Ah, what's the point of it all.
Ireland have settled for a third goalless draw in four games, this time against Denmark in Aarhus as their Nations League campaign ended in feeble relegation. While Ireland have stopped conceding goals, they haven't looked like scoring from open play in six months.
The good news is that 2018 is over....the bad news is 2019 portends nothing different to the miserable, risible fare we have been subjected to for the last year. Here are the Irish player ratings...
Irish Player Ratings
Darren Randolph: 7
Arguably Ireland's best player once again. Which, in spite of another creditable performance, says
Seamus Coleman: 6
Such is Ireland's negativity, the wing-backs spend much of the game playing as an extra full-back. As a result, we saw little of Seamus Coleman going forward, and he was just another mad clogging space between Christian Eriksen and Darren Randolph.
Richard Keogh: 5
Extremely lucky to survive an appalling defensive error in the second-half, with Jorgenson rattling a post.
Shane Duffy: 6
Careless on the ball, but that could be said for all of his teammates.
Kevin Long: 6
Long's use of the ball was poor again, frequently slinging the ball up the line. What is to blame for: his own limitations, or the lack of options ahead of him?
Enda Stevens: 6
Stevens did fine, and began the game brightly with a slaloming foray into the Danish penalty area in the opening couple of minutes. That reckless abandoned was soon subsumed by the poverty of his team's approach, however, to the point that he was involved in a neat metaphor for his miserable team in the first-half. Ireland won a throw-in the Danish half, and Stevens trotted over to take.
He looked ahead of him, realised he had no options, and shaped to throw it ten yards back to Kevin Long. Instead, Long insisted on taking the throw-in....and he chucked it 30 yards back to Shane Duffy, who then hoofed the ball to a Danish player. Throw-ins are not a way of keeping the ball for this Irish team, they are a way of killing time before we give the ball back to the opposition.
Cyrus Christie: 6
Christie once again found himself playing on the right of the midfield three and, unsurprisingly, struggled out of position. O'Neill's rationale in the reverse fixture was that Christie was there to offer protection for the inexperienced Matt Doherty at right wing-back. Seamus Coleman was there tonight, so evidently, O'Neill now sees Christie as a midfielder on his own merits. He may be the only person to think that way.
Robbie Brady: 5
Lasted 65 minutes, and was desperately poor. His few set-pieces went awry, and he was extremely sloppy on the ball, one chastening pass out of play in the first-half stands out. Ireland need more from him.
Jeff Hendrick: 4
Desperately disappointing. He was once again shunted around in midfield, and this time found himself at the base of a trio in the, eh, Glenn Whelan role. He was anonymous, however, owing at least partly to the fact that he frequently hid. With Richard Keogh toiling on the ball in the right-back position in the first half, rather than move and offer the angle for a pass, Hendrick pointed to Aiden O'Brien, and the ball was hoofed long. It came back seconds later.
Callum O'Dowda: 5
Played 79 minutes before making way for O'Bafemi. Again, he was frustratingly peripheral, and was rarely involved in anything good.
Aiden O'Brien: 6
Toiled up front on his own for 65 minutes, as the rest of the team sat deep on the edge of their own area. Even when he did break forward, few of his teammates bothered to run with him. What was he meant to do?
Substitutes
Callum Robinson: 7
The Preston strikers' pace and energy made a difference when he was introduced for Brady, and helped to haul Ireland at least slightly further up the pitch. He looks like he can be a good player for Ireland in the long-term, but desperately needs a couple of teammates closer to him.
Ronan Curtis: 5
A willing runner, but made little impact.
Michael O'Bafemi: N/A
Played 11 minutes that will tie him tie Ireland for good. He made no impact here, but he has plenty of talent and promise. Here's hoping he delivers on it, and we look back on this bleak night as at least featuring one positive.
