Ireland are now unbeaten since last October’s defeat in Warsaw and should the Boys in Green avoid a loss tomorrow night, their undefeated record will thus stretch to an impressive five matches ahead of the visit of Belarus to Turner’s Cross, Cork on Tuesday night.
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The Dutch may have looked disinterested throughout, but there was no denying the quality of Ireland’s football in the first hour and the danger they posed from set-pieces. They haven’t made it, but that’s a surprise to everyone in Europe that they didn’t make it, but they do have quality players, so we have to find a way to try to beat that.
“I’m not going to get involved in anything like that, to say this is the last tournament or this or that”, he parried. “We were given a chance to attack the game be aggressive to try and get into the manager’s thoughts”. As for their equaliser, it is a team goal when you score them and a team goal when we concede. The Dutch had good possession of the ball, which was actually very good for us because we had to play without it for a little while and I thought that might happen. Half-time arrived and probably on reflection we just about deserved to be in front, perhaps.
Martin O’Neill’s men were more of a threat in the second half and Cillessen did well to keep out Jonathan Walters’ close range header.
“I was pleased with my personal performance as I haven’t played in a while”, commented Arter.
Having finished behind Group A winners Czech Republic, Iceland and Turkey and failing to qualify for the Euros for the first time since 1984, Blind replaced Chelsea interim manager Guus Hiddink who had left the post before qualifying had ended.
Manchester United’s Memphis Depay was handed a start along with George Wijnaldum and Kevin Strootman. It’s a question of confidence, it’s a question of rhythm and not playing too many games.
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“Shane (Duffy) is a really good player to play alongside”.
