By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
The Republic of Ireland froze in Bordeaux on Saturday
afternoon, crumbling to a 3-0 defeat against Belgium in Group E.
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| Axel Witsel and Romelu Lukaku did the damage in Bordeaux for Belgium |
Romelu Lukaku dusted off the criticism that was aimed at him
after the Belgians opening defeat to Italy as he scored twice, either side of
an Axel Witsel header (both pictured).
Martin O’Neill’s side now need to beat Italy on Wednesday
night to stand any chance of progressing to the last 16.
Decisive
moment
The first half was a fairly mundane show, with both teams
not wanting to show their hand early on. The decisive moment came three minutes
into the second half.
From a Republic of Ireland free-kick, Shane Long could have
had a penalty as Toby Alderweireld raised his foot very high and quite
dangerously too. Seconds later, Belgium broke devastatingly and Lukaku opened
the scoring. He placed the ball beautifully into the corner of the net past
Darren Randolph.
Anywhere else on the pitch and Alderweireld’s challenge will
surely have ended with a free-kick, so Ireland were unlucky. It doesn’t excuse
the lack of defensive shape though that ended with them falling behind and
losing their discipline from then on.
On the hour mark, it was 2-0. Thomas Meunier’s brilliant
cross was headed in by Witsel. He escaped the attention of James McCarthy, who
was caught ball-watching and should have been far more aware of where Witsel
was.
Nine minutes later, the game was put firmly beyond the
Irish. Ciaran Clark’s wild swipe at Eden Hazard led to him losing this battle.
From that moment on, Hazard broke and with numbers in advance, he played in
Lukaku, who showed composure once again to score his second of the game.
The Everton man is an enigma. When he doesn’t play well, it
evidently shows. When he is in top form, he becomes almost unplayable. On
Saturday, he had one of the latter days.
Looking
for inspiration
O’Neill’s team had been very positive against Sweden and
were unlucky not to win their opening game. That now might turn out to be a
damaging draw.
Whilst there can be no complaints about the final outcome of
the game, the Irish didn’t have a single shot on target, which will be a great
disappointment to their many fans who travelled to Bordeaux to show their
support.
Saturday marked the 22nd anniversary of Ray
Houghton’s famous winner at the World Cup against Italy in New York. The
Republic will be looking for inspiration from this now if they are to progress
from this group.
The result means a point against the ineffective Swedes will
take Belgium through. They were much better here, but still look at times to be
quite a disjointed outfit. Italy will now win this group and Antonio Conte has
already hinted he will rest players on Wednesday for their showdown with the Irish.
Perhaps that is the pep talk O’Neill and Roy Keane need to
give to their players. They will need some of that famous luck of the Irish now
to survive the early cull at EURO 2016.
My best
three players of the match
Man of the Match: Romelu Lukaku (Belgium)
Lukaku looked completely bereft of confidence against Italy.
He looked like a completely different player in this match. The Everton
frontman took both of his goals with commanding style and suddenly becomes the
joint top scorer at these finals.
2nd: Axel Witsel (Belgium)
Scouts from many of Europe’s top clubs are keeping close
tabs on Axel Witsel and it isn’t hard to see why. He gave James McCarthy the run-around
in the centre of the park and chipped in with a rare goal in an assured
performance.
3rd: Thomas Meunier (Belgium)
Meunier was one of the changes in the Belgium team and
merited the faith shown in him by Marc Wilmots. He enjoyed his afternoon
getting forward and supplied the cross for Witsel to power Belgium 2-0 infront.
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