Play like they did in Georgia and Martin O'Neill's Ireland won't have much joy against Serbia tonight.
But the carrot is that victory at the Aviva Stadium tonight in our live game on Off The Ball would fire the Boys in Green to the top of the World Cup qualifying group by a point with two games to go.
But ahead of the Serbia match, the style of play and tactics have come under more scrutiny than ever with the inability to keep possession casting a long shadow.
Former Ireland defender Kenny Cunningham joined us on Off The Ball to analyse the issues that were apparent against Georgia and look ahead to the Serbia match.
For Kenny, it wasn't necessarily just possession that was the issue but more the lack of success in winning it back.
"The facet of our game which broke down Saturday which really surprised me was our ability to win back possession, how good we usually are out of possession of the football in terms of hunting down the ball collectively as a group. It's what we're very good at. We really enjoy it," he said.
"We just never started, never got started at the weekend, particularly in the first half. It's been a long time since I've seen an Ireland team so passive out of possession of the football."
And on the question of possession - or lack of it - he said: "We're not a possession based team. Don't get carried away with this factor of poor possession stats, 'we can't keep the ball'. We've never been a team that's looked to command the ball."
"We're at our best when we take the more direct route. People kind of poo-poo that and roll their eyes but when we get the ball back to front early to our front two, squeeze the pitch, win second balls and get into that last third of the pitch quickly, get crosses into the box, commit players into the box, win second balls. That's us at our very best. It suits us. It suits the players," he said.
Ireland vs Serbia is live on Off The Ball tonight with Nathan Murphy and Kevin Kilbane on commentary. Tune in from 7pm.
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