It was the nature of the defeat in Bordeaux which disappointed former skipper Keane, with missed tackles by James McCarthy and Ciaran Clark contributing to both Romelu Lukaku’s goals.
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The Republic of Ireland were routed by Belgium in their second game of the competition at the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux, losing 3-0 to one of the tournament favourites who rebounded in style from their own loss to the Azzuri.
The omens do not favour O’Neill: Ireland are now seven games without a win in European Championship finals, a run stretching back to 1988, and they have never managed to score a couple of times in a single match at the tournament.
Sunderland defender O’Shea added: “Keeping our shape and compactness, especially when we’re attacking, is something that we’re really going to need to improve on”. It’s good because we faced the reality.
It’s no surprise that Belgium were fantastic at times against Ireland, and they were devastating on the break, but when the match slowed and space was taken away, they still struggled to create, like they did against Italy. “Now we are awake and have to become even better after the performance of today”.
Lukaku opened the scoring in the 48th minute from a quick counterattack that owed much to Kevin De Bruyne’s burst down the right flank. The Manchester City playmaker worked the ball back into the middle for Lukaku, who took a touch before beating goalkeeper Darren Randolph with a neatly-placed shot into the bottom-left corner from 20 yards. Ireland gave the Belgians ample opportunity to attack as they sat back. “It’s manipulating the people, giving them the wrong idea”, he said.
“It’s up to the whole team to join in offensively”, he said.
“We don’t boast an [Eden] Hazard – and I mention him as he was the first we came across – or [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic”.
Witsel heaped praise on Lukaku, saying his teammate should have been named man of the match instead, for his two goals.
“I don’t think that can be my attitude going into the game and it shouldn’t be the players’ either”, said O’Neill.
“I don’t think it’ll be hard to raise them”, he said. “I wanted technical players in the middle”.
“But I think that overall we were beaten today by a better team”. Sweden need all three points to progress, and Belgium will look to take advantage of the gaps they leave as they press forward looking for goals, which means more of the space on the counter that they exploited against Ireland. “The most important thing is that we get the three points which gives us a great chance of getting out of the group”.
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Having already qualified thanks to winning their first two games, Italy are expected to rest some key players – especially the half-dozen players who are one yellow card away from a suspension.
