Republic of Ireland striker Robbie Keane has admitted that his side can have "no excuses" following their early elimination from Euro 2012.
Ireland lost 2-0 to Italy on Monday to leave them bottom of Group C with zero points, and Keane has insisted that Giovanni Trapattoni's side were perfectly prepared for the tournament.
"We have no excuses, our preparations went fine and we can stand here all night and discuss but we couldn't be prepared better," Keane told reporters.
"The criticism is always there, was for last four years, and we have always been playing that way, got our results, got here, so why change in the tournament? It's managers decision but we were quite happy the way we played for four years.
"We are obviously disappointed, we wanted to give something to our fans and to ourselves to go home with and as we didn't, we are not happy. We played well, it was a different game to the way we played previously but then come up two set pieces from which we concede and we know that it should be our stronger side."
Keane has scored 53 goals in 120 games for his country.
Matt Law
