to referee Harm Osmers. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Z7QY6CWBHDGVWCJRXEN6PIWIKA.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"518\"\/>Nathan Collins speaks to referee Harm Osmers. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho Matt Doherty (Wolves)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Nightmare evening. Played Varga onside for the first goal and his faffing about brought the corner for the second. Seemed cowed after that and offered nothing going forward. Brought off with half an hour to go. <b>Rating:<\/b> 4<\/p>\n<p>Josh Cullen (Burnley)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Struggled to get control in the opening quarter-hour. Got increasingly tetchy as the game wore on, picking up a needless booking in the wake of Sallai\u2019s red card. Substituted not long afterwards. <b>Rating:<\/b> 5<\/p>\n<p>Jason Knight (Bristol City)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Snapped around the place with tremendous energy, dutifully tidying up possession and moving it on. Was the spare man when Hungary went down to 10 and rarely wasted the ball when he got on it. <b>Rating: <\/b>6<\/p>\n<p>Sammie Szmodics (Ipswich)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Worked till he dropped, consistently getting into half spaces and stretching the Hungarian defence. Did brilliantly for Ferguson\u2019s goal, heading back across goal when he could have tried his own luck. Fine display. <b>Rating:<\/b> 7<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Manning (Southampton)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Looked completely lost in the first half but kept at it and got his reward late on when setting up the equaliser for Idah. Forced a fine save out of Hungary goalkeeper Dibusz from a second-half free-kick. <b>Rating: <\/b>6<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Finn Azaz in action against Hungary's Dominik Szoboszlai. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/NE7FRBU5BIZMOB4G3TXSXWKJAY.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"530\"\/>Finn Azaz in action against Hungary&#8217;s Dominik Szoboszlai. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho Finn Azaz (Southampton)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Like the rest of them, took a while to get into it. Untypically sloppy with his first touch but grew into the game. Drew a world-class save out of Dibusz with a header 20 minutes before the end. <b>Rating: <\/b>6<\/p>\n<p>Evan Ferguson (AS Roma)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Couldn\u2019t have done much more. Got no service in the first half but still fashioned a half-chance from nowhere that stung the palms of Dibusz. Smart finish for his goal and some lovely touches around the pitch. Thankless task but he was up to it. <b>Rating: <\/b>7<\/p>\n<p>Substitutes<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/adam-idah\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/adam-idah\/\">Adam Idah<\/a> brought the house down with his equaliser. Mikey Johnson looked dangerous every time he got on the ball and should have been used more. Chedozie Ogbene was very rusty though and Jack Taylor was anonymous. <b>Rating: <\/b>7<\/p>\n<p>Manager: Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">All the positive talk during the week looked like it counted for nothing when they were 2-0 down after 15 minutes. The second-half display reflects well on him and his team clearly doesn\u2019t lack character. But that opening quarter-hour was dismal. <b>Rating:<\/b> 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher (Brentford) Powerless to prevent the early goals, wafting a bit at the second especially. But he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,17065,19,17,17860,6634,132,35350],"class_list":{"0":"post-48553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-player-ratings","13":"tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48553","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=48553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}