Marko Arnautovic isn’t often afraid to tell things as he really sees it. The 27 year old may have calmed down somewhat since moving to Stoke City in 2013, but when he’s annoyed about something it’s likely to come to the surface sooner or later.
This time it’s been sooner and, speaking to the Austrian media, the Stoke City striker has had a go at the Republic of Ireland team, explaining that they didn’t set out to play football and were very fortunate to beat Austria 1-0 on Saturday.
Austria’s Kleine Zeitung newspaper quote the Stoke player as saying: “They have not played football, for me it’s not football at all, it was just a long, high, struggling game.”
Arnautovic said the only time Ireland threatened was when Austria made two mistakes and lost the ball, adding “otherwise they have shown very little.”
There’s big disappointment in Austria at the 1-0 home defeat, and even doubts creeping up about the future of manager Marcel Koller, but whilst Ireland may well have played their typical away game, it was Austria who made the mistakes.
