O’SHEA FITS THE BILL PERFECTLY FOR WALES GAME
MAKE no mistake, the loss of Shane Duffy for the Wales game at the end of the month is a huge blow to Martin O’Neill and Ireland.
The Brighton and Hove Albion defender has established a very good partnership with Ciaran Clark and the pair have become O’Neill’s first choice centrebacks. Like Robbie Brady, who is suspended, he is now out of the Wales game.
That means that two of the players who started in the back four against Austria in the last qualifier last year are out. And it means that we will not have our best header of the ball in both boxes, and the player capable of some of the best set-pieces deliveries in the Premier League, to face the Welsh.
Clark and Duffy have been having very good seasons at the right end of the Championship and looking at promotion with Newcastle and Brighton. Duffy’s broken foot leaves O’Neill looking for a replacement.
John O’Shea, Richard Keogh, Paul McShane and Alex Pearce all come into the reckoning and I think O’Shea’s experience might give him the edge when the Ireland manager names his starting XI.
After the Euros, O’Neill persuaded O’Shea not to retire from international football, because he knew he would need him for occasions such as this. Essentially, he was always going to be used as back-up, either to start the occasional game or be used as a substitute to secure games late on.
He has a very similar role at Sunderland where David Moyes has recently praised him for bringing valuable experience to a struggling team. And despite Sunderland’s obvious problems again at the wrong end of the Premier League, he has been in good form recently.
I have no doubt that John has accepted these roles for club and country. Although his fitness will not be a problem, inevitably the body is not as powerful and mobile as you get older. But there is no substitute for experience and O’Neill and Moyes recognise that.
Especially for a game like this. The hype in the buildup will be off the scale and the pressure on the players from both sides will be immense. Not only has he been through it before, and knows how to handle it him-