Listen to the full interview with John above via the podcast

John Giles was accentuating the positives tonight on Off The Ball as he ran the rule over Martin O'Neill's maiden defeat as Ireland boss.

John noted "some good thing and some not so good things" from the 2 - 1 loss to Serbia but was "not bothered by the result".

He believes that friendly games should be taken on their merits.

"Don't lose sight of what Martin O'Neill is doing which is to build a team. The only way to do that is to try players out and see what they can do. I wouldn't be too bothered about the result because it's a learning curve for Martin O'Neill to get his philosophy across and see what the players can and can't do. You can't have too many friendly matches to do that," said John who feels the team will get better and progress under the new style with more time together.

Shane Long celebrates scoring their first goal of the game with Wes Hoolahan ©INPHO/Donall Farmer

"I think the philosophy of the play under Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane is excellent. It's smart, it's quick and you don't see half an hour to take a throw in like we did under Trapattoni and you don't see them pushing out for the goalkeeper to knock it down the middle all the time so there was good smart play in that. You had Hoolahan back in the team and he was absolutely outstanding and it shows you what a disgrace it's been that this player has not been playing for the past four years in the Irish team."

But John thought the defending was poor, although he acknowledged that the back four had never played together as a unit before and he also touched on the work O'Neill might do on set pieces.

John also thinks Robbie Keane is still heavily needed up front as Ireland wasted plenty of chances last night, but also likes many aspects of Shane Long's game.

Meanwhile, John also touched on England's decision to keep Jack Wilshere on the pitch after a heavy challenge from Denmark's Daniel Agger and assessed the impact of his injury on Arsenal over the next few weeks.