Martin O'Neill has questioned the direction the Republic of Ireland are going in under Stephen Kenny.
Ireland had been tipped to go close to winning their Nations League group, including by Kenny himself, but now find themselves in a relegation battle after losing their opening two games.
A shock loss away to Armenia last weekend was followed by another defeat at the hands of Ukraine in Dublin on Tuesday night.
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And Kenny heads into Saturday's clash with Scotland knowing that the pressure is mounting on him once again.
O'Neill was still Ireland manager when they lost their first Nations League match 4-1 to Wales back in 2018 and almost four years on, the Boys in Green have yet to win a game in the competition.
Assessing where Ireland are at the moment, O'Neill told The Daily Record: "Where are Ireland right now? That’s a really good question. The Armenia game was a big, big setback. Sometimes you get a couple of results in matches against sides who are not in the top 80 – teams like Andorra, Lithuania. You can start to get a false impression of where you are.
"Then you travel to Armenia fully expecting to win and get off to a bad start, it's a major setback for them.
Dejected Ireland players, led by John Egan, applaud the Irish fans after defeat in Armenia (Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
"I suppose a couple of years into Stephen's reign, you'd have to ask [where they're at].
"If his remit was to rebuild an Irish side and get time to do that then that's fine. But in international football you still have to win football matches."
O'Neill believes both Ireland and Scotland have lacked a player that is a real difference maker in recent years and points to Gareth Bale being a huge reason why Wales are heading to the World Cup later this year.
He added: “You need that difference maker. When I was managing the Republic, Robbie was ending his career. He was about 34 and just couldn't do it. He could maybe play and score a hat-trick against Gibraltar but against the bigger sides he wouldn't be able to do what he had been capable of doing.
"We would have cried out for a Robbie Keane to be maybe ten years younger but we didn't have that. At the European Championships in France, our main man was Jon Walters. You wouldn't call Jon prolific.
"And in the World Cup play-off that we got to, when Denmark hammered us, our main man was James McClean.
“Scotland do not possess a Gareth Bale at the minute and Ireland haven’t had one since Robbie Keane in his heyday. Everyone is crying out for that and that is probably the difference between Scotland not heading to the World Cup."
Unlike Ireland under Kenny, O'Neill believes Scotland have improved under Steve Clarke.
He stated: “If Scotland are at full strength they have some really, really decent players playing for them at the minute.
"I do think there has been an improvement in Scotland in recent times. But it depends how quickly they can get over that disappointment. They just have to push it to the side. Andy Robertson is playing for Liverpool, John McGinn is playing for Aston Villa and playing super. There are some really decent players.
“They had battled so strongly to get there and had some fantastic moments over the last few months, getting last-minute goals and everything going in their direction.
“It was really disappointing as far as Scotland are concerned. I know that some of the pundits were trying to soften the blow afterwards by saying Scotland will come again and that’s true, they will.
“I think they are strong enough but that takes a bit longer to get over because World Cups are not every 10 minutes.”
Martin O’Neill was promoting Premier Sports live and exclusive coverage of Republic of Ireland v Scotland.
Premier Sports is available from €10 per month in Ireland and available on the platforms Sky, Virgin TV, Premier Player and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription.
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