So Mickey, are you Wenger in disguise?
We have a few people who shout very loud and with great conviction
THE comparison is irresistible but Mickey Harte is not for biting. A cerebral leader who built and rebuilt Championship winning teams but, as a result of a lack of success in latter years, his future is now dogged with uncertainty.
‘Why, do you think I am,’ fires back a laughing Harte, when you ask him if he really is Arsene Wenger in disguise.
It is the question that won’t go away. Last autumn the Tyrone clubs voted down Harte’s request for a two-year extension to his term at the helm. After a bright start to the Allianz League, word had it that the Tyrone board would provide Harte with that comfort, there has been nothing but stony silence since.
If that invites a thousand questions – as has been the case with Arsenal manager Wenger who recently admitted it had become a distraction – but Harte insists he is not unduly bothered.
‘No, they won’t be asking me throughout the summer because the answer is very clear. It is as it is. We are in the Championship this year and we have a year’s work to do. That’s what we will be doing and we won’t be distracted or deflected in any other way.’
Make of that what you will, although the suspicion remains that relations between Harte and some in the Tyrone board’s leadership are, at best, tense.
That letter from an ‘anonymous’ Tyrone footballer to a national radio station back in March, suggesting that the board was too tight-fisted for the team’s good, hinted at as chasm between the county’s flagship team and its top officials.
It would suggest that Harte is playing for his future, but it is unlikely he will view it in those terms. A lengthy summer involvement, however, will strengthen his hand.
Retaining the Anglo Celt Cup is an obvious watermark which has to be reached, while beating – or even putting it up to – Dublin in an AllIreland semi-final would be a deal clincher.
There is a long road to be travelled before they get to that point and it looks all the more arduous after slumping at the tail-end of the Allianz League, losing their final three games to Donegal, Mayo and Kerry.
‘It is very easy to look at it that way but I don’t think it is as simple as that,’ he counters. ‘I think that we played well in our first four games and had seven points after that but I was very disappointed the night we went to Ballybofey.
‘We can’t overlook the fact that we had a very good game against Mayo where we did everything but beat them on the scoreboard. Had we won that game we would have ended up in the League final and had that happened would people be reflecting on us in the same way?
‘We have to look at it in a wider context and say, yes, we would be disappointed with the last three games in terms of the results but perhaps there was huge learning in them which I hope there was,’ suggests Harte.
The most obvious learning is that they have to start scoring. It has never been an issue when putting lesser teams to the sword – they racked up eight goals in beating Derry and Cavan last summer. But they keep drawing blanks when punching at their own weight.
That bellyache about their lack of cutting edge jars with Harte, yet the numbers hardly lie.
‘I think that’s part of the problem in the modern era of observing Gaelic football. We have a few people who shout very loud and shout the same thing with great conviction. And they almost believe that it should be the truth.
‘It is not the truth. We are very capable footballers. We have Gaelic football athletes all over the field.’
That much is true, but Harte’s issue is not a deficit of capable footballers, but of capable finishers.
It has forced him into thinking outside the box, not least in the deployment of All-Star midfielder Mattie Donnelly at full-forward during the League and how he sets up today will be interesting.
Their 11-point win last year over Derry, and the latter’s relegation to Division 3, places this as a no-contest, but Harte says that is far too simplistic.
‘People are suggesting that because Derry were relegated, because we beat them last year in Celtic Park, that this should be a repeat result,’ he remarks.
‘Some days you get away in the smoke, like we did last year in Celtic Park, but they are the exception to the rule, so we have to believe that this is a totally new and different year, a new and different game which will take on a life of its own, and we need to be totally ready for that.’
You can be sure he will be.