'I take the blame' - Hallgrimsson on Armenia loss

Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has accepted responsibility for his side's shock 2-1 defeat by Armenia in Tuesday's World Cup qualifier in Yerevan and is candid about the fact that his position will now come under scrutiny.

The Irish side produced a hugely under-par performance against the world-ranked 105 team and after salvaging a 2-2 draw against Hungary in their opening game, face a major uphill struggle to keep alive their hopes of qualification for next year's finals.

Eduard Spertsyan's penalty put the hosts ahead in first-half stoppage time and Grant-Leon Ranos doubled the advantage on 51 minutes, with Evan Ferguson pulling a goal back.

Next up for the Republic is a daunting trip to Group F leaders Portugal in October.

"Today I take the blame for this. Of course, I take the blame for this, but the players are the same players we were happy with against Bulgaria and in the second half against Hungary," Hallgrimsson told RTE after the game.

"I will take the blame, the players need support, and we need to encourage them. They are going back to their clubs and hopefully they come back in four weeks' time ready for the next challenge.

"It is an off day, and we have to look inside and see what we can do differently."

The Republic boss is under contract until the end of the qualifying campaign but acknowledges that this performance will raise questions about his future.

"The job of the coach, if they are not producing, then of course it is always a question.

"I am not naive, it is understandable now and after this performance.

"Everything needs to be perfect from now on and after this, it is difficult to be optimistic that we will go to Portugal and win those games with a performance like that."

Asked what went wrong against the Armenians, the former Jamaica manager said, "almost everything".

"We were not as solid defending like we normally are, we lost a lot of duals, in possession we made lots of mistakes and lost the ball in tough areas.

"Armenia can be quick on the counter and they have good individuals with good individual skills, and they deservedly won tonight.

"There are a lot more negatives today than positives, that is for sure. We are hugely disappointed."

Trailing 1-0 at half-time, Hallgrimsson introduced Adam Idah and Kasey McAteer off the bench in place of Jack Taylor and Chiedozie Ogbene.

"We wanted to change it tactically, we thought we needed a goal early so we wanted two strikers and that was successful three days ago so that was one of the reasons we did this change," he explained.

"Also [we wanted] fresh legs, but the substitutions are on me, of course."

On failing to potentially involve star striker Ferguson sufficiently, the Republic boss added: "We didn't create a lot of chances. It is not about him or how we can involve him. The whole team were not on it and it was Armenia's day, not ours."

Republic captain Nathan Collins told RTE that the better team won and reflected on his team's shortcomings.

"I probably do think they were the better team which is nowhere near where our standards should be.

"We didn't create enough; it probably wasn't defensively strong enough and overall, just wasn't a good enough performance.

"We have to beat Portugal, that's the be all end all, we have to go there and get a result and that's all I can say."