Republic of Ireland v Armenia - Tuesday, 14th October 2025 - 2026 World Cup Qualifier

[Fixer82]

I might be a bit mad for saying this...but if we had won in Yerevan I think we'd all be singing a different tune...it was always going to be a stretch that we'd qualify for a playoff but all in all there's been a marked improvement over the Kenny era. The task is mountainous at this point and really needs a favour from Armenia but this is the first campaign since McCarthy where it's in our hands going into the last window.

I know some of the decisions were suspect. I know the players are still playing with less confidence than they should but we were 5 mins away from this being the best international window in years, results wise.

I don't know. Maybe it's bottom of the barrel stuff but I'm just happy we'll quite possibly get to enjoy a full qualifying campaign without any lame duck games. Thankfully Armenia are also theoretically still in the mix as well so they have it all to play for against Hungary.

Yep. I was only thinking what may have happened had Ferguson’s early effort in Yerevan gone in rather than hit the bar.

Azaz got a lot of stick for last night but he set up Idah for his disallowed goal and Ferguson for a one-on-one. His header early in second half was perfectly teed up for an overhead but he didn’t fancy it. Idah would’ve chanced the overhead I think.

On another note, who controls the screens in the Aviva? Not once did they show a replay. So frustrating

[pineapple stu]

On another note, who controls the screens in the Aviva? Not once did they show a replay. So frustrating

That was very annoying - and unusual in fairness.

Agree on the win in Yerevan comment - though ultimately we didn't, and we lost quite badly. The more that becomes not a one-off performance (we can now add the home game, the first half v Hungary, the friendly v Luxembourg), the more I think criticism of HH balances out to fair game.

[SkStu]

I might be a bit mad for saying this...but if we had won in Yerevan I think we'd all be singing a different tune...it was always going to be a stretch that we'd qualify for a playoff but all in all there's been a marked improvement over the Kenny era. The task is mountainous at this point and really needs a favour from Armenia but this is the first campaign since McCarthy where it's in our hands going into the last window.

I know some of the decisions were suspect. I know the players are still playing with less confidence than they should but we were 5 mins away from this being the best international window in years, results wise.

I don't know. Maybe it's bottom of the barrel stuff but I'm just happy we'll quite possibly get to enjoy a full qualifying campaign without any lame duck games. Thankfully Armenia are also theoretically still in the mix as well so they have it all to play for against Hungary.

thats a big, imaginary, pointless "if" though. The improvement is marginal if it is real and it is as likely down to the experience the team has (compared to Kennys days) v. a better coach / coaching.

[SkStu]

The three at the back/two centre mids fixation seems to be a Paddy McCarthy thing. It was a consistent feature of the O'Shea/McCarthy interim period too. I can't help feeling that he's quietly doing an awful lot of damage behind the scenes and there's little prospect of things getting better until he's gone. He's trying to play a Premier League type of setup with a group of midfielders that are nowhere near good enough to play like that, and when it doesn't work he seems to have nothing else to fall back on in terms of other ideas at all.

That said, he's a number two/number three in charge, so you have to hold the number one to account if he's allowing someone in his backroom team to continue to dictate despite consistently poor results.

We'll be put out of our misery quickly next month, which is just as well at this point. HH will go, but unless there's a full clear out alongside him nothing will change.

Agreed. when it happens, it simply has to be a full clear out.

[rebelmusic]

That was very annoying - and unusual in fairness.

Since we had ball boys last night they must have reallocated the funds from the fella managing the screens 😂

@Stu - I don't disagree. Just looking for that slim silver lining around the cloud of doom hovering over Irish soccer.

My biggest take away from this week is the difference having Coleman on the pitch made and is probably the biggest of HHs mistakes in previous windows. Collins is not the captain we need. For all the talk of N.Ireland and other small teams punching above their weight, I would argue the lack of leadership on the field is our singular biggest challenge...which is remarkable when we have 3 players (that I can think of) who are captains of their clubs

[Kingdom]

What players out there are we not having the courage to play?

I dunno, it's hard not to make comments here and be totally demoralised by the passage of time. I'm posting here 20 years and I've slowly but surely degressed into 'old man shouts at clouds' whereas I can remember always being the overexcited always positive kid who would back us through thick and thin. And now it's gone, I'm done, there's absolutely nothing to be excited by. And I f'king hate being critical - it depresses the fk out of me, and while it's always easier to find faults, this team makes it so much easier to find those faults rather than the positives.

One point I have made regularly on here in the past decade is that we have zero players who are the cornerstone in an attacking sense of their club side. Not one player who gets the ball and makes something happen in that area between the middle third and the final third. And looking at the current squad, that's absolutely the case. I know the case will be made for Azaz being that player but last night was absolutely horrid to watch him hide behind his marker at times when we had the ball, and the same was the case for Smallbone - he doesn't escape that focus either. I recall one specific moment where Seamus had a throw-in on the East Stand side in the first half and it took Molumby circling three players into space while those three players remained motionless.

I think of probably two players who could potentially receive a ball behind a striker and look to work it either slipping a ball in or taking a shot from distance or spreading it out wide - possibly Troy Parrott or possibly Rocco Vata; certainly neither would be afraid of taking the ball into contact.

- We are absolutely handicapping ourselves unnecessarily with our formation. I cannot underline how much I'm a fan of a back three - when it is utilised correctly with the appropriate personnel. But we can't get to grips with it and to some extent I think it is strangling the life out of us.
- We played a 541 at home to Armenia, I can't understand that. I do not understand why Parrott wasn't given a start last night (unless he was unable to start but that doesn't seem to be the case).


I'd intended to put a lot more into this reply, but honestly I don't have the heart for it any more.

[SkStu]

@Stu - I don't disagree. Just looking for that slim silver lining around the cloud of doom hovering over Irish soccer.

fair enough! I am just done with this team and management - and trying to understand WTF is so wrong with us as a footballing nation. Its all rotten and useless.

[ontheotherhand]

It's all grim son.

Pick a style of play and find the players that work best in it, or pick the best available players and then a style that works for them. We seem to be doing neither. We have a formation, but I don't see much in terms of a plan, outside of the long throws...which a lot of teams are adding to their arsenal these days. Not sure the formation really suits the players either. Seems like we just use it to get 3 centre halves on the field due to the number of options there.

The players look confused or unable to work as a cohesive unit to me. Watching them last night it looked like it was a bit of a free for all in terms of who did what and when. Outside of the bit of chemistry Coleman and Festy had, nobody really looked like they knew their job. Watching Molumby trying to beat two players and do something at one point just smacked of desperation and panic. When you look at the likes of Armenia they just look much better drilled, with players who know their role. Even after the red, when we started creating chances, they came from a bit of a scattergun approach rather than a replicable process. At least that's how it seemed to me. It worked OK and we should've scored 2 or 3 but I don't think it would have worked against a better team.

Don't see a lot of improvement under HH and we've probably actually regressed in certain ways in possession. We do seem a bit harder to beat, and we aren't conceding to long range efforts so the results are a bit better. He might be a bit luckier than Kenny, given the red cards that have glossed over some really poor performances.

All that said, we aren't going anywhere until we find a midfielder or two who can get on the ball and do something. Which has been the case for a long time. We are OK almost everywhere else. Bypassing midfield to go direct isn't the answer for me because the ball will be coming back through our midfield more often than not if we are outnumbered up top, which we will usually be. Our midfielders aren't good enough to provide the extra threat needed to play that way and win second balls etc. Neither are our wingbacks with the exception of Ogbene maybe, at least going forward. Ferguson might be a good option as a target man, but who is playing off him and who is arriving late to score the goals? Craig Bellamy did a nice job recently of explaining why he believes the direct option doesn't really work these days.

That said, I still don't understand why our midfielders can't shine against the likes of Armenia. They had a lot of time and space last night even before the red card, loads more than they would get a club level, but they seem completely lost and unable to make the time and space count for anything. It's all rushed and they run into trouble more often than not. Maybe it's the setup, maybe its the pressure. No idea.

Agree with stu that it's probably only going to get worse until we figure out a new pathway to develop our players or improve the existing one. I mean, that was pretty clear a long time ago I think. The new academy funding will help but it's a drop in a bucket really. For now, finding a good coach who can pick the right system for what we have, or even a good motivator who can squeeze a bit of life out of a team with very little balance to it, is the best we can probably hope for. With our budget it's probably one or the other. Or just let HH at it for another year. Maybe he'll grow into it.

[Kingdom]

Eddie Howe is not going to be influenced by a token 20 minutes in a meaningless June friendly against Luxembourg.

Stephen Kenny gave debuts early in their careers to Idah, Molumby, Knight, Kelleher, Bazunu, Parrott, O'Shea, Smallbone, Armstrong, Moran, Omobamidele and others. Some have gone on to do quite well (Kelleher, Parrott), others are players we're now crying out to be removed from the senior squad (Idah, Smallbone), others may never get more than a token cap (Armstrong, Moran). I don't think it was wrong of Kenny to cap those guys - we had no choice - but equally I'd say their international careers have had very very little impact on their club careers.

We need to stop pretending that a player not in the squad is de facto better than the players who are in the squad, despite the natural attraction of the unknown. Adaramola, Ndaba and Roughan have done the square root of **** all to earn a cap. MacNulty is a possible exception, depending on whether he can play left-back (great) or centre-back (meh).

And equally, Armenia had a Nigerian playing for them in both games by virtue of the fact he's played in the Armenian league for the last five years and is now naturalised. That's a league lower-ranked than the LoI. When a side of Championship players struggles to break down a side whose defensive lynchpin is at a lower level than the LoI, then I don't think picking weaker players will help. There's a bigger factor at play, be it psychological, tactics, or plain old giving a ****.

Stuart, I know what you are referring to above, but that's not the point. it's not about Eddie Howe selecting Alex Murphy - not a tier 1 club manager picking a novice.
It's about seeing if a kid has the smarts to fill an area that is a problem for us. If he tanks, it's no loss - nothing ventured nothing gained. But if he threads water, he gets another shot, maybe shows a few green shoots worthy of a competitive match start. This might lead to a middling Tier 3 or continental club giving him a prolonged run in the side, alongside which he continues to plug a hole and develop for us.

But he never gets that shot to plug the hole and perhaps the career middles away to nothing.

I suppose to many extents, there are few players in the Ireland team deserving of being considered an automatic selection over the past 5 years.

[Razors left peg]

Dunno why we bother, everything is sh1te since Roy Orbison died!

[Fixer82]

Why can’t we play a 3 man midfield against Armenia rather than a 3 man central defence?

[jbyrne]

On another note, who controls the screens in the Aviva? Not once did they show a replay. So frustrating

and they had the hungarian crest on the scoreboard for about 20 mins or so during the game!

the whole matchday experience is so drab and cheap. crap techno music just before teams come out, anthem at 50% speed, no on screen replays, a pa who welcomes the opposition onto the pitch!! wheres the attempts to get the crowd whipped up to make it an intimidating venue for opposition teams? its all so lazy and we deserve better

[Fixer82]

and they had the hungarian crest on the scoreboard for about 20 mins or so during the game!

the whole matchday experience is so drab and cheap. crap techno music just before teams come out, anthem at 50% speed, no on screen replays, a pa who welcomes the opposition onto the pitch!! wheres the attempts to get the crowd whipped up to make it an intimidating venue for opposition teams? its all so lazy and we deserve better

The anthem really comes down to the singer they get in. Like the unaccompanied singer. Lisa Lambe nailed it (remember Ferguson’s reaction before France?) but Gearoid McCarthy sang it too low and too slow last night.

[SkStu]

We just make a hames of everything. We simply aren't suited for football.

[SkStu]

It's all grim son.

Class. [i was a little slow picking up on that one]

[pineapple stu]

Stuart, I know what you are referring to above, but that's not the point. it's not about Eddie Howe selecting Alex Murphy - not a tier 1 club manager picking a novice.

But that was one of the points that was made.

It's about seeing if a kid has the smarts to fill an area that is a problem for us. If he tanks, it's no loss - nothing ventured nothing gained. But if he threads water, he gets another shot, maybe shows a few green shoots worthy of a competitive match start. This might lead to a middling Tier 3 or continental club giving him a prolonged run in the side, alongside which he continues to plug a hole and develop for us.

But he never gets that shot to plug the hole and perhaps the career middles away to nothing.

Honestly, I feel like this is a symptom of how bad we are right now, not a solution to it

What you (and backs) are describing is how a club team might work. But an international team isn't a club team. Firstly, we don't necessarily need to throw a kid in for a game to see if he's any good - that's what Wyacout is there for. It doesn't take much to figure out that Adaramola - 22 next month and with barely 50 senior game across a variety of unimpressive Liam deals - isn't an option at the moment. A half-decent half-hour in a dream friendly against Luxembourg - if that's when possible - isn't going to suddenly have the scouts clamouring at his door. No more than it's done for Armstrong or Moran and so on

You gave a detailed post which ended in an abrupt malaise on who we don't have the courage to play - and ended up with nobody really. There's nobody not playing who'd make a noticeable difference. I think that can be the correct answer. The quick fix of "Ooh, let's start a 19-year-old - he night her a move out of it and take develop" sounds great. Lots of quick fixes sound great. But they're usually ineffective distractions from the real issue

I've more or less given up on ever seeing us at a World Cup again tbh.

[Eirambler]

Why can’t we play a 3 man midfield against Armenia rather than a 3 man central defence?

It appears that either Hallgrimsson, McCarthy or (more likely) a combination of the two is the reason. Why it hasn't been properly tried when the status quo approach is so obviously failing is beyond me.

But conceding central midfield the way we are electing to is causing us problems all over the pitch. It means we never get any decent foothold in games (at least in games against 11 players) so we create nothing of note going forward. Meanwhile it just invites pressure on our defence and makes our defenders look poorer players than they are, as attack after attack comes in on them they eventually fold, as any defence would do in that situation really.

Really even when things looked OK a while back, against Finland and Bulgaria, looking back at it we never really had control even then but just about managed to get the job done those times.

I guess I'm just thinking back to games like the Scotland home game where we played all three of Cullen, Knight and Molumby in the middle - three out and out centre mids, and they took on a very decent opposition midfield in McGinn, McTominay and McGregor and came out on top. Granted that was in a 3-5-2 rather than a four at the back, and the weakness of other aspects of the 3-5-2 were a large part of Kenny's undoing in the end.

But that part of it worked at times and if three out and out centre mids were played in front of a flat back four with wingers/AMs and Ferguson up top there could still just about be some life in this team down the line at some point. At least in terms of getting back to being too good for the likes of Armenia if nothing else.

[ifk101]

We did play a midfield 3 with McCarthy. We struggled away to Gibraltar with the 2 so it was switched to a three for the Georgia at home game. Glenn Whelan sitting in front of back four.

But just on Kenny (again), think there needs acknowledgement that not all was bad as there were three distinct phases of Kenny’s time in charge.
1. The initial NL phase – characterised by passivity, passing for the sake of passing. Bad.
2. The second Barry/ Eustace phase – this is where the 3 CBs became a thing for us. Some questionable results; lost to Luxembourg + lost to Armenia, but signs we were turning the corner in terms of structure and gameplan. We were struggling to score goals for many years up to this point, this is something people forget, but this changed during this phase. Good.
3. The final phase coincides with O’Shea coming into the fold and we’re been on a downward spiral ever since. Terrible.

If Eustace comes available, possible with Derby’s league position, maybe he could get us back to that second phase good.

[Eirambler]

Sorry, I should clarify that pretty much all references to "McCarthy" at this point relate to Paddy McCarthy, not Mick.

I think by and large the Kenny era needs to be left in the past where it belongs (though I agree there was a mini surge at one point before the wheels completely came off). As will be the case for the Hallgrimsson one soon you'd have to think.

[Nesta99]

I know you create luck and all that but we really dont get a whole lot of it. Recent red cards aside which is ill discipline by opposition and a lifeline rather than luck; but ball never dropping kindly in the box, keepers pulling off career once off worldy saves. I thknk Kenny was an very unlucky manager along with losing his way. HH I thought was turning out to have a lucky streak but not really and you do need the rub of the green at times too. Ball coming off Collins knee for a second goal than through his legs stuff. Ball pinging around the Hungarian box but just never to a green shirt and gets scrambled away. A multiple deflected goal against portugal 10 seconds from FT to win is due!