HEIMIR HALLGRÍMSSON reckons Ireland’s performance in Bulgaria was better than he first realised.
The Ireland boss has a full squad to choose from for Sunday’s second leg of their Nations League play-off.
Hallgrímsson said:”The doc came into the coaches room this morning and said everyone was fit and ready to play so that’s the first time he has said that.
“I think it’s a good sign for us, that everyone wants to be part of this game.”
And, while there is an argument for fresh legs, Hallgrímsson also wants to reward those who helped claim the 2-1 first-leg advantage in Plovdiv.
Immediately afterwards, the Icelander had complained about his side being too passive in the second half as they defended their lead.
But he said: “Me as a coach, I’ve always been a little bit too emotional, it’s why I don’t like to talk to players after games, I like to analyse the game before I speak.
“It was probably emotion a little bit there, when I watched the game on TV, even though we gave them a little bit more of possession, there was never any danger at all that they would create something.
“That was what I was saying, about the principles and what we do when we don’t have possession, we have some really good bits from those moments, we absolutely controlled the game even though they had possession.
“And that is something, once we go to finals whenever that will be, hopefully next summer, we need to be perfect in these areas because sometimes against good opponents you don’t have the ball and you can do nothing about it.
“You need to be compact and solid. And that is what we did against Bulgaria, we gave them a little bit of the initiative, we dropped a little bit deeper on the pitch but still we did that part really well.
“After looking again after the game, it was not like it affected our chances of winning it, we had some really good opportunities in counter attacks, we should have done better in those, just a different way of playing.
“It’s good to have, you know, work to do on both areas. I thought we did both really well in this game.”
And he praised captain Nathan Collins’s response after being spoken to at half-time about losing possession in dangerous areas.
He said: “I thought at half-time we just addressed that.
“That was at the end of the first half, two or three occasions we were overplaying in our own box.
“And just as the pitch was, we thought that was not really sensible so we just talked about that and it didn’t happen in the second half.”
