Parrott's streak continues, Ireland don't win

Troy Parrott did what Troy Parrott has been doing all year. The Ireland striker converted a first-half penalty to put his side ahead, a goal that stretches an extraordinary run to 10 goals in his last seven competitive internationals. Few forwards anywhere in Europe are scoring at that rate right now, and Parrott is doing it for a team that badly needs the goals to mean something.

This time they didn't quite. Israel found an equaliser in the second half to level things at 1-1, and Ireland's Nations League campaign stays exactly where it was before kick-off: unresolved, and now with a draw to show for a game they led.

A home game nowhere near home

Ireland were technically the home side. They were playing in Serbia. The match was held behind closed doors, no fans in the TSC Arena to generate anything resembling the atmosphere a Nations League night usually brings. According to the Guardian, the two sets of players did not shake hands before kick-off, continuing a pattern from previous meetings between the sides that has made this fixture one of the most awkward on the international calendar.

None of that is incidental to how the game played out. A tetchy, charged build-up tends to produce a tetchy, charged match, and this one delivered exactly that: a lead, a let-off, a sense that neither side was fully there to play football in the conventional sense.

Parrott's numbers do the talking

Strip away the context and Parrott's form is the story that should be dominating the conversation around this Ireland squad. Ten goals in seven games is hat-trick territory stretched across a run, not a single game, and it's the kind of output that forces other countries to start paying attention to a player who, not long ago, was fighting for regular football at club level.

The problem for Ireland is that one man scoring goals isn't translating into results that stick. A side that takes the lead through a Parrott penalty and then can't see the game out against Israel has a defensive conversation to have, whatever the circumstances around the fixture.

Where this leaves Group B3

Ireland remain unbeaten but also without the win that would have properly kick-started their Nations League campaign. The group picture stays unresolved, and so does the broader question hanging over this fixture: when, where and under what conditions Ireland and Israel will next be asked to share a pitch.