Chiedozie Ogbene: England 'was always going to be a difficult game'

Chiedozie Ogbene is consoling himself with the thought that the Republic of Ireland's Nations League fate was never likely to be decided by what they did against England.

Ireland launched the Heimir Hallgrimsson era with a dispiriting 2-0 League B2 defeat by their neighbours in the new head coach’s first game in charge on Saturday.

However, Ipswich frontman Ogbene is convinced he and his team-mates will make a much better fist of it when they face Greece, ranked 54th in the world as opposed to England’s lofty top-four billing, at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night.

The 27-year-old said: "I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I will look you in the eye and tell you that these guys England, losing in the Euro final, it was always going to be a difficult game regardless, but we also wanted to put in a good performance there.

"But the likes of Greece and Finland, without being disrespectful, those are the ones we want to battle against and pick up points from.

"Obviously yes, we wanted to pick up points against England and see what happens, but against Greece and Finland, we have to put pressure on ourselves to pick points up."

Ireland were blown away inside the opening 26 minutes on Saturday as Declan Rice made the most of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defence-splitting pass before Jack Grealish rounded off a sumptuous passing move.

It was not lost on the locals inside the Aviva Stadium that both goalscorers might have been wearing the green of Ireland had different decisions been made, but Hallgrimsson at least emerged from a bruising encounter with further clarity on the issues he needs to address.

Ogbene said: "I would be naive to say that we’re coming out and we’re confidently saying we’re going to beat the likes of England. These