Republic of Ireland defender John Egan lamented a slow start which set the tone for a 2-0 defeat to Switzerland in last night's Euro 2020 Group D qualifier.
Haris Seferovic had the ball in the Irish net after 16 minutes and from that point on, the visitors were facing an uphill battle in Geneva. The result was confirmed when Shane Duffy sliced the ball into his own net in stoppage time.
Manager Mick McCarthy placed Egan in a three man defensive formation, but Sheffield United stopper Egan says that wasn't the reason for poor technique in the first period:
“Systems are not really an excuse for kicking the ball out of play or not playing with quality. We just weren’t good enough on the ball. We need to be on it from the first minute to get results.
“First half, I don’t think we were at the races at all. Second half, we upped it, really took the game to them. It’s just disappointing we didn’t do that from the first minute because I feel like when we did that we had some good spells.”
When asked what we could put Ireland's snail like start down to, John Egan didn't have a ready answer:
“Just quality, bravery maybe. They’re a good side as well. I don’t know, if we could have just started a bit better we’d have given ourselves a better chance. We showed second half when we took the game to them that we can play good stuff and it’s just a pity we didn’t do that from the first minute.”
The Munster man is hopeful Ireland can beat Denmark next month and book their ticket to Euro 2020:
“Second half we were playing really well and we can take positives that if we can play well against Switzerland, we can do that next month.”
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