Ken Early: Ireland finally buckle under Balkan onslaught in listless Kosovo loss

This was the first game at the Stadiumi Fadil Vokrri since a Kosovan court based in The Hague sentenced the former president and Kosovo Liberation Army commander, Hashim Thaçi, and three other KLA leaders-turned-politicians to lengthy prison terms for war crimes.The Kosovans have not taken the verdict well and Pristina is full of defiant graffiti and posters demanding the release of the four “liberators”, and the ubiquitous red, gold and black banner of the KLA (UÇK in Albanian). “Freedom has a name”. At kick-off you could see more UÇK banners than Kosovan flags, and during the home anthem the fans produced a huge tifo behind the goal spelling out “Unitet. Çlirim. Krenari” – “Unity, Liberation, Pride”.Safe to say that pride was not foremost in Heimir Hallgrímsson’s mind when he picked the Irish team. He had admitted before the game that he would be content to get out of here with a draw. The theme of this selection was humility.Too much humility? Five of Ireland’s 10 outfielders were centre backs. With Jason Knight and Jayson Molumby holding in midfield, Ireland’s system was effectively seven defenders and three attackers.READ MOREDid it work? Not according to the result, and also not according to the balance of play. The big strong back five did not bring the security they were intended to provide. Jake O’Brien looked rusty. Kosovo had too many chances right in the middle of the Irish penalty area. Ireland were lucky on the night that they were wasteful, but their luck eventually ran out.Ireland had few good spells in possession. The first came around the 12th minute, when Knight and Finn Azaz combined to release Troy Parrott in behind the defence. The team pushed up and spent a minute camped outside the Kosovo box.The move petered out as Liam Scales tried to dribble past his opponent up the left wing. There are disadvantages to half your team being central defenders. Scales frequently found himself with the freedom of the left side, but few good options ahead of him. One ball up the line to nobody illustrated Ireland’s problems going forward.Ireland goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher and manager Heimir Hallgrímsson dejected after the match. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho On the other side James Abankwah was Ireland’s major outlet. Their best chance came when Kosovo left back Dion Gallapeni misjudged a ball in the air and suddenly Abankwah was in around the back. He rolled it across to Chiedozie Ogbene who had a clear shot on goal from 12 yards. He hit it first time over the bar. Chances in international football don’t come too much easier.The last minute of the first half saw another reasonable chance on the counter, but Azaz delayed when the pass to Ogbene looked on, and tried a more difficult one for Parrott, which was cut out.As the players left the field for half-time, Hallgrímsson pulled Ogbene aside into the dugout and the pair were conferring in there for more than a minute before they followed the rest of the team down the tunnel.Ogbene has been a key player for the manager and has often been the main attacking outlet. Here he had a poor first half, completing five of only nine passes, and losing the ball four times with bad touches, as many as the rest of the Irish players put together. For comparison, his Kosovan counterpart Mergim Vojvoda completed 20 of 29 passes in the first half and had no possession-losing touches.Ogbene did come out for the start of the second half and it looked as though his instructions were to get more central and support Parrott. He lasted 15 minutes of the second half before being replaced by Jack Moylan.With this change, Ireland gained some on-ball quality while sacrificing a little bit of threat in behind. But that threat in behind had been notional anyway. That wasn’t all Ogbene’s fault. It’s hard to run on to through-balls if your central midfielders hardly ever play a forward pass.Ireland's Finn Azaz and Vedat Muriqi of Kosovo. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho At one point Moylan made a run but Knight, rather than try to find him, turned and played it back into defence.You wondered if a solution here could be moving Azaz back into the midfield two, as happened towards the end of the win in Hungary. He may not have the ground-covering capacity of Molumby or Knight but he has the ability to turn past opponents and spot and play forward passes.With 10 minutes to go, the Kosovan crowd had been reduced to numbed silence as Ireland seemed to be closing grimly in on the draw. The UÇK chants had all but petered out. But then the home team suddenly got the lucky break they’d been missing all night.A throw, a sudden violent shot that deflected off Caoimhín Kelleher and cracked off the bar, a brave headed finish to the rebound from Vedat Muriqi – a bull of a striker, who had tormented Ireland all night. He held up a T-shirt bearing a message of support for the jailed leaders. Uefa fine incoming, presumably worth every penny.The last few minutes were a rout: the crowd revelling in Ireland’s disintegration as Kosovo missed chances to score twice more.If you had to sum up the Ireland performance in a word it would be ‘passive’. They started the game cautiously, a team obviously focused on not giving anything away, determined not to take any risks. They forgot to create anything themselves. In the end, they deserved to lose.Yet another Nations League campaign begins with the ice bucket treatment. This team always seems to need a major shock to jolt it into action. Ireland only woke up in the World Cup qualifiers when they found themselves already on the brink of elimination after two matches. Next up, the strangest and most controversial game this generation of Irish players has faced. Hard on this evidence to be very confident about that one.