Republic of Ireland boss Stephen Kenny says Luxembourg World Cup qualifier defeat ‘ completely unacceptable’

STEPHEN KENNY has said the buck stops with him for the “unacceptable” loss to Luxembourg. 

Gerson Rodrigues’ goal gave Luxembourg a win against an abject Ireland whose World Cup campaign is as good as over after just two games. 

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Stephen Kenny says the loss was unacceptable

The loss also means new boss Kenny’s reign is now ten games without a win, though he shrugged off a question that his position may even be under threat. 

But he admitted that losing to Luxembourg is simply not good enough. 

He said: “That is not even in question. I’m not concerned about that at the moment. Just concerned that we had a really poor result and none of us are happy with that. Very disappointing and we have to accept the criticism that comes our way.

“It’s a terrible result and you can’t get away from that. It’s really, really disappointed and not good enough.

“To go from the Serbia performance (on Wednesday) to losing to Luxembourg is completely unacceptable and we’re very disappointed. 

“Anything I say sounds like making excuses. It’s just not good enough. It’s not acceptable to lose at home like that.

“I take responsibility for the whole thing, it’s not good enough.”

Kenny said he chose to stick with the 3-5-2 formation used in Serbia because too many of his players are not playing for their clubs. 

“It worked well in Serbia. None of our wingers are playing at the moment, or coming back from injury like James McClean and Robbie Brady. 

“When we got chances in the game, we lacked composure in front of goal but we should have created more than we did. 

“It’s a bad night, a very bad night and we have to dust ourselves down and go again. We’re all gutted after that. It’s very disappointing. We have to take the criticism.”