Damien Duff and Richie Sadlier have both bemoaned Ireland’s inability to hold onto possession after they watched Martin O’Neill’s men go down 2-0 to France in Paris.
The two former Ireland players were on the RTÉ panel for the international friendly and watched as O’Neill’s side were thoroughly outclassed by the World Cup bound French.
Olivier Giroud scrambled home a deserved opener for the hosts on 40 minutes, and four minutes later Nabil Fekir's strike skidded off the palms of Colin Doyle and bounced home.
Those two goals were enough to win the game and while, on paper, a 2-0 defeat away to France may not be the worst result, Ireland were rarely in the game and in the first half had just 17% possession of the ball.
The inability of the Irish team to string more than a couple of passes together was the biggest cause of concern and for Duff, it’s a continuation of problems that have been apparent within the Ireland set-up for some time.
"The lads throughout the campaign just gone, all those criticisms have been aimed at them so I don’t just think it’s tonight because it’s France away at the Stade de France," he said.
"These flaws – we can’t keep the ball, we don’t create a lot of chances, we haven’t got a goalscorer since Robbie – we said that throughout the last campaign.
"Yeah we were better in the second half, I definitely think France dropped it down two or three gears and we got 20 or 30 metres further up the pitch.
"It’s the same old, same old. We’re compact and organised, it’s two silly goals we gave away but going forward, you’d just love to see us keep the ball a bit better."
Sadlier echoed Duff’s comment and while was impressed by Ireland’s ability to keep things tight at the back, he believes that O’Neill’s side are making their job all the harder by not keeping the ball when they get it.
"We’re not advocating a completely new style, a style no Irish team of previous generations has played," he said.
"It’s not total possession football or slowing the game down, we’re not saying that, but there are so many examples, not just tonight. IIt’s the same patterns of play we see. We work really, really hard to stay compact, really, really hard to avoid being opened up at the back.
"That takes a huge amount of effort, a huge amount of concentration, that part of the game is sometimes outstanding but then when we win it back we undo all that work by giving it back cheaply almost immediately a huge amount of the time.
"We’re not criticising them for not putting 20 or 30 passes together. Maybe get to three or four or five and get a bit of pressure of the defence."
Another uninspired Irish performance has the RTÉ studio panel wonder just where are the goals going to come from. #frairl #rtesoccer pic.twitter.com/2Y1Gr70vo1
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) May 28, 2018
