Former Liverpool midfielder Ray Houghton has hit out at Roy Keane's criticism of the Republic of Ireland team.
The former Ireland captain had slammed Giovanni Trapattoni's side for their poor showing at Euro 2012, having lost both their opening games. However, Houghton has leapt to the defence of the squad and believes that there can be no doubts over the commitment and effort shown by the players.
"I think Roy genuinely feels that the players didn't play as well as they could and I don't think anybody would argue against it," he told talkSPORT.
"But did they try any less? Absolutely not. Was their attitude right? Absolutely. There is no question about that. They have trained hard and they have trained well.
"It just came down to Ireland not being good enough. That is the top and bottom of it."
While Houghton agrees with Keane that the Irish needed to make changes to the team, he doesn't think that Trapattoni needs to edit too much.
"We got things wrong. Maybe the team selection for the second game wasn't quite what it should be but you can't just say the players should be thrown out because they didn't play well.
"The effort was there and the energy was there. It was just that we played against two teams that were better than us on the night."
Ireland face Italy in their final Group C match on Monday, having already been eliminated from the tournament.
Matt Cotton
