'I wasn't confident before the friendlies and I'm still not confident now' - Keith Treacy on Ireland's upcoming World Cup campaign
Back in September 2022, Keith Treacy opined that the Republic of Ireland were "sleepwalking" into the Euro 2024 qualifiers.
As it turned out, the Boys in Green would soon be dropped into a group featuring France and the Netherlands, and when the games were played, it was the matches against Pot 4 side Greece that proved to be the most disappointing of all.
Fast forward to this year and Ireland will get their 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying journey underway in September with Hungary, Armenia and Nations League champions Portugal awaiting in a quickfire campaign across three autumn windows.
So off the back of this month's friendly draws against Senegal and Luxembourg, does Treacy feel Ireland are sleepwalking into another chastening experience? Or to borrow a Green Day song title, will it be a case of 'Wake me up when September ends' after a dream start to the qualifiers against Hungary at home and Armenia away?
The answer is more of a pessimistic one as ex-Boys in Green winger Treacy outlined on this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast.
"I wouldn't put too much weight behind any of the friendlies," he said, pointing to a display which manager Heimir Hallgrimsson himself described as "boring" against Luxembourg, and drawing with a Senegal side that had more of an eye on England who they eventually did beat in Nottingham days later.
"(We're) yet to get a 90 minute performance over the two games. The Luxembourg one in particular is one that really grates on me because you look at the World Cup qualifying group, obviously Portugal and Hungary are that little bit better than us.
"I look at those fixtures and think we'll play above ourselves because we so often do.
"But it has to be a given that we get six points against Armenia and the way we played against Luxembourg just does not fill me with any confidence that we can do that.
"I suppose the bigger question in all of this is, after the two friendlies, am I more confident that we can qualify from this World Cup group? And I wouldn't say I am.
"I wasn't confident before the friendlies and I'm still not confident now."
Treacy believes every out-field unit of the team has some question marks over it - and not just the more obvious area of midfield.
"Everybody says we have brilliant defensive players; Jake O'Brien, Nathan Collins, (Dara) O'Shea - yes they are Premier League players - but we've only kept two clean sheets in the last ten games. That's nowhere near good enough," he said.
"We've only scored eight goals in our last ten games. That's not good enough for people that are telling me we've got really good strikers and we've got really good defenders.
"If we did, we'd be scoring a lot more goals and we'd be keeping a lot more clean sheets.
"Then you look at the midfield. We still can't keep the ball so we can't be a possession-based team because we can't keep the ball under pressure.
"Anybody with a half-decent press can come and get rewards off of us. If we can't be a possession-based team, we have to be extremely well-drilled out of possession and we're not extremely well-drilled out of possession.
"Heimir can sit here and say, 'Keith, we've gotten harder to beat'. I take that on board. I do think we've got harder to beat, I do think there's a little bit of progression there.
"But is there enough progression to go and nick a point off a Portugal and beat them at home? To beat Hungary? I'm not so sure.
"Like I said, I think we've got better but I don't think we've made up the gulf in class and we're getting thrown straight into the deep end. Hungary at home, Armenia away, first two games, feels like it's going to need six points straight off the bat and I'm sitting here thinking I've very little confidence in this Irish team doing that."
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