Republic of Ireland boss Stephen Kenny remains committed to attacking style

Stephen Kenny is not going to abandon his attacking philosophy as he makes an attempt to information the Republic of Ireland to the Euro 2024 finals.

Kenny signalled his intention to play a extra enterprising model of soccer when he changed Mick McCarthy as Ireland supervisor in April 2020 and, for higher or for worse, has caught to his weapons ever since.

On Tuesday night, he noticed his aspect squander a 2-0 Nations League lead over Armenia inside two second-half minutes earlier than Robbie Brady rescued victory with a late penalty, however he was unapologetic when requested about his strategy.

Kenny stated: “We were just a bit too eager. We were too advanced on the pitch collectively for a team winning 2-0.

“But, listen, that’s not to say we won’t continue to attack because we will. That’s what we’re committed to, we’re committed to playing the way we want to play.

“We made mistakes and ultimately conceded goals, but we won the match and completely deserved to win the match.

“There is no question we deserved to win that match – we should have won it by more goals than we did. We will learn our lessons.”

The win was simply Kenny’s fourth in 21 aggressive video games and, though it secured Ireland’s League B standing when defeat would have resulted in relegation, it did little to persuade the supervisor’s critics that his approach is the way in which ahead.

They dominated the early phases and took a deserved lead by John Egan’s 18th-minute header, however they have been laboured of their efforts to break down a cussed Armenian defence and had to wait till seven minutes after the break for Michael Obafemi to lengthen their benefit from distance.

In their eagerness to kill off the sport, they poured ahead in numbers, solely to succumb to Artak Dashyan’s strike and Eduard Spertsyan’s equaliser earlier than Brady got here to the rescue from the spot in stoppage time.

If the outcome, which avenged a gap day 1-0 defeat in Yerevan, was welcome, the style through which it was achieved prompted questions over the Republic’s possibilities of success within the forthcoming qualifying marketing campaign.

However Kenny, who signed a contract extension in March, stated: “We will play better teams than Armenia in our quest to qualify for the European Championships. We will play teams of equal standard and some of less, probably, as well. It’s all relative.

“It was a good performance from a technical point of view and we dominated. There is room for improvement in some of our attacking play and we were uber-aggressive in pursuit of that third goal when we didn’t need to be. That was really it.

“It wasn’t a euphoric dressing room even though we won 3-2. The players know. How did they end up in that situation when they were absolutely dominant? How did it happen?

“It’s important that they realise that they actually did a lot of things very well in the game and we must learn from that situation, and I expect that they will.”