Devastated Givens laments Armenian 'horror show'
Wednesday November 18 2009
THE Republic of Ireland's nightmare showing in the UEFA U-21 Championships qualifying series plunged to a new low after being destroyed by Armenia in Yerevan yesterday.
Manager Don Givens has often come under criticism for his record with this side but even he struggled to think of a worse result in his 10-year reign than this loss.
"It was by far the worst performance I can remember given the ranking of the opposition. It's as poor as I've been involved with.
"I'll look at the DVD and see where it went wrong but it would do the players good to look at it too because it was a horror show for a lot of them. It's a team game but they have to look at themselves now."
The Irish boss was devastated after a heavy defeat by a side that had previously not won a game. It leaves Ireland bottom of Group Two with no wins in six games.
Metalurg Donetsk striker Henrikh Mkhitaryan was the home hero, bagging a hat-trick, as Armenia ran riot against a depleted Irish side.
"Disappointing doesn't put into words how I feel about that performance. It was unbelievably poor," said the Irish boss afterwards.
"We knew going into the game we were down seven of the original squad but I felt sure we had players who could step in and perform better than that."
Cillian Sheridan headed wide from a decent Irish chance in the 23rd minute before Mkhitaryan opened the scoring seven minutes later after evading a number of Irish defenders before slotting home.
Mkhitaryan made it 2-0 in the 61st minute after a neat one-two.
Four minutes later Sheridan gave the Irish hope when he nodded home.
BATE Borisov striker Goharyan extended the home lead 10 minutes later with a superb strike.
Mkhitaryan made it 4-1 from the penalty spot after Malakyan was taken down by Oyebanjo in the 81st minute.
ARMENIA -- Hovhannisyan; Yedigaryan (Khachatryan 73), Arakelyan, Yuspashyan, Hayrapetyan, Manoyan, Voskanyan ( Ghazaryan 76), Mkrtchyan, Malakyan, Goharyan (Badalyan 90), Mkhitaryan.
IRELAND -- Redmond; Oyebanjo, Morris, Dennehy, Hughton, Gleeson, Conneely, Carey (Clifford 46), O'Shea, Collins (Madden 66), Sheridan.
Ref -- R Prihoda (Czech).
- Armenia U-21 4 Rep of Ireland U-21 1 Stephen Finn
Irish Independent
