‘This game will teach us a lesson’ - Heimir's 'unhappy' birthday as Ireland struggle

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEIMIR: Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson receives a birthday card from Republic of Ireland supporters. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile.

It wasn’t quite the birthday present that Heimir Hallgrímsson would’ve been hoping to receive.

But still, the Republic of Ireland’s 0-0 draw away in Luxembourg, following on from their 1-1 draw at home to Senegal on Saturday, does perhaps signal an improvement in defence.

And while the now 58-year-old may not have been overly happy with his team’s display, the main positive was that a number of new faces, and a number of players desperately needing more international exposure, got the chance to impress, even if all didn’t take it.

“Let’s be honest, we’re not happy with this performance,” began Hallgrímsson when talking to RTÉ shortly after full time.

“It’s good to keep a clean sheet – the first one since I came – but, yeah, we all felt first half we were sloppy – the game was boring first half. All the good things we did against Senegal was missing. All the quick movements, the press, the ball speed, so, sloppy.

“We changed in the second half, more tempo, won more duals, etc., but not good enough. We always like answers to questions and this one is a negative one so we at least know that.

“We go in September and play the higher ranked team (Hungary) first at home – a bit like now – and then the lower ranked team (Armenia) away so this is at least something that we can learn from.

“We must play the same way against everyone, whether it’s a friendly, end of season, or a group stage game. We need to play the same way all the time.

“This game will just teach us a lesson. It is understandably that players are thinking after this game we have our break for some time – many of these players have been playing a lot of matches – but credit to them.

“You saw there was a few injuries from fatigue so they were probably being a little bit careful as well in their last game of the season, they don’t want to get injured at the end of the season.

“We had some chances but even if we won the game we wouldn’t have been happy with the performance. We must look at the performance first.

“Happy with the clean sheet, you can always find some positive and we definitely will do that. But first and foremost, it’s just the performance there. The effort we put in was such much less than against Senegal.”