By Brendan O’brien,Irishexaminer.com
Copyright irishexaminer
Six points was the aim from this two-match window. That went by the wayside thanks to a disastrous opening against Hungary rescued in part by a second-half comeback and draw.
But nothing less than a win in Eastern Europe would do if the country could hope to be represented across the pond next summer.
This 2-1 loss, and the nature of it, makes the next four games academic. It will mean five qualifying campaigns without a major final at the end of it.
The team’s absence from a World Cup will stretch to 28 years and it leaves Heimir Hallgrimsson with one foot out the door given his contract ends after this campaign.
Nothing ever straightforward with this team
No early concession this time for the Boys in Green and yet they insist on inviting pain on themselves.
Bringing all the momentum from that second-half surge against Hungary to Yerevan, they started impressively and could have been 2-0 up before losing their rhythm and inviting trouble.
Armenia had conceded 21 goals in their last five games, won three times in 21 attempts, and their last experience was a 5-0 loss at home to Portugal.
The 105th-ranked team was there for the taking. Until they weren’t. By the end of the first-half they had a 1-0 lead having already hit the bar against a side that basically disintegrated.
The way Ireland were opened up time and again as Armenia swept goalwards was absolutely damning. And this is an Irish team managed by a self-declared pragmatist. Extraordinary.
Up there with the 5-2 loss to Cyprus under Steve Staunton, Stephen Kenny’s 1-0 loss to Luxembourg, and the ‘I had a Macedonia’ horror shows.
Ireland went back to build a new future by appointing Mick McCarthy. That ended badly. They went for the homegrown, blue-sky dreamer in Stephen Kenny.
That prompted a Civil War in the Irish game before ending in disillusionment. And now the leftfield option of a likeable and straight-talking Icelander has come to this.
This will lead in the short-term to the inevitable navel-gazing and debates on the footballing pyramid, academies, the dumpster fire that is the FAI and countless other thorny matters but, while this team are no world beaters, it’s impossible to argue that they shouldn’t be miles better than this.
Ireland have excellent goalkeepers, defenders that are regulars for clubs in England’s two biggest leagues and genuinely dangerous forwards in Evan Ferguson, Troy Parrott and Adam Idah.
If the midfield options are a problem then it shouldn’t translate into the debacle on show in Yerevan. There is no excuse for this.
