No pen and papering over cracks after Carsley and Co. underline task facing Hallgrimsson

“Looking at it now, probably the match was over after the first half,” sighed Ireland's new manager after his first game. A stark if true assessment, it's one that would be best not repeated against the Greeks on Tuesday. 

TOUGH VIEWING: Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson reacts during the UEFA Nations League B Group 2 match between Republic of Ireland and England at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Before Lee Carsley headed down the tunnel to deliver his half-time teamtalk on Saturday, the Lee Carsley Ipad reappeared.

This was the piece of tech he brought to his first press conference as England’s caretaker manager, placing it upright facing him to glean references for certain answers.

His intuition and instinct when addressing questions rendered it largely irrelevant for that introduction but its primary purpose is to act as his toolkit.

“I use it instead of a pen and paper,” he explained after the 2-0 win over his former team. “I’d taken notes on shapes of what the opposition might do – for example, if they change to a four at the back, this is how we can build. In this job, you’ve a lot of thinking time.” 

His opposite number didn’t even require the 15-minute interval to know this game was up.

“Looking at it now, probably the match was over after the first half,” sighed Heimir Hallgrimsson, his debut game an eye-opener about the task confronting him. Call it plausible deniability but the Icelander has been consistent in treating this opening window as an observation tutorial.

At no time has he suggested intervention was required to override decisions taken by John O’Shea and Paddy McCarthy, the pair in charge for the four friendlies and the former part of his predecessor Stephen Kenny’s staff.

He stood quietly watching while McCarthy doled out the instructions 10 minutes into the second half to a knot of players huddling around the pen and paper Carsley had chosen to dispense with.

Hallgrimsson is craving the continuity Carsley enjoys of a settled squad, strengthened by restoring the jilted like Jack Grealish and promoting one of Euro U21 gold-medallists, Livi Colwill, for a competitive debut at the weekend.

The visiting manager was humble enough to downplay the significance of his side's dominance in possession, dropping from a whopper 82% at half-time to 76% by the finish, but what’s clear was the two-goal cushion accrued inside 26 minutes enabled them to toy with Ireland. At one point shortly before the interval, Trent Alexander-Arnold stood stationary with his foot on the ball, beckoning opponents to commit in order to mount another of their overloads in behind.

Hallgrimsson, in delivering his critique, felt the thought process in such cases was off, that ownership was an issue whatever about the gulf in class that arises with Champion League regulars squaring up against Championship equivalents.

“I think we should be unhappy with our performance,” he asserted. “England were by far better than us and we just have to admit that. They exposed weaknesses in us. We weren’t compact against such a good team as England. We lacked the initiative so we definitely must improve.” 

 That constant debate of reverting to a traditional back-four, heightened during the dying embers of Kenny’s tenure, had been resurrected and Kenny's long-awaited successor indicated that would ensue until cohesion developed.

Greece, Ireland’s conquerors in last year’s Euros campaign, are coming to Lansdowne Road on Tuesday armed with a 3-0 victory over Finland in the other pool game.

“When we play five at the back, sometimes you have three centre-backs against one striker so you need one to step up,” the 57-year-old elaborated. “Again here, we’re talking about initiative. Once they play better together, they’ll grow in confidence to take the initiative to say we don’t need three players and I’ll step into midfield.

“Then, if that doesn’t happen, the coach needs to change the formation, take one from here and put in there. We have versatile players who can move around.

“But I think it was because of a lack of confidence. We were more passive than active defending. You’d be unhappy with the first goal when playing youth football – a pass right through the heart of our defence. The second goal was a give and go, cutting right through us. Again, it shouldn’t happen at this level.

“Our biggest problem was not to believe and take the decision and let your opponent react.” 

Hallgrimsson’s take on the team suffering from rotation and instability was odd given the central-defensive options are much the same that backboned Kenny’s rearguard.

Jake O’Brien emerged in the summer friendlies and will likely replace his Everton teammate Séamus Coleman, struggling with another injury which forced him off.

Also in the equation to start against a Greek side under the new management of Ivan Jovanović is Evan Ferguson. The golden boy of Irish football was the final substitute on Saturday and the soundbites from management point to the striker subject to gradual exposure following a six-month layoff.

“I’m really happy with Evan – his running numbers were better than previous weeks with the club. He’s improving all the time," added Hallgrimsson. “The kid is willing to do the work. Hopefully he’ll start to play and that will quicken his fitness levels for our games next month.” 

Widespread thoughts of the October double-header in Finland and Greece are parked while the newcomer meets a different challenge than England. He was recruited to engineer wins against similar-ranked nations, not necessarily the third best in Europe.

“On Tuesday, we’ll see how we are compared to Greece, knowing we lost the two Euro qualifiers against them last year,” he said, reaffirming this being the critical game of the window. “They have some hold on us so hopefully we can do better than we did in that campaign.”