Nations League B Group 1: Republic of Ireland vs Scotland, Aviva Stadium, Saturday 5pm — Live RTÉ 2
Dog-eared script. Two defeats this past week against teams Ireland was supposed to dominate. No competitive win at home since Gibraltar in 2019. Zero points in the Nations League. Scotland coming to town, stung by narrow failure to reach the World Cup in Qatar, yet bolstered by Premier League players that Irish supporters once took for granted.
Ireland’s only regular starters in the top flight of English football, Tottenham Hotspur’s Matt Doherty and Everton’s Séamus Coleman, are injured. Oh, and Callum Robinson or Chiedozie Ogbene goals have dried up.
Pressure, what pressure?
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“No, I don’t feel pressure, only internal,” claimed manager Stephen Kenny. “I’m disappointed we’ve not got points on the board, and professional pride.”
For every Championship player Kenny’s squad can offer, Scotland brings Manchester United’s Scott McTominay, Liverpool’s Andy Roberston, Chelsea’s Billy Gilmour and even Che Adams at Southampton. The gulf in quality is undeniable but so are the consequences of losing; relegation to the third tier becomes a possibility while a third seeding for the Euros campaign will also be in the post.
“Listen, we’re not far wrong,” said Kenny, continuing to sound in denial about losing to Armenia and Ukraine. “We’ve conceded from a goal from right on the touchline that took a horrific bounce and went into the far corner. These games are tight games. We’ve played the top teams, Ukraine who admittedly were not at full strength and we weren’t either.”
Okay, moving swiftly on, the Ireland manager had a nibble of the XG. The context was whether this team’s true problem lies in engineering goal chances rather than scoring them.
“To be fair, we’ve lost two games without conceding with a .3,” said Kenny, laughing at this point, perhaps realising a room full of reporters will hardly follow him blindly into the world of analytics. “.3, sort of, in the data in relation to XG.”
XG meaning ‘expected goals’, which is a predictive model used to assess every goalscoring chance and the likelihood of scoring.
“We haven’t even conceded a chance and we lost the game, do you know what I mean? So that’s the way it has been at the minute.”
Nobody seems to fully know what he means at the minute. So what to do? Changes are guaranteed as the nine players who started in Yerevan and home to Ukraine are drained, but a complete makeover feels too risky in what has almost ridiculously become a must-win fixture for Kenny’s management team, if they are to remain in situ for next year’s European Championships qualification campaign.
“I think every game of football is must-win,” said Nathan Collins, the only positive from a miserable week for the senior Ireland team. “I don’t see how you would go into a game without that mentality? Every game I play I want to win, it’s a must-win. When I go in with that mentality, I play my best football so, as a player, as a team, we all know it’s a must-win but so do Armenia and Ukraine so nothing really changes. We know we’ve got a job to do and that’s go out and win a game of football.”
Michael Obafemi, a natural striker, looks set for a first start with Dara O’Shea to replace the injured John Egan at centre back, but the rest feels like guesswork for a management that must be questioning whether any attacking player at their disposal can deliver.
To the visiting Scots, Kenny is a failed punt by Dunfermline Athletic from 15 years ago, having reached the cup final but could not avoid relegation.
“When I took the job I was 34 years of age,” Kenny remembered. “I was only there a week and we were 10 points at the bottom. I took it on the basis of being five points at the bottom and we were 10. I think Dundee United won two games under Craig Levein at the time.
“We beat Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, and Patrick Thistle. We took on all of Edinburgh and Glasgow to get to the [Scottish Cup] final and lost a narrow game to Celtic.
“It was a great experience. I made mistakes. I definitely did. I learned a lot. That was part of my learning as a manager and it was a good experience.”
[ Stephen Kenny: ‘I’m committed here until after the Euros’Opens in new window ]
The fear is that Ireland, presumably led by Jason Knight and possibly James McClean, will thunder into Scotland like they rattled Ukraine three days ago, only to fade beyond recognition by the hour mark. And, of course, there will be the guaranteed charge of the Shane Duffy brigade in those dying minutes after Scotland take the lead.
Dog-eared script.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (possible): Kelleher; Collins, Duffy, O’Shea; Christie, Cullen, Browne, McClean; Parrott, Knight; Obafemi.
SCOTLAND (possible): Gordon; Souttar, Hanley, McKenna; Ralston, Gilmour, McTominay, Robertson; McGinn, Christie; Adams.
Referee: Marco di Bello (Italy).
