EXCLUSIVE Kevin Kilbane on why O’Neill was offside with his strop
AFOURTH World Cup Finals without Ireland and it is going to feel like another long, miserable summer for our supporters. We would have taken second place at the start in what looked like a tough group but as it progressed, top spot was there for the taking because it turned out to be an ordinary group.
Now the dust has settled on last week’s two disappointing games, I can’t help but feel that the play-off against Denmark was an opportunity lost.
The Danes really weren’t that good. They were the better of two poor teams in a poor game in Copenhagen and they enjoyed a bit of possession for 23 minutes on Tuesday after we had gone ahead.
However, they were not a top class side. I didn’t see a team that was going to open us up and totally outplay us. I certainly didn’t see a 5-1 defeat coming.
The two midfielders, William Kvist and Thomas Delaney, were not great footballers. Pione Sisto is eye-catching and good on the ball but he was nothing special and I would love to have played against him. Nicolai Jorgensen looked like an average Championship No9 to me.
And then, to cap it all, Nicklas Bendtner came off the bench and scored a penalty in the last minute. At that point, you shook your head because it was a total disaster.
We didn’t have to score in the first ten minutes to win the game, it just so happened that we did. From then on, we sat back and basic errors cost us the match.
The first one, in particular, was a really poor goal and just down to basics. No wonder the manager was so disappointed.
When the first and second goals went in, the thought process seemed to be that we had to score immediately. But we were ragged before half-time and then the substitutions put us out of sync completely. In the end we had no cohesion in defence, which has been our greatest strength under Martin O’Neill.
Once the third went in, it was the most painful 35 minutes of football I have ever had to watch as an Ireland fan. It required something freakish from this Irish team to get through then.
Previously, when we have gone in front, we have dropped deep and defended but we were trying to do that as a diamond, so we were pressing in ones and twos, rather than collectively. It would invariably start from James McClean but we were not supporting him as a midfield unit.
Personally, I would not have gone with a diamond. However, O’Neill promised we would be more adventurous and more attack-minded. He was true to his word, but we were limited and exposed by playing that way.
O’Neill’s record has been decent across his reign. He has only lost four competitive matches. This was not a great campaign from a footballing perspective, but he got results and we should remember that we were the fourth seeds.
We all get too hyped up over the style of football, forgetting sometimes that needs must. But we have had the defensive structure to our side under several managers, not just O’Neill, mainly because of the calibre of our players.
What O’Neill cannot legislate for is the errors for the first goal. I don’t know any manager who can do that. And it must have been souldestroying on Tuesday night.
Not that it excuses his reaction after the game. I think there is a certain responsibility on the manager in his pre- and post-match press conferences, because you are directly addressing supporters and they want to hear a message that is clear and concise. And you’re not just talking to one person, it’s the whole nation.
While I do understand he had lost his head and just wanted the entire night to end as quickly as possible, he knows the score here.
No matter how good a manger has been or how good the results he has achieved, there will always come a time when they will receive criticism. Someone with an agenda will be looking to score points off O’Neill or will see an opportunity to address an issue with the Derry man.
But he has seen all this as player, coach and manager at every level over many years. And with that experience, it is surprising he has been so prickly for so long.
In both games, there was an edginess to the midfield and we hardly managed to pass the ball at all, and that really disappoints me. There was an unwillingness to get on the ball and assume responsibility. We couldn’t get hold of the ball and rarely created chances or put together any decent moves.
And when we were open, Christian Eriksen had a field day. He went where he wanted, picked his passes, scored his hat-trick. He was outstanding once he stepped up and started to play, but we definitely made life easy for him.
My gut feeling is that O’Neill will stay on. As for the alternative, who could we approach that would want the job? I know it pays well, which is why we have been able to attract the likes of O’Neill and Giovanni Trapattoni, but this is not a vintage Ireland squad, by any stretch.
We don’t have an Eriksen, or a Gareth Bale. We don’t even have lads in the top six clubs in the Premier League.
The only player who could probably play at that level is Seamus Coleman — and I think most of us expected to see Everton competing for a top-six place this season — but he is one player and he is a rightback.
The Donegal man is an excellent player and hopefully, when he makes his full recovery, he will
No manager in the world could legislate for the sort of basic mistakes which cost Ireland dearly
come back as good if not better than he was before. But he is not what you would consider a gamechanger.
We were always dreading Robbie Keane’s retirement. For five years, we were hoping someone would emerge to take his place, or that we could spread the goals through the team. With the exception of James McClean, who had a good campaign, Shane Duffy, who has come to the fore, and Darren Randolph who has played consistently well, it has just not happened.
Verbally, O’Neill has agreed to stay and he says his word is his bond. As he contemplates the last few weeks and months, he might decide he no longer needs this hassle in his life and he might look elsewhere, possibly for a club position.
Whoever has the Ireland job, it is a big one. We are sailing into uncharted waters and we may have to accept we will have another couple of barren campaigns before we can really compete and qualify again. No supporter will want that.