Martin looking to begin playing a possession game
AS the Danes welcomed the media into their team hotel yesterday morning, the Irish squad were shored up in their ‘out of bounds’ billet in Dublin 15.
It was a shame as a cup of tea with Martin O’Neill would have been appreciated.
Only things have become very formal regarding access to the Irish manager and his players; the easy-going ways of the past are dead and gone, with Dave O’Leary in the grave.
The chat will wait until the prematch formalities today when O’Neill may be asked if he’s bought a ticket for the Euro Millions lotto.
Having dodged the class of Christian Eriksen on Saturday, he now avoids the bullet of Gareth Bale tomorrow, and Ethan Ampadu too, for the next round of Nations League games.
O’Neill bristles at any notion that he’d ever qualify as one of Napoleon’s lucky generals and tends to slap down talk of opponents missing players by hailing the absent Seamus Coleman as world class.
Coleman is a very fine right-back, an excellent captain, and a key player for Ireland, but world class?
Not many of them have peaked for Everton in modern times although Brazilian Richarlison figures in plenty of Fantasy Football teams this season.
While Coleman is first choice at right-back, O’Neill is not short of fine replacements, Cyrus Christie and Matt Doherty, who are also on duty in the Premier League.
More likely, an injury to Darren Randolph would cause O’Neill to fret more than Coleman.
As for Christie, in O’Neill’s eyes, he was Ireland’s best player against Denmark on Saturday night.
He was certainly willing as he stepped into an unfamiliar midfield position and plugged away pluckily to the end.
It was one of the more debatable aspects to O’Neill’s selection and strategy, and we can probably expect more tinkering tomorrow as Ireland chase their first competitive win in 12 months.
For a manager five years into the Irish job, O’Neill seems to be giving an impression he is starting out on a journey, not well through it. Listen to his post-match quote on Saturday night.
‘We’ve got Wales here on Tuesday and we obviously want to beat them. We definitely need to have more possession of the ball. Rather than have little pockets of that (possession); to extend that play is what I’m looking to try to do. Obviously, it takes a little time.
‘The overall picture is obviously the qualification games but, in the meantime, Tuesday is very important.’
He later said: ‘I think that we are trying to get ourselves prepared, the competition (Euro 2020) does start in March time and the draw is made in December.
That observation suggests O’Neill is already looking to the Euro 2020 qualifiers and has written off the Nations League after two games.
Maybe he has been told by the FAI hierarchy that’s fine with them too.
O’Neill made much of keeping the Danes at bay on Saturday, a job made easier by the absence of their sniper supreme, Eriksen.
‘We conceded four goals against Wales and I think that (being hard to beat) was important for us tonight as much as anything else. A clean sheet is a start.’
O’Neill is likely to shake things up tomorrow as he factors in fitness and fatigue into the quick turnaround.
Callum O’Dowda left the game in a groggy state and has been on the easy list since, so is unlikely to be involved, while Shane Long and James McClean were blowing hard after more game time then they’d been used to in recent weeks.
Callum Robinson, who has made a decent impression in a short space of time with Ireland, Aiden O’Brien, Shaun Williams could all come into the equation tomorrow.
What’s likely to stay is the threeman central defence as that allows O’Neill to flood extra legs into the engine from, where he feels Ireland can be found wanting at times.
‘For us at this minute, we probably need three players in the middle of the field.
‘Outside Cyrus (Christie) we might not really have the legs to play a 4-4-2. We’ve seen that before. So, we probably need three in the middle.
‘If we can get help from having the two wingbacks close to them, then fine. If they (midfield three) don’t get that help, then it can still be a long evening for them.’
Let’s hope Wales don’t make it a long evening for Ireland tomorrow.