GEORGIA’S CROSS
Ireland players angry with themselves after dismal display in Tbilisi
MARTIN O’NEILL reckons Ireland will have to be ‘phenomenal’ to beat Serbia on Tuesday after the dross dished up in Georgia. Shane Duffy’s early goal was cancelled out before half-time but James Mcclean and Aiden Mcgeady had chances to win it in injury-time. But Georgia gave Ireland a masterclass in how to shift the ball with 568 completed passes compared to 150.
The Boys in Green need a result against the Group D leaders next week to stay in the hunt for World Cup qualification.
O’neill (left), who looked mortified when given an ovation by Georgian media as he ended his press conference, agreed this was Ireland’s worst
performance of the campaign.
In Tbilisi last night, he said: “Serbia have won and it will have to be a phenomenal effort to beat them on Tuesday. That’s what we have to do.
“We have to obviously play better and give the Serbians less room to play than we gave the Georgians tonight, particularly in the first-half.
“We’ll have to be really, really at our best to win the game but we can do that.”
Ireland blew an early lead, banked a point they scarcely deserved and yet could have won the game in the end.
How many times have we seen that from Irish teams? But how long can they keep riding their luck?
Asked if it was the worst performance of the campaign, O’neill said: “Yes, I would agree with that.
“We scored early on in the game and sat back and allowed Georgia to dominate and when we did get the ball we gave it away cheaply.
“We’ve got one or two very decent players who maybe didn’t play well enough tonight.
“Certainly the first-half was as poor as we have played this campaign. That said, we created a number of really, really good chances.
“And probably on chances alone we could have won the game but we didn’t play well enough in the first-half and Georgia were better than us.”
O’neill continued: “We obviously came here to try and win the game. But this was always going to be a tough match.
“Georgia have perhaps not the points on board that their play throughout the competition deserves.
“They were excellent in the first-half against Serbia and should maybe have won that game and Serbia are top of group and they were excellent against Wales in Wales. “So it was a tough evening for us.” For a split second, O’neill thought history was about to repeat itself.
Aiden Mcgeady was Ireland’s hero here three years ago when scoring a late, late winner to get the Euro 2016 race off to a flyer.
And he could have repeated the trick deep in injury time only to see his effort zip over the Georgian bar.
O’neill said: “Yes, I thought that might have been his moment but it didn’t materialise.”