Ireland will face a play-off for a place at Euro 2016 after falling to a 2-1 defeat to Poland in Warsaw last night.
The result left Ireland third in Group D. Potential opponents for the play-offs include Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia, Sweden, Denmark Turkey and Slovenia. The list of third place teams will be confirmed once all groups play their final round of games, with the Netherlands also potentially coming into the mix.
The draw will be made on Sunday morning (10.15am on RTÉ2 & RTÉ Player).
There was much criticism of Martin O’Neill’s starting eleven, particularly his decision to leave the creative Wes Hoolahan on the bench until late in the game, and Ireland’s performance reflected their manager’s cautious approach.
While his side had enjoyed over 60% of the ball against Poland in Dublin, they allowed their visitors almost as much possession here. While this was partly a tactical decision, the ball was often given away.
This was Ireland’s most error-strewn display of the qualifying campaign, with almost three in every ten passes going astray. While many of Ireland’s attacking moves broke down due to a misplaced ball, hosts Poland appeared relatively relaxed in possession.
The home side managed to get a much more respectable 79%of their passes to a team mate and were noticeably more precise when moving the ball into dangerous areas of the pitch.
Ireland’s lack of possession and accuracy with the ball when they had it owed much to their direct approach.
Over a third of the passes they attempted into the final third of the pitch covered a distance of 30 yards or more, while only around one in ten of Poland’s did. Unfortunately, few of these attempts found their intended targets.
Even when Ireland were able to work the ball into the final third of the pitch they often failed to make it count: just nine of their 16 passes attempted near the Polish goal ended up at the feet of a team mate.
Poland by comparison were able to attempt 32 – twice as many – and were able to retain possession with 21 of them.
The final product was also lacking for the Irish here, with only six shots overall and just two of these being struck from inside the penalty area. Poland meanwhile were able to carve out twice as many opportunities and also to get two thirds of these away from inside Ireland’s box.
