Katie McCabe and Megan Connolly make no excuses for Slovenia shocker

Republic of Ireland captain Katie McCabe pulled no punches as she acknowledged an "unacceptable" display in the chastening 4-0 defeat to Slovenia in the UEFA Women's Nations League.

The Girls in Green failed to build on last Friday's 1-0 win over Turkey in Tallaght as Carla Ward's side found themselves three goals down by half-time in Koper.

While the collective performance improved somewhat in the second half, there was little indication of a comeback as Slovenia added another goal without response.

McCabe, who started in midfield before shifting back to a more familiar left-back berth after half-time, said the players would take responsibility for the turn of events on Tuesday evening.

"It was just completely unacceptable by our standards," the Arsenal player told RTÉ soccer correspondent Tony O'Donoghue.

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"We can't start games like that. We always know it's going to be difficult to come to these types of places playing away from home

"But we need to have a look at ourselves. We'll obviously go back to the drawing board and look to see where we can improve.

"The goals were completely avoidable. We gifted them their chances and yeah, we need to be better."

McCabe acknowledged that with the current change of system at the start of a new era, "hiccups like this" would be a natural consequence of learning to play in a more assertive manner with the ball.

"We just weren't clean enough in our turnovers as well. We gave them too much space and we're going to be chasing them in