Heading into this evening's fixture against Malta, hopes were high that Ireland could round off 2022 with a strong performance and a big win in Valetta.
While they would get the victory, every other aspect of the game was a major disappointment.
It was a very poor showing from Stephen Kenny's side, especially going forward. They completely lacked any sort of urgency in their play and rarely looked like creating any real goalscoring opportunities. The only goal came via a Maltese mistake, with Callum Robinson passing the ball into an empty net.
55' Malta 0-1 Ireland. Robinson accepts a gift from Guillaumier to give the Boys in Green the lead.
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It was a thoroughly discouraging evening for Ireland, who now face into an incredibly difficult Euro 2024 campaign early next year.
Kevin Doyle gives grim assessment of current Ireland team
Ireland would have expected a much more comfortable evening against Malta, the side ranked 168th in the FIFA world rankings. That is the type of opposition you would expect the team to dominate against, but it certainly was not the case on this occasion.
However, is this what we should be expecting?
Speaking on RTÉ, Kevin Doyle gave a very grim assessment of Ireland's current standing in world football.
"Everyone thinks we should be going to Malta and winning three or four nil. That's just not where we are." - Kevin Doyle thinks a 1-0 win in Malta is a reasonable night for Ireland right now. And Kenny Cunningham suggests playing on the counter against France could suit better pic.twitter.com/1s7ZeToDdK
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People are saying we should beat Malta. I was just looking beforehand to see who Malta had beaten, there was an article saying that they had only beaten the minnows.
They have won five of their last nine games, it was only the minnows of international football in Azerbaijan, Kuwait, San Marino, and Isreal.
Who are the teams we have beaten in the last couple of years? We are minnows now. We beat Andorra, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Luxembourg, and Lithuania.
We don't have any divine right to be coming here and bossing Malta...
We're not playing consistently well, we have had a lot of false dawns. You would love to go to Malta tonight and get a convincing 3-0 win, but I didn't think it was going to be like that...
I think just going there and winning would be a success with where we are at the moment...
I don't think we could expect any more with where we are at the moment with those confidence levels. To go there and get a clean sheet and a win is as much as we could expect.
Everyone says we should be going to Malta and winning 3-0 or 4-0. That's not where we are right now.
While it is true that Ireland's form is well short of what it should be at the moment, the team still would have hoped for a much better performance this evening.
Big improvements will be needed if they are to have any chance of having a successful Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
SEE ALSO: Ireland Player Ratings As Robinson Goal Masks Incredibly Poor Malta Performance
