Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny insists he's confident his team's goal drought will end soon ahead of the start of their World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign in Serbia tonight.
Ireland have failed to score in the last seven of their eight games to date under Kenny, with Shane Duffy's late header in Bulgaria the solitary goal of his reign.
The manager said: "You look at a team like Liverpool, with the forwards that they have, they went a right number of games without scoring. It can happen to a team.
"I think it will be something that we will address soon enough. We need to address it quickly and we've got the game against Serbia.
"We’ve hit the post quite a bit and hit the bar, so we need to just take our chances when they come."
Ireland captain Seamus Coleman says that despite the national side's 16-month wait for a win (Mick McCarthy's second-last game in charge, against New Zealand), the players still have belief that they can get a result.
"We're confident, we’re always confident when we come in," he said.
"The campaigns, they’re short and then you go back and play at club level and you’re bringing your club form and confidence in, you’re not so much thinking of how we did last time with Ireland.
"So there will be lads coming in here, eager to do well, eager to impress.
"I’m always confident when I play for Ireland and it will be the same Wednesday night. I sit here and do these press conferences and say the right things but we all know we will be judged on what we do. Let’s hope that’s a positive rather than a negative."
'It was very disappointing to read something like that about myself' - Seamus Coleman says reports that he was upset with manager Stephen Kenny about being asked last year to do a press conference when he wasn't starting were wide of the mark pic.twitter.com/U4VynIRb2K
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) March 24, 2021
Coleman also hit out at speculation he had been unhappy to speak to the press ahead of him for Kenny's first game against Bulgaria after Matt Doherty was selected at right-back instead.
"I read something about me being disappointed with being asked to go to a press conference. The manager left me out of his first game, had the decency to call me to his room and explain the situation, which I was fine with because Matt was playing very well at the time.
"There is absolutely no ego involved with me and there has never has been, and then to read that I was disappointed to be asked to go to a press conference when the manager had the decency to say 'You don’t have to do the press conference if you don’t want to, I know it might be disappointing because you’re not playing, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to, if you want to do it it’s fine'.
"My duty as captain, my duty to the rest of the players is to be positive around the place whether I play or I don’t play. And I went to that press conference with absolutely no issues whatsoever.
"It was actually very disappointing to read something like that about myself when I’ve got a character in the game that plenty of managers would back, and I think they would say that’s strange or that’s surprising."
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