RTÉ reporter Tony O'Donoghue has had a number of tetchy and difficult interviews with Martin O'Neill before, all of them because the Ireland boss did not appreciate O'Donoghue asking the questions that those who watched the game want answers to.
O'Neill would have known that he would be asked why we played such a poor standard of football, why our only plan appeared to be to boot it as long as we could, and what we can do to improve... Yet he still made things awkward for the reporter.
After a number of questions that were in no way out of the norm, O'Neill gave defensive answers without really addressing the issues at hand, before going as far as to reply 'Why would I tell you?' to a question regarding how we turn things around.
"I don't think there is a quick fix" - Martin O'Neill tells @CorkTOD how Ireland will focus on Serbia #RTEsoccer #GEOIRL pic.twitter.com/utsNa5LQ9D
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) September 2, 2017
Tetchy.
You can tell O'Neill does not enjoy talking to Tony when results do not go to plan, but that wasn't really fair. Very defensive, in fact, Opta Stats suggest Tony O'Donoghue came away with 87% possession in that interview. O'Neill wanted nothing to do with the ball when he had it.
They were straightforward answers that could easily have been deflected if O'Neill didn't want to answer them, but instead he took issue with them.
Also, O'Neill saying he didn't know why we were so bad and that there is no quick fix is worrying ahead of Serbia.
