Brian Kerr came under fire from sections of the Irish support over his comments following Stephen Kenny's side's 1-0 defeat to France on Monday night.
Ireland came very close to scoring late on through a Nathan Collins header, but French goalkeeper Mike Maignan pulled off an incredible save, meaning Benjamin Pavard's stunning strike gave the visitors all three points in Dublin.
Speaking on Virgin Media immediately after the full-time whistle, Kerr said the bottom line was Ireland got beat and "had very little possession until the last few minutes", comments some fans described as "very strange" and "petty".
READ MORE: Kylian Mbappe makes young Irish fan's night after Euro 2024 qualifier
Host Tommy Martin highlighted that both Kerr and Damien Delaney were "out of step" with their reaction to the game, stating that a lot of fans thought it was a good performance from the Boys in Green.
Kerr replied: "That's fine Tommy. I don't like losing though. This team has been losing too often for me. I've said it. We've gone out of the tournaments too early, too often, for me.
"If they make this tournament, I'll be delighted. I want to see them getting there, but I don't want any excuses or exaggerated reports on how we played and that's what we've had in a lot of games. Untruths been told after matches about deserving to win and deserving to draw when that hasn't been the case.
"But it was a decent performance tonight and they had a right go late on and were unlucky probably not to get a goal."
Reflecting on the match, Kenny said afterwards: "“We have watched France’s last 20 games and we’ve never seen Kylian Mbappe, who I voted for as the best player in the world, have such a quiet night. I’ve never seen it, never seen it.
“We didn’t concede any chances up to the goal and that was disappointing. The substitutes made an impact and we finished strongly in the last 15 minutes.
“Our goalkeeper made an excellent save, but the save from Nathan Collins was out of this world, one of those incredible saves, so we’re disappointed not to get at least a point.”
Ireland will resume their campaign in Greece in June before welcoming Gibraltar to the Aviva Stadium, and those fixtures are likely to have a much greater say in their destiny than what they do against the French home and away.
Asked if they can still spring a surprise in the group, Kenny said: “It is a very important campaign for us and we’re disappointed we didn’t get a point.
“But for sure there’s a lot of points to play for and we want to make sure that we put ourselves really in contention coming into the last couple of games.”
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