O’NEILL HOPES TO RESTORE EUROS’ JOIE DE VIVRE
After falling short of summer’s highs in France, Ireland should see off minnows
AS the ball zipped across the glistening surface of the Zimbru Stadium last night, and a couple of curious faces peered out from the windows of the adjoining high-rise flats, there was laughter in the icy air.
The mood among the Ireland players, split into two groups for their warm-up, was far jollier than the terseness of manager Martin O’Neill a few minutes earlier.
The Ireland boss has a habit of going into lock-down before big matches and he was in no mood for levity at his final press briefing.
Perhaps O’Neill was miffed at the media for the Harry Arter post-game ambush on Thursday night, or perhaps it was just his way of displaying how his focus was firmly on tonight’s World Cup qualifier against Moldova.
On the evidence of two qualifiers so far, the team O’Neill steered to wondrous heights in the finals of Euro 2016 – performances which he alluded to last night– has begun to appear becalmed.
Bogged down in Belgrade, they carved out a late leveller; all over the shop in the Aviva, they needed a fluke goal to snatch a barely deserved win.
Could they hit the rocks on their first visit to this land-locked corner of Eastern Europe? If they pick up where they left off against Georgia on Thursday night, it’s possible.
To see an Ireland team, funnel back in two lines of five deep inside their own half, clinging on to a 1-0 win at home, you’d have thought Germany were in town, not Georgia.
In a game where O’Neill demanded his players to mind the ball better, they regularly knocked it long, often aimlessly too, as possession was lost. There was an absence of the link play which characterised the finer moments of the Euro finals, and in the end, it was sheer spirit, and a slice of luck, which edged them away from embarrassment.
It was poor stuff, saved only by the result, upon which all managers are judged.
O’Neill has four useful points on the board and there is no reason another three can’t be tacked on tonight as a shock absorber ahead of the trip to Vienna on November 12.
Even with influential players missing, the hassle of a four-hour flight, and a quick turnaround, this should be a win for the visitors.
For starters, opponents Moldova are one of Europe’s filter feeders, ranked more than 130 places below Ireland in the FIFA table. Since 1996, they have finished bottom of their qualifying group four times, and second from last on five occasions.
In the 2016 Euro qualifiers, they managed to lose to Liechtenstein at home.
Only seven nations are ranked below them in Europe and, on cur- rent form, you’d expect Dundalk to put them away. So should Ireland.
The loss of Robbie Brady through injury and Jeff Hendrick through suspension is a double blow and has robbed O’Neill of two of his three Musketeers from France – Seamus Coleman is the other.
Growing in his role as Ireland captain (O’Neill said he was ‘born’ for the position), Coleman – 28 on Tuesday – called it straight as he sat beside O’Neill last night in a chilly room adjacent to the stadium.
‘The manager let us know on Thursday it wasn’t good enough. As players we knew it was nowhere near good enough,’ he said. ‘Ideally we would like to win games comfortably, at international level you’ve got to earn the right to play.
‘We’ve watched little bits on them (Moldova). They press well, work hard, you’ve got to earn that right to play. You’ve got to be winning comfortably but that’s not always the case. It’s all about getting three points at the end of the day.’
You sense Brady would have made capital tonight in the tight confines of the Zimbru Stadium with his dead-ball deliveries. With Aiden McGeady also missing, O’Neill had to work on new set-piece routines last night. For corner-takers, James McClean and Wes Hoolahan are two options, while Glenn Whelan has found the range from free-kicks before. Along with James McCarthy, Whelan is overdue a goal. As strikers live and die by the currency of goals, Shane Long will be eager to get off the mark in the World Cup in this, his third campaign. Long has run his legs to stumps in attack and is as brave as they come but the lack of a score, for anyone, since May, is starting to gnaw.
On the right flank, O’Neill has a call to make on Jon Walters, the 2015 Ireland Player of the Year, and O’Neill’s go-to guy in the qualifiers with five goals, all against decent teams.
By his high standards, Walters has been ordinary rather than extraordinary in the opening qualifiers. If selected tonight, he will be eager to make a statement of intent as much as anyone.
Outside of Long and Walters, O’Neill doesn’t have many attacking foils. He left Adam Rooney out of the match-day squad on Thursday and declined to say last night if he’d be on the bench tonight.
Should Ireland get their noses in front, they must look to press on as goal difference in the World Cup separates teams who finish level on points in Group D. Already, Wales and Serbia have split seven goals between them against Moldova.
For all their recent hesitancy, and the absence of Brady and Hendrick – and Arter, too – this should be a straight-forward three-pointer for Ireland, a chance to shake off those post-Euro blues.
After the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Matthew, it’s time for Hurricane Martin to start blowing a gale again.