Nov 17,2024
Heimir Hallgrimsson expects his players to "suffer at times" in their final UEFA Nations League game against England at Wembley.
The two sides meet at the famous London venue on Sunday evening (kick-off 5pm) and while there is little to play for in terms of group standing for Ireland, there is a strong emphasis on the performance against the top-ranked side.
England enjoyed a comfortable win in Dublin when the sides met in September, however, that was the manager's first game in charge and he will, no doubt, be expecting a better showing from his charges in the re-match.
Hallgrimsson believes that the team lacked the required fight to trouble the No 4-ranked side in the world in that game, and he will be expecting a more cohesive performance at the iconic football venue.
The manager took a bit of a back seat for that game, allowing John O’Shea and Paddy McCarthy to take the lead, however, since that match, Hallgrimsson’s influence has been evident, as the team’s shape and style has begun to change over the course of the October international window and in Thursday’s victory over Finland.
Ireland have won two of their last three games with back-to-back victories against Finland, in Helsinki last month followed up with Thursday night’s 1-0 win at Aviva Stadium. In between, they were well beaten in Greece, however, they improved considerably in the second half in Athens.
And now Ireland are looking to finish the Nations League campaign with a positive result in London, to take some momentum into next year’s World Cup qualifying campaign.
"In all honesty, we need to put in more fight than we played them here," said Hallgrimsson, when asked how the team might conjure a result at Wembley.
"We know if you look player by player, the individual quality in England is huge so we need to be better in other areas, collective areas etc to get some results against them.
"Playing a game in our heads, it’s definitely going to be more possession England than Ireland and we just need to be aware of that fact. Don’t be too agitated in defence.
"We will need at times to suffer and do a lot of running without the ball, and we just need to accept that, that’s probably how the game will be played."
The manager may only be actively in charge for three months, however, Hallgrimsson believes that he has benefited from the fact that he has had a good run of games with short breaks between camps.
As a result, he feels that he is in a much better position to influence and inspire his team going into such a big game against much higher ranked opponents.
"I think I am more prepared because I know my players better than I did in September so, for sure, I feel more comfortable," said Hallgrimsson, speaking to the media on the eve of the game.
"Maybe I was naive in September, not having done any work with the players prior, but given the fact that even though we have had really short camps – we've had September, October and now November – I'm lucky in that sense, the time between camps has been short and luckily we've been able to use similar players from camp to camp.
"So I feel more confident in how we should play against England and I am pretty sure we will be more, how would you say, mature in the way we do things against England than we did against Finland (on Thursday).
"That's maybe the correct word. Sometimes after the games coaches would say 'that was a mature performance'. I don't think we had a mature performance against Finland but I am sure we will be better against England."
Hallgrimsson was clearly perturbed after that Finland match, despite actually winning the game, and he reemphasised his disappointment with his side’s efforts, knowing they could have lost, and would certainly have been beaten by better opponents.
But overall, the manager feels that the team are on an upward trajectory and are looking more stable in defence, which was an area that was badly exposed against England at Lansdowne Road.
"Thursday was not good enough performance to get something away from Wembley," said Hallgrimsson.
"It was good enough against Finland, with a little luck, but it will not be against England, we cannot be as open as we were against Finland; they have players of quality that will punish in that situation.
"But we have been improving in my opinion in that area, defence, so we are more and more in sync how we would like to defend," he added.
"Now the players have had a few games together in these positions, even though we have rotated a little bit, and we have needed to rotate as well.
"But now we are trying to play the same players together so we will get these kind of connections between individuals and that will always help when they play more and more together with the same kind of principles they need to play.
"So I feel like we are getting stronger in that area for sure, but then it is about the psychology of not having the ball and having the patience to be defending even though for a long time maybe you don’t get hold of the ball."
The manager is already in World Cup qualifying mode, despite the fact that the Nations League still has a bit to run, with two play-off games to come in March, and he is looking at games like England away to assess where his side lie in terms of putting in a credible challenge in 2025 to reach the major tournament.
"That's the key thing, playing good teams and let's be honest, and just say it, there will be two teams higher ranked than us in the World Cup preliminaries and we will need to get points from these teams to qualify. That's a fact," said Hallgrimsson.
"We need to learn how to play against these teams. Finding that balance is difficult. You have players that are not used to defending a lot and others that are used to defending, so we need to find first of all the players who can play a game like this and then you need to do all of the detailed work in defence.
"The most important thing for me, is finding that thing, being aggressive but don't be over aggressive, being ambitious but don't be overambitious. Finding that balance.
"It takes time to build a team with these concepts in mind especially if the player is not used to it."
