RTÉ Soccer analyst Eamon Dunphy blamed inconsistency from the Irish management for the recent slump in results, after Ireland lost 1-0 to Serbia at the Aviva Stadium.
The defeat in Dublin means that qualification for the World Cup is no longer in Ireland’s hands and the chances of finishing top and claiming the sole automatic place on offer are now all but gone.
Ireland’s best hope now is to pip Wales to second place and hope that their points total is enough to claim one of the play-off places on offer.
It’s a far cry from Ireland’s strong start to the qualifying campaign when they topped the group after taking ten points from their first four games.
But three points from the last four tells its own story and Dunphy believes that the management team of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane and their decisions are behind Ireland’s downfall.
Speaking on RTÉ2, Dunphy said: "I think we proved for an hour tonight that we have a team, a good team. We have a lot of good players who can play and we played the best side in the group and we troubled them, then they got their goal.
"But when you look at the inconsistency in the management team’s choices between last Saturday when we were outplayed by Georgia, the worst team in the group, and you look the difference there is tonight...
"The changes in selection, changes in style, changes in the role of James McClean for example – he played in midfield tonight which I think is crazy.
"Robbie Brady is a much better player for Ireland when he’s playing in left-back. Shane Duffy comes out with great credit I think from the games. He’s grown up, you could see him ordering people around and marshalling his defence tonight."
Eamon Dunphy: "It's a sad night. It's not the players who will cost us our place in the World Cup. It's Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane." pic.twitter.com/NMRktd1l8f
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) September 5, 2017
Dunphy was unsurprisingly again bemoaning the omission of Wes Hoolahan from the Irish team and there was much more of a fluency and thrust about their game with Hoolahan on the pitch this evening.
"Wes Hoolahan should always play when available," he said. "If he’d played against Georgia for one hour on Saturday we would have got three points.
"It’s a sad night really because I don’t think we’ll get to the World Cup but I think the management have questions to answer.
"David Meyler was rightly man-of-the-match. David Meyler has been sitting on the bench for a long time waiting for a chance to go into that slot where Glenn Whelan is.
"So there’s there’s many questions you could ask our management team and I don’t know the answers to them but it’s not the players who will cost us our place in the World Cup, it’s Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane."
