While last night’s Republic of Ireland performance was vastly improved, in one way it was almost more depressing than the one against Georgia.
Despite our best efforts we came undone by a bit of real quality. It may have been one of only two chances Serbia created all night but it was all they needed. As Eamon Dunphy put it, it was the ‘one bullet’ that good teams need.
What was so frustrating from our point of view is that we never looked like we had the gun out of its holster in the first place.
Speaking to RTÉ after the game, Richie Sadlier was rather glum in his analysis, saying ‘a lot of the limitations of this squad were shown again tonight.’ Sadlier was praising of their effort and first half performance but he was particularly critical of how they played when Serbia went down to ten men:
If you arrived in the stadium I don’t think you would have realised they had an extra man. I don't think we took advantage of the extra space at all. Our approach seemed very basic ...
Launch it into the box and I thought our delivery into the box from wide areas and from deep was really really poor.
Hear his full thoughts below:
RTE analyst Richie Sadlier says Ireland's limitations were exposed #rtesoccer #irevser pic.twitter.com/9SywVM8GTf
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 5, 2017
Unless Georgia do us another huge favour, it looks like we will have to win both our remaining two games if we’re to finish second, let alone secure a play-off place.
