Heimir Hallgrimsson: 'Excuses when you lose 5-0 is kind of pathetic'

When Hallgrimsson walked into the auditorium in Wembley after seven o’clock on Sunday evening he brought nothing in the way of double-speak or evasion.

Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson.

There was no sugar-coating this. How could there be?

Heimir Hallgrimsson has brought a refreshing brand of straight-talking to his role as Ireland manager. It has served him well, apart from the first camp when his decision to stand back and let his staff take centre stage caused some initial confusion.

There has been no doubting his seniority since, regardless of what anyone’s view is on the job he is or isn’t doing. When he walked into the auditorium in Wembley after seven o’clock on Sunday evening he brought nothing in the way of double-speak or evasion.

“It is easy to stand on the sideline and criticise,” he said when asked to contextualise such a punishing experience. “After the first-half we had the game we wanted it to be, we were defending compact, they didn’t find ways to play through us.

“Conceding a goal and losing a player so early in the second half, it is easy to criticise from outside but, look, excuses when you lose 5-0 is kind of pathetic. We are not talking about positives. It is embarrassing to lose five zero.” 

This was the worst loss for the senior men’s national team since Germany hit Giovanni Trapattoni’s generation for six in Dublin a dozen years ago. It could very easily have been worse than the seven Brazil put by a scratch side in Uberlandia back in 1982.

That it all mounted up, like cars rear-ending one after another on a motorway pile-up, with five goals conceded in the space of just 26 second-half minutes, only accentuated the sense of helplessness, hurt and confusion.

There was nothing for it but to front up.

“I am lost for words,” he said at one point. “Six minutes of madness. It was a shock conceding a penalty, conceding a goal, losing a player. We probably lost our heads a this moment, leading into a second and third goal. Lost our heads. Gave up.

“We struggle with confidence and it clearly took away all confidence from what we did really well in the first-half. You cannot explain things like that, it just happens, a slap in the face that was difficult to come back from.” 

‘Gave up’ is a loaded term and Hallgrimsson, when asked to explain it, put it that the team “lost” what they had been doing in the first-half. The game plan that had been working got lost in the chaos of those cluttered few minutes and there was no bringing it back.

Losing Liam Scales to that red card when giving away the penalty for England’s opener was a blow, but it didn’t have to be so grievous. That the Celtic defender walked for a second yellow having picked up a first for kicking a ball away won’t have made it any easier.

Hallgrimsson didn’t take that bait when it was dangled in front of him. He deserves credit for that. His take was calm but clear on the turn of events but this game has exposed the full extent of the confidence issues that have fissured through this team for too many years now.

“If you can play like this for 50 minutes, let’s hope next game we can do it for longer. And with a little luck, if we got a penalty and scored a goal, it is a totally different game. It is a psychological advantage to us until the scenario we had today.

“I believe in these guys but the past has been tough. We just need to use this to our advantage, take positives from this game. There were a lot of negatives, but for me, it is important to look at the positives.” 

This is how it is for a beaten manager after games. One minute they are scornful of any ‘positives’ talk, the next they can’t help but reach for them. This was an exaggerated version of Ireland’s entire Nations League campaign in that it blended the good with the bad.

Using Nathan Collins in that advanced defensive role had been part of the good.

“Yeah, I thought that set-up, the tactics we played against a good team like England, it fits the profile of the players we were using and it fits the way England were playing. They have players dropping into that zone. He covered really well with his runs.

“They didn’t play in the first half through our block, they needed to go outside a little bit like when we played Greece, they played outside of our block. And then I think we didn’t create a lot of opportunities to score, we won the ball but we didn’t use it well.

“But I think it was a try (sic) worth taking.”