Nations League Ireland vs Armenia minute by minute

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Ireland begin their Nations League Campaign

Ireland start their Nations League campaign today with matchday one away to Armenia. This game will tell us a lot, as Ireland have turned a bit of a corner lately and started to score some goals at last. There was a period of time not so long ago where we could not buy a goal for love nor money and we were losing matches 1-0 and picking up the very occasional 0-0 draw. For whatever reason we just could not get the ball in the net and I remember watching those matches and often we did not even look like scoring.

It was a time of transition, as Ireland for many years have been associated with the technique sometimes known as hoof-ball where the defenders hoof the ball away at the earliest opportunity, thumping it down the field in the hope that one of the forwards might get a flick on and somehow we might knick a goal and don't get me wrong it did work at times and the world's top teams hated playing us, as we were always full of grit, determination and sheer desire that sometimes meant we got away with an improbable win or a plucky draw.

It was the tactic of choice during Jack Charlton's reign in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and that was at a time when we had some seriously talented footballers - Roy Keane, Denis Irwin, Paul McGrath, Andy Townsend, Ray Houghton, Ronnie Whelan and Niall Quinn to name a few, so the tactic of hoof ball did not go down well with many Irish fans and pundits. However when we qualified for our first major tournament and acquitted ourselves very well at Euro 88 and followed it up by qualifying for the world cup in Italy in 1990 and USA in 1994 the fans changed their tune and big Jack became an honorary Irishman and all time legend.

Giovanni Trapattoni and later Martin O'Neill played a similar brand of football which discouraged playing the ball on the ground and rather encouraged players to get rid of the ball asap and not give it away in certain areas of the pitch near their own goal.

Ireland's newest manager, in charge since November 2018 could not have a more different footballing outlook and style, which is all about retaining possession of the football, and passing from the back and building up possession, the central tenet being that if we have the ball, the other team cannot score, and possession football is what all of the top teams in international and club football are doing.

Ireland vs Armenia

This first game was played at the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium in Yerevan and the teams started as follows:

Armenia starting 11

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Ireland starting 11

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First Half

Armenia got of to a good start and had the two chances of the match early on with Kelleher and Duffy needing to be at their best to prevent an early goal against Ireland. Armenia continued to turn the pressure on in the opening 10 minutes and Duffy picked up a yellow card, meaning that he would need to be careful for the rest of the match, you never want your centre half picking up a yellow so early in a match.

Ireland slowly started to build a foothold in the game and got the ball down and made a few passes and Robinson had a half chance after 12 minutes finding the side-netting with a first time snap-shot. After a nervy start Ireland continued to turn the screw and built up a head of steam and started to look like the short odds favorite that they were coming into this match.

Ireland made another great chance on 15 minutes, when Ogbene made a great run and tried to set up Callum Robinson who got a shot away that was cleared off the line by an Armenian defender.

One noticeable trend in the early stages was that Armenia were not taking any prisoners and were hefty in their challenges, taking man and ball on more than one occasion, with the ref happy enough to let play go on each time. Something else of note was the start that Ogbene made, who was lively from the get go and got himself into lots of great positions and always looking forward and being positive in possession. He has been one of the best young players that Stephen Kenny has brought through at senior level. The great thing with Kenny is that he managed Irish players at under age levels and also managed Irish league teams Shamrock Rovers and Drogheda, so there are few if any in Ireland who know our players rights down through the ages better than Stephen does.

The players were playing in a blistering 33 degrees celcius, so the 22 minute water break was a very welcome intermission for both teams, and Ireland have been the better of the two side so far, once they settled into the game, with 3 corners and 4 shots on goal, though none troubled Yurchenko in the Armenian goals. Haroyan in the centre of the Armenian defense has been busy in the early stages and has dealt well with the crosses that Ireland have put in up until the 27 minute stage.

Ireland continue to press and dominate possession, enjoying 72% up until the half hour mark of the match, but possession does not win football matches, and it would be good to see Ireland turn this domination of the football into a goal before half time. The longer the game stays at 0-0, the more the Armenians will grow into the game and grow in confidence.

Ireland could have had a penalty on 33 minutes when Coleman had the ball in the box and an Armenian handled the ball, it went to VAR and was deemed to not be a penalty however. I have definitely seen them given, but not on this occasion.

Our best chance came in the 37th minute when a great run and pass from Jeff Hendrick put Robinson in, who did well initially but in the end took too much out of it and gave a sloppy pass to Ogbene who got the shot off, but it was wide and never troubled Yurchenko in goal. They should have done better with that and Hendrick's work in midfield deserved better to be fair to him.

The more the match goes on the more I think that Troy Parrott may the man to open the scoring. He looks confident every time he is on the ball and has a great shot on him, as we have seen in some recent Ireland matches.

Armenia created a couple of half chances towards the end of the first half, so will go into the dressing room with some quite confidence, but it is Ireland who will be disappointed as Ogbene found himself unmarked 6 yards out and missed the target with his header, it really should have been 1-0 and it would have been the perfect time for Ireland to score, but they did not and at the half time break it remains Armenia 0 - 0 Ireland.

Second Half

There were no changes for either team at half time and both took to the pitch with the same 11 that started the game at 2pm. There is still plenty of heat left in the day, but it is a little less hot than the first half, Armenia tip of and the second half is under way.

The Armenians started the better and had the ball in the net on 50 minutes with a brilliantly taken goal, but luckily for Ireland the Armenian was offside. This was all started by a poor mistake from Enda Stephens and Ireland were off to shaky start to the second half.

This Armenian team that came out in the second half look a different team and whatever their manager said at half time worked, as they look the better of the two teams right now. There are not giving Ireland time on the ball like we saw in the first half.

Ireland introduced Michael Obafemi for Parrott on 65 minutes to try and shake things up as we were becoming very static and predictable. It is in games like this, that you wish Wes Holohan was still playing for the National team, as he would be the very man to break things down.

Ireland once again seemed to be almost depending on big Shane Duffy getting on the end of a cross in order to score and the big man did get up and head two or three crosses in the match, but you cannot depend on something like that for goals, that is what your strikers are for. We seem to be lacking that finishing touch and for all the good build up play at times, there is no end product.

Armenia continued to play the better football and were creating pockets of space in advanced areas, which was worrying, as it started to look like Armenia were more likely to score than Ireland. As the game wore on Ireland were starting to look a bit jaded and the hot weather was starting to take a toll.

Ireland had lots of chances in the first half and when you don't take your chances there is always a chance that the opposition can knick a goal, as Ireland have done many times in the past against better teams than us, and so it proved here, when Spertsyan unleashed a shot from 25 yards out in the 75th minute that beat Kelleher. Now suddenly the hosts were a goal up and had something to protect, which was not what Ireland needed. They had struggled to find chances in the game and would now need to find 2 in 15 minutes and score both.

Ireland huffed and puffed for the last 15 minutes in search of an equaliser, but we did not even manage that, and the 4/1 outsiders Armenia took the spoils, as Ireland fail miserably in their first match in the Nations League. We have 5 more games, 2 against Scotland, 2 against Ukraine and a home game with Armenia again, but on this showing I am not very confident going into those games, three of which are coming up soon. We play Ukraine at home on Wednesday, before facing Scotland next Saturday also at home and finishing the June fixture with an away match against Ukraine which will be played at a neutral venue.

Final Score

Armenia 1 - 0 Ireland

Manager Stephen Kenny's Thougts

"We’ve made life difficult for ourselves, but rather than focusing on that, we’ve got to focus on bouncing back on Wednesday. We’ve got two home games now, we need to dust ourselves down. We’re disappointed with ourselves, we know it’s a poor result, we’re well aware of that.”

“Obviously we lost the game, a tight game really overall. It’s not a game that we deserved to lose, you couldn’t say that on the balance of play and chances, but we’ve lost it and we only have ourselves to blame. We are disappointed."

“I felt the last 20-25 minutes of the first half we were really in control but we didn’t start the second half like that at all. We didn’t start the second half like we ended the first. We were susceptible to counter attacks. We studied Armenia’s last 20 games: they had never played five at the back before, only once against Germany. They always played 4-4-2. We found it difficult to break them down. They didn’t really have any chances bar the offside goal so it’s disappointing overall.”

“Luxembourg was a long time ago, there were reasons for that. Tonight, yeah, I accept criticism of that. We didn’t unlock the door more and create more clear-cut chances against Armenia. Obviously they defended crosses well and all of our one-two play at the edge of the box, they got a lot of vital tackles and blocks at key times. We had a lot of half chances from corner kicks, Chiedozie had a header, Shane Duffy quite a few, John Egan too. We had most of the chances in the game but just couldn’t make it work. They scored from a position that is not even a half chance, we’ve got punished.”

These photos are all my own captured on my Samsung Smartphone

Final Thoughts

Disaster, feckin disaster!! We just need to go now and get results in the other three games, and I am not talking about draws. We need a minimum of two wins and a draw to keep our dreams alive in this contest.

Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.

Peace Out

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Excellent stuff, that's much appreciated 👍

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