Roy Keane has spoken of the disappointment in the Republic of Ireland camp at their 1-0 loss to Scotland in Celtic Park on Friday night.
The Boys in Green went down to a set-piece goal scored by Shaun Maloney, and it was felt that there were a few errors by Martin O’Neill’s men that led to the goal.
The Republic of Ireland assistant manager said the players were hurt and disappointed.
He said: “If you want to analyse and look at the goal, there were a number of mistakes by different players before that (the goal), the free kick we conceded, defending the original set-piece.
“There was a lot of time in between that and Scotland actually taking it, so if they did take it quickly you might have one or two excuses, but there are no excuses, (we had) three or four players switching off and not doing their jobs.
“But we all know a lot of tight games, a lot of big games are decided by set-pieces.”
The assistant manager was then asked about Robbie Keane’s “I’m not f*****g Niall Quinn” comment after the game on Friday.
Roy Keane said: “He’s a lot better than Niall Quinn”
Martin O’Neill had decided to play a lone striker up front against Scotland, a formation that Robbie Keane admitted did not suit him, and lead to some wondering if Ireland’s top scorer had a part to play in the qualifiers.
However, Roy Keane refuted that saying: “Robbie Keane is massive for this team, absolutely massive, and everybody keeps saying he was disappointed to be left out of the team.
“Of course he was - that’s what you expect from Robbie. Robbie’s brilliant for the group and the team.
“He’s a top, top player, he’s been doing it for years and hopefully he’ll score goals for the next number of years. You just pick a team for a certain game and the way Robbie’s reacted to the disappointment, to our training session yesterday, was fantastic.
The former Man Utd and Celtic player went on to say that the LA Galaxy star is “absolutely different class”.
He said: “Robbie Keane’s as good a person as I’ve come across.”