Nathan Collins shows no confidence in Ireland manager after loss

Not the most committal answer from the skipper…

It wouldn’t take a genius to detect the feelings of Republic of Ireland defender Nathan Collins about the future of Heimir Hallgrimsson after his post-match interview on Tuesday night.

Ireland suffered a disastrous 2-1 defeat to Armenia, ranked 105th in the world, in their second World Cup Qualifying match, leaving their hopes of making next year’s competition in complete tatters.

Now debate is heating up as to whether Hallgrimsson, who has a contract until the end of the Qualifying campaign, should be let go now, with even the Icelandic boss saying they need a miracle to qualify.

Collins, who did not escape criticism himself for his performance in both the defeat on Tuesday and the 2-2 draw with Hungary on Saturday, gave a good clue as to how the players feel about Hallgrimsson, telling Off The Ball it’s “hard to say” whether he has full support.

Collins: It feels like a cut to the stomach

In what is considered Ireland’s worst-ever international defeat, Collins couldn’t hide his disappointment after a battering week.

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“It’s just a lot of disappointment, frustration, anger. I’m one to try to contain my emotions but it’s just so frustrating, it just hurts, I feel like it’s a massive cut to the stomach, it hurts a lot,” Collins told the Irish Independent.

“I just thought they were better than us on the day and as a team that shouldn’t be happening for us. We’re good enough, we’re too good for that. We just didn’t perform on the day.

“In football anything can happen but it’s the way we’ve lost. I don’t think we’ve put in a convincing enough performance to go and win here. I don’t think you can go and say we deserved to win. That’s the frustrating part.

“If we’re not putting in a performance that we think we can go and win a match away from home in Armenia, that’s where it hurts.”

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