'Bouncebackability' key for Ireland after England defeat - John O'Shea

John O’Shea expects Ireland to bounce back from their disappointing defeat to England as they welcome Greece to Dublin on Tuesday evening.

Heimir Hallgrimsson’s reign as Ireland manager failed to ignite in his opening match as he watched his side get comprehensively beaten by Lee Carsley’s Euro 2024 finalists, however, they have a chance to kick-start the Nations League campaign with a victory over Greece.

The new manager targeted the games against Greece and Finland in the League B schedule to start building a winning mentality and to ensure that the team do not get relegated to the third tier of European football.

The game against England was always going to be a free hit, however, it only served to show the manager the gulf in class between Ireland and the top nations.

Hallgrimsson was not present for the pre-match press conference, and it was attended by O’Shea instead, which raised questions about who is actually in charge of the side at the moment.

O’Shea made it crystal clear that the buck starts and stops with Hallgrimsson as the former interim manager continues in his role as assistant coach.

"That's the ups and downs of it, how competitive international football is," said O’Shea (below), when asked about how the players cope with the quick turnaround after losing.

"The beauty of having a game a few days later gives everyone the chance to bounce back as quickly as possible and improve performances and improve everything about the performance.

"That's the key bit for us, if you improve the performance levels hopefully that will eventually bring consistent results in our favour. Make sure we are hard to beat and then we go win some matches on the back of that."

The team have a chance to finally put Hallgrimsson’s plans