Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill has claimed that his side's performance in the narrow win over Georgia last time out is nothing to get worried about.
The Boys in Green were made to work hard for their 1-0 victory at the Aviva Stadium, coming through a sloppy Seamus Coleman goal in the second half to make it four points from six in World Cup 2018 qualifying.
That win came on the back of a battling 2-2 draw against Serbia in Belgrade last month, with O'Neill quick to point out that it was not so long ago that his charges were hitting top form.
"Everybody goes through these periods, even teams like Portugal. They won [Euro 2016] then lost to Switzerland. Things like this happen," he told reporters.
"We can play better, we know that. We did this in France a couple of months ago. It's only a couple of months ago since we played brilliantly against Sweden and beat Italy. And for a long period we had France. You would have to say they were extremely concerned about us.
"We have played two games in [World Cup qualifying]; drawn against a top-class Serbia side and then haven't played very well at home [against Georgia] and that can happen. These things are forgotten about but you are talking about top-level football, so it's going to be hard."
Ireland are back in action on Sunday when facing Moldova in their third Group D outing, aiming to maintain their position as joint leaders.
Daniel Lewis
