Ireland hurting admits Kenny after back-to-back defeats

Stephen Kenny admitted that his side were hurting after back-to-back defeats, although he added that he was raging that his side have no points from their opening two games of their Nations League campaign.

The Ireland manager lamented his side's misfortunes, once again, coming out the wrong side of a close contest at the Aviva Stadium, losing 1-0 to Ukraine.

Kenny remains convinced that his side should have won the game in Armenia, while he felt that it was an even contest at Lansdowne Road with a fortuitous Viktor Tsygankov's goal proving the difference between the two teams.

Shane Duffy crashed a late header off the crossbar, but Ireland could not salvage anything from the game and suffered consecutive defeats following Saturday’s loss in Armenia.

Twelve Nations League games without a win for Ireland and eight of those games have now come under Kenny’s tenure, the team’s group-winning hopes now needing a rethink with nothing to show from the first two games of just six in total.

And while Ireland did match the stylish Ukraine side for large spells of the game, they lacked real composure and quality in the final third, relying on an old-school penalty area bombardment in an attempt to get a point from the game.

In the end, they ran out of time and now move on to two more games in this four-fixture window looking to restore the momentum that had been building ahead of this campaign, having gone eight games without defeat.

"I’m disappointed to lose the game," said Kenny, speaking at the post match press conference.

"That’s two games that hung in the balance. We didn’t deserve to lose in Armenia and tonight we started really well and finished strong.

"It was a very even game, and we came out the wrong side of it."

The manager said