Sluggish, weary and not pretty, but the job was done

Analysis: Remember all that pre-match talk about just going to the Faroe Islands and just getting an ugly win? Well, we certainly got one. Let's just say it wasn't the prettiest of games and, at times, was painful to watch. But it's job done, points in the bag, and really that was all we were ever going to get out of this game, writes Mark Lawrenson.

It's very difficult when the players know it's their last match of the season, when they're playing against a very ordinary team, on an awful pitch. Those factors tend not to make for a game of football worth watching. You rarely get any kind of cohesive or consistent performance under those circumstances and we didn't get one last night.

No matter how professional they are or how much their hearts might be in the right place, players can just find it impossible to lift themselves for games like this, to get any way near the intensity, concentration and effort they would, by nature, produce in the bigger games. You might say that shouldn't happen, but it does, all the time, at club and international level.

Most of the players had that "what are we doing here" look on their faces in the early stages, it was all a bit sluggish and weary. In some ways it had a pre-season feel to it. All a bit flat, no edge.

Nobody really had a game to remember, including Damien Duff. Even Roy Keane was more or less anonymous in the first half. We were on top but never got it together, had no real direction or shape. All a bit disjointed.

So, no, it wasn't the best going in 0-0 at half-time, but I wasn't overly concerned. Half-time gives you a chance to sort it out, you ask for a little more effort, a little more concentration, that's all it takes in games like this and that's really what we got in the second half.

These types of games are more about the mind than anything else. We know we're better than them, that's not even an issue, it's just a case of getting on and doing the job in as professional a manner as possible. Clinically. Get the points, and get out.

And against these teams once you score you nearly always get another one very soon after, once they've been broken down their resistance drops a bit. If we'd scored in the first half I think we'd have been looking at a 4-0, but we didn't so have to settle for what we got.

They were always going to make it difficult, it was a massive game for them, and they tried to set themselves up as being very difficult to break down. Yes, Shay Given had to make a couple of saves, but really, they were very, very ordinary, at best.

In the end it was comfortable, if not pretty. Ideally you would be a couple of goals up at half-time, but when we raised our game a bit the chances came. And, again, after Saturday all that mattered was that we won.

Stephen Elliott did well, it was a massive day for him, but he was playing in a team that was trying to cruise through the game, so that made it strange for him. It's hard to judge any player against that opposition, but he did enough for you to say: "I'd like to have another look at him", there's definitely potential there.

So, to be honest, I don't think we can read anything at all in to the game or the performance, you just know it will be a different performance at a completely different level come September against France. It will be another world. I would hazard a guess that the team might be slightly more up for it.

The end of the season, then. Despite the slip-ups against Israel, at least the team finishes this phase of the campaign on top of the table - although, admittedly, Switzerland and France have a game in hand. We should, of course, be on 15 points, but Saturday's gone, not much we can do about that now. But we'd have taken this position, and, again, despite everything, qualification is still in our hands.

Those Israeli equalisers could yet come back to haunt us, but, for now, we're still in there.