Heimir’s hot air baloon

Rep. Of Ireland… 1

Armenia… 2

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which, as punishment for floating a hot air baloon sporting an image of Principal Skinner mooning, the long suffering headmaster made the miscrient, mischief making spikey head accompany him on a night engaging in his favourite passtime – astrology.

Lo and behold, as the dedicated educator was peering through his telescope, doesn’t the hot air balloon reappear, which leaves the  boss man with something of a dilemma. Does he (a) stay at the telescope star gazing or (b) shoot down the craft with the unflattering image of himself.

Typical Skinner of course, he ends up doing neither. Meanwhile, Bart not only gets the credit for the comet that did eventually drop, but he also managed to shoot down the balloon first time despite his poor bedraggled Principal firing at it for hours.

There was definitely an air of Skinner about Ireland manager Heimir Halgrimmson following his side’s usurpation in Yerevan on Tuesday evening. For they could neither stargaze – which, translated into relevance here meant doing something productive in an attacking sense – or shoot down the UFO (repel the incessant and well structured Armenian attacks)

The upshot of which is that, even after two rounds of the qualifying campaign, emerging therefrom intact seems about as realistic a proposition as carving out Mount Rushmore with a lump hammer and chisel. Even I – with my propensity for and need to latch on to whatever modicum of positivity or possibility there may be – am getting hard to find one.

Now, if what is already being called a miracle requirement in Portugal – I personally don’t believe they can be that good if Ronaldo is still getting his place at his age – (Ditto Messi with Argentina) – doesn’t come to pass, the hope then is, ironically, that the maroon and green beat all before them. Which would thereby effectively mean that the battle for the second qualifying possibility, the play off spot, would become the subject of a three team mini tournament between ourselves, Hungary and Armenia.

If you take it that (surely?) things can’t get any worse than where they currently reside, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t fancy ourselves to eventually be able to get past the other two and into the play off place.

Naturally, given the way professional sport is a results driven business, the buck must eventually stop with the Icelandic instructor. He knows that himself and questions could certainly be asked as to why, for example, he played three centre halves in a back four with Ryan Manning the only one of the quartet playing in his recognised position at left back.

Even allowing for Matt Doherty being utter horse dung, he’s a natural right back rather than having to square-peg-into-round-hole solve the problem by placing Nathan Collins thence. Seamus Coleman tied to a goalpost would be better than playing lads out of position. Which, in fact, is a grand segue into what would be my own greatest criticism of Halgrimmson so far – not making best use of the resources he does have at his disposal.

Exhibit A: Chiedozie Ogbene and Adam Idah – both of whom were the gamechangers when introduced against Hungary – each hauled off at half time after what collectively was a dire first half. It reminded one of the old stereotype about GAA teams – they could be getting seven shades of shit kicked out of them all over the field but the corner forward will always be the one to get the curly finger.

Similarly, it made very little sense to take off two attack minded, threatening players when the shortcomings were quite obviously elsewhere in the field. As, apart from anything else, it left Evan Ferguson ploughing a futile and, materially speaking, ultimately futile furrow up top even though the Meath star did indeed get on the scoresheet again himself.

However, any fair and objective analysis must surely acknowledge that the man or men – depending on who think is really calling the shots – can only work with the talent, such as it is, at their disposal. And let’s face it, when the highest ranking player in your squad – in terms of club league positioning – is a mid table to lower third goalkeeper (Kelleher at Brentford), you’re not starting from a very strong base. Changing the individual in the dugout won’t change the reality of the raw material that’s available to work with.