Martin O’Neill has brushed aside Scotland’s hard luck stories after another qualification failure.
Despite taking four points from Ireland and splitting two matches with Poland Gordon Strachan’s side finished in fourth place in the group failing to make the play-off stage.
As Iceland, Wales and Northern Ireland plan for a summer campaign in France it seems that Scotland will be replaying the group matches in search of hard luck stories centred around losing in Georgia and conceding a last minute equaliser to Poland.
The purpose of the group system is to provide each team with ten matches, home and away against each other with no disputing over the final places which saw Germany and Poland qualify automatically with Ireland preparing for a play-off next month.
“I heard Gordon saying they’re out and us and Poland haven’t beaten them,” O’Neill said. “We’ve taken four points off the world champions Germany. Scotland didn’t do that. So I think we should put it into perspective.
“I thought we had an opportunity to qualify in Warsaw. It’s gone. I’m disappointed but, regardless of who we play, we’re still here and we’re fighting for it. We’re not out of it by a long shot and I’d take any of them.”
Looking optimistically towards Sunday’s play-off draw the former Celtic manager added: “If you beat the world champions you have to feel you’ve made some progress but I wouldn’t want to get carried away with all of that. I was as disappointed as anyone we didn’t make it on Sunday night.”
Well done martin ,from a average bunch of players you have them playing to there best ability and giving 100%,..life would be much easier if you had reconized international players to select from.but the facts are what they are apart from coleman there would be no interest from the top 6 in the english league for the services for any other irish player.take a bow martin you are one i a million..the same can be said for gordon strachan he has did a good job,his team is playing good football,sometimes you need the rub of the green hopefully ireland gets it in the next game
Well done Martin.
I am glad you are not still our manager.
In Ronny we trust
Amen
Calm down Martin, when Celtic beat Barcelona and finished 2nd in our group, did we automatically become better than Benfica?
Did we f***, we defended and got a result, yeah it deserved respect but it doesn’t make us better.
Scotland are better than Ireland and we proved that over the 2 games, we attacked Germany, took 2 goals off them but didn’t defend well enough, slipped up in Georgia with an off game and lost a last minute goal to Poland.
Yet Ireland score last minute goals against Germany and Georgia.
And they’re so much better? F*** off Martin and don’t talk p***.
The group is decided over ten matches.
You can be as selective as you like but the table doesn’t lie. For every last minute winner or equaliser there’s a shot heading for Grafton Street that gets deflected into the net for a goal.
The purpose of the groups is to determine who is best, Germany were the best of the six countries, followed by Poland, then Ireland and Scotland fourth best out of six.
Yes to be fair games r won over time played and ireland perfomed better or more consistantly in 10games so fair play to them erin ga bragh
Hi I’m a Scotsman and I have to agree with you Scotland’s defence let us down and leaving Lee Grithis out against Poland was just shocking okay Fletcher is scoring goals but Scotland should have been all out going for it specially the last quarter against Poland I would like to have seen Grithis & Fletcher going for it together ah well nothing can be done about it now….
???? Good Luck ????
To R.Ireland, Wales & N.Ireland
We can’t say were always unlucky. We have failed to qualify the last 9 times – Scotland are consistently poor.
Good luck Ireland.