FAI waiting on Russian fate before O’Neill talks
FAI CEO JOHN DELANEY believes Martin O’Neill is getting the best from Ireland’s players but the FAI have no plans to discuss a new contract with the manager until they know their World Cup fate.
Ireland are joint top of their group heading into the final four games and Delaney feels that automatic qualification is a plausible target. On the road to Euro 2016, O’Neill said that his future depended on getting to the finals. Delaney says that pressure came from the Derryman himself rather than the association. But he indicated yesterday that Abbotstown chiefs will wait to see how the autumn progresses before discussing the future of O’Neill and his assistant Roy Keane.
“It’s logical to leave everything until all the games are complete,” said Delaney. “There’s a lot of trust between the management and the association.
“That relationship is important and it’s a results business as well. At the moment things are good.”
“We could win the group, finish second for a play-off, third or fourth, it’s still very open. I genuinely feel the team is progressing very well under his stewardship.
“It would be wrong to say whether it (O’Neill staying) is or whether it isn’t (depending on qualifying) but my take on it and the board’s take is that he’s made huge progress for Irish football as manager, he got us qualified for Euro 2016, we’re joint top at the moment unbeaten in the group, Scott Hogan has declared, and we’ve got some good young players coming through that he’s developing.
“And he’s getting the best out of the players that are available to him and that’s the key thing for every international manager. Can he get the best out of the players available to him? Clearly he has. People have opinions about whether the team play in a certain style or what should be the starting XI, they’re all football opinions but I think it’s clear when you stand back – has he done a good job for Ireland? The answer is yes.
“But if you’re speaking to me about contract negotiations or any future negotiations, we’ll leave that aside until a clear picture evolves on whether we qualify or not.”