THE COYBIG
INTERNATIONAL football might be on an extended break, but there is no rest for Stephen Kenny.
He has to use this time to figure out solutions to some of the recurring problems that have once again presented themselves during this recent window.
And that means there is a lot of work to be done between now and the Euro 2024 qualifiers, particularly as Ireland find themselves in the third pot ahead of next month’s draw.
It could throw up some seriously tricky groups, with current world champions France and Euro 2020 runners up England among the second seeds that Kenny will be desperate to avoid.
He only has a couple of friendlies, at home to Norway and away to Malta in November, to fine tune things before the real business begins late next March.
Here are five issues that raise their head time and again and need to be addressed between now and the big Euros kick-off.
TWICE on Tuesday Armenia scored from distance, just as they did when notching in Yerevan. But it’s not something that they alone have inflicted on this Irish team.
The Boys in Green were 2-0 up and seemed to be cruising to a solid, if unspectacular, win in this Group B1 relegation battle.
But on 71 minutes Vahan Bichakhchyan was allowed to run a good 25 yards unchallenged before taking aim with a shot that was tipped onto the post by Gavin Bazunu.
No one in a green shirt reacted quickly enough then to stop Artak Dashyan firing home the rebound from 20 yards.
Two minutes later, there wasn’t an Irishman in sight when Conor Hourihane’s awful attempt at a cross-field pass went straight to Eduard Spertsyan, who dispatched the ball from distance.
It wasn’t the first time Spertsyan benefitted from a failure to close down in that key area inside the Irish half.
He ran unchecked from the bottom of the centre circle before drilling home the winner from 25 yards last June, with Jeff Hendrick throwing out a leg from a good six yards away.
Incredible
Then you can look back at the goal Azerbaijan scored at the Aviva Stadium last year and marvel at Emin Mahmudov’s strike from long-range.
He had an incredible EIGHT seconds — from first touch to shot — to compose and set himself from 25 yards, with Irish defenders standing by that whole time.
Qatar’s equaliser in a 1-1 draw last year was a neat finish from the edge of the area.
But goalscorer Mohammed Muntari only got the chance thanks to Almoez Ali being allowed to run unchallenged from just inside the Irish half, before slipping the ball to his teammate.
And the one that kicked it all off was the Gerson Rodrigues strike that earned Luxembourg a shock win in Dublin last year.
Maybe it’s simply a lack of an N’Golo Kantestyle player, that tireless defensive midfielder who appears out of nowhere to break up attacks.
Or maybe it’s the relationship between a three-man central defence and the midfielders ahead.
But too often over the past two years, opponents have exploited huge gaps inside the Irish half.
And as we saw on Tuesday night, it doesn’t take the best players in the world to do it.
ONCE again we were treated to a Jeykll and Hyde window — a largely positive display against Scotland that resulted in defeat and a ponderous performance three days later.
The same thing happened in
June — in reverse — when Ireland’s Nations League campaign opened disastrously with a pair of defeats to Armenia and
Ukraine.
Yet 10 days after the aw