Chiedozie Ogbene is consoling himself with the thought that the Republic of Ireland's Nations League fate was never likely to be decided by what they did against England.
Ireland launched the Heimir Hallgrimsson era with a dispiriting 2-0 League B2 defeat by their neighbours in the new head coach’s first game in charge on Saturday.
However, Ipswich frontman Ogbene is convinced he and his team-mates will make a much better first of it when they face Greece, ranked 54th in the world as opposed to England’s lofty top-four billing, at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night.
The 27-year-old said: "I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I will look you in the eye and tell you that these guys England, losing in the Euro final, it was always going to be a difficult game regardless, but we also wanted to put in a good performance there.
"But the likes of Greece and Finland, without being disrespectful, those are the ones we want to battle against and pick up points from.
"Obviously yes, we wanted to pick up points against England and see what happens, but against Greece and Finland, we have to put pressure on ourselves to pick points up."
Ireland were blown away inside the opening 26 minutes on Saturday as Declan Rice made the most of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defence-splitting pass before Jack Grealish rounded off a sumptuous passing move.
It was not lost on the locals inside the Aviva Stadium that both goalscorers might have been wearing the green of Ireland had different decisions been made, but Hallgrimsson at least emerged from a bruising encounter with further clarity on the issues he needs to address.
Ogbene said: "I would be naive to say that we’re coming out and we’re confidently saying we’re going to beat the likes of England. These guys go to the big competitions that we dream of going to regularly.
"Obviously we have to respect the likes of England, who have a lot of top quality players that play at the highest level.
"In the first half, maybe we were too soft, two soft chances. But the second half, we came out a bit better and I think the week we had with the manager trying to cram in his philosophy and tried to take how he wants us to play on board.
"I’m hoping that will shine through against the likes of Greece and Finland and we can pick up points from there."
Hallgrimsson’s predecessor Stephen Kenny ultimately lost his job because he did not get enough positive results – he won six on his 29 competitive fixtures – as he attempted to mould a new-look squad into a team.
Ogbene was one of the beneficiaries of that policy, but he knows it is now time to deliver.
He said: "We have a higher amount of players now in the Premier League, we have to put pressure on ourselves. We can’t be learning, we want to be winning games for our country, we want to be going to big competitions."
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
