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Men's Football Keogh backs O'Neill despite Ireland's defeat to Wales

RICHARD KEOGH has backed under-fire Ireland boss Martin O’Neill as pressure mounts following a poor Nation League campaign.

Ireland slipped to a 1-0 home defeat to Wales last night, which means they are firm favourites to be relegated from League B next month and will therefore be handed a more difficult route to the Euro 2020 finals.

They are without a win in five competitive matches, dating back to last October’s World Cup qualifier victory in Cardiff, and have beaten only the United States in a friendly in their past nine outings.

However, O’Neill remains defiant as he approaches his fifth anniversary in the job and Derby defender Keogh, who has captained the team in the last two matches, is firmly behind him.

Asked if the manager could handle the tide of criticism coming his way, he replied: “He doesn’t need me to say that. He’s proven it.

“If you look at his managerial career, he’s had a pretty good one, I’d say. The manager is experienced enough to know football.

“He’s been great for me personally and I can only speak on behalf of me and a lot of the lads who have been together a long time. We’ve enjoyed the last five years. We’ve loved it.

“It’s a bit of a rebuild mode, but I think if you ask the manager he’s still loving it. I think you could see tonight from our performance that we’re all going to the end and we’re all together. That’s the most important thing.”

Keogh and his teammates went into last night’s game desperately needing a win after losing in Wales and only drawing with the Danes and, while they enjoyed the better of the first half, they could not make it count and were ultimately undone by Harry Wilson’s fine 58th minute free-kick.

The 32-year-old defender said: “Experiencing that is not nice as a professional. It’s a young group that is learning and we’ve got to make sure that we learn from that tonight so that, when the next one comes around, we’re ready to go again.”

Wales captain Ashley Williams is confident they can finish the job against Denmark and secure promotion to the elite of European football.

Wales are now guaranteed to be second seeds for the Euro 2020 qualifying draw in December. The win also procured at least a top-two spot in their inaugural Nations League group and beating Denmark in Cardiff next month would see them rubbing shoulders with the likes of world champions France, Spain and Belgium in the second edition of the competition.

“We’re top of the group now going into the Denmark game and that’s important,” skipper Williams said. “We know it’s going to be a difficult game against Denmark, but this is what we were aiming for.

“Hopefully we’ll get a big crowd because we wanted to be in this position.

“We know it will be a different test against a good team, but it’s one we will be ready for.”

Wales’s victory at the Aviva Stadium was all the more notable as Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey were both missing.

It was the first time that Wales had been without their two leading performers in a competitive fixture since Arsenal midfielder Ramsey made his debut in 2008.

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