‘Worst ever’, says Givens, as Ireland U21’s slump to bottom

A DEPLETED Republic of Ireland U21 side were no match for a rampant Armenia in Yerevan yesterday.

Don Givens’s youngsters have yet to win a game in their UEFA Championship qualifying group and the manager admitted he could not think of a worse result than this in his 10-year reign.

Unheralded Armenia had just one point in the group before this fixture. Largely thanks to a hat-trick by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, they sent Ireland to the bottom of Group Two.

Missing several key players, including Owen Garvan, Sean Scannell, Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy, Ireland now have no wins in six games.

“Disappointing doesn’t put into words how I feel about that performance. It was unbelievably poor,” said Givens.

“It was by far the worst performance I can remember given the ranking of the opposition.

“I’ll look at the DVD and see where it went wrong but it would do the players good to look at it too because it was a horror show for a lot of them. It’s a team game but they have to look at themselves now.”

Mkhitaryan broke the deadlock on the half hour when he took a pass from Hovhannes Goharyan then skipped past some tame challenges before slotting past keeper Shane Redmond.

Redmond set up James Collins for a chance in the dying seconds of the half with a long clearance but the Aston Villa striker fired wildly over.

Metalurg Donetsk striker Mkhitaryan increased the home side’s lead in the 61st minute. His one-two with Edgar Malakyan sent him through to shoot past the exposed Irish keeper.

Cillian Sheridan gave Ireland hope four minutes later when he outjumped keeper Edvard Hovhannisyan and headed home from a Seamus Conneely cross.

BATE Borisov striker Goharyan finished the game off 10 minutes later when he fired into the top corner following a swift counter-attack.

Mkhitaryan made it 4-1 from the penalty spot after Malakyan was taken down by Oyebanjo in the 81st minute.

Bohemians striker Paddy Madden had a chance to put a dent in that lead in injury-time but he shot over with just the keeper to beat.

ARMENIA: Hovhannisyan; Yedigaryan, Arakelyan, Yuspashyan, Hayrapetyan, Manoyan, Voskanyan, Mkrtchyan, Malakyan, Goharyan Mkhitaryan.

Subs: Khachatryan for Yedigaryan 73 mins; Ghazaryan for Voskanyan 76; Badalyan for Goharyan 90.

IRELAND: Redmond; Oyebanjo, Morris, Dennehy, Hughton, Gleeson, Conneely, Carey, O’Shea, Collins, Sheridan.

Subs: Clifford for Carey 46; Madden for Collins 66.

Referee: R Prihoda (Czech Republic).