O’Neill’s fate shouldn’t depend on fans’ mood
THIS IS no job for supporters. It is not their place to decide the futures of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane, but there is a chance it will be the mood inside Lansdowne Road, rather than hardheaded decisions taken in an FAI meeting room, that determines when the end comes for a managerial team that looks past the point of usefulness.
The best fans in the world designation is a status that some followers of the national team take very seriously indeed. And their yearning to be hilarious, likeable and above all else, noticed, reached its ridiculous climax at the European Championship in 2016.
They were the supporters shaped by social media, the gas tickets whose every move seemed an attempt to become an online story.
These are not the fans at issue here. It is, rather, the people who showed up last Tuesday night, and who will likely do so again on November 15 for the friendly against Northern Ireland.
Many will have been disgruntled enough by the performance and the result, before hearing that hundreds of free tickets were reportedly distributed in the days before the game.
Watching Ireland demands enough endurance; doing so after paying for a ticket while the person beside you got in for free must deepen the ache.
Martin O’Neill manfully suggested after the loss to Wales that the booing at the final whistle could have been directed at the match referee. It wasn’t widespread, and there is a possibility that those expressing their unhappiness had the match official in mind. But it didn’t sound that way.
Disgruntlement will spread, too, as long as results remain poor. Even the dedicated fans, those interested in the sport and the side rather than sousing themselves in beer and performing for the nearest camera phone, cannot be expected to stand for much more of this.
It is presumed that O’Neill and Keane will be left in charge for the qualifying matches that start in March, but that will surely be conditional on the two matches to be played next month.
The Nations League match away to Denmark on November 19 would seem the more important, and it could confirm Ireland’s relegation to the third tier of seeds for next year’s qualifiers.
But defeat to Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland four days before that, would thicken the powerful sense of decline around this regime. As matters now stand, nothing better than a modest crowd can be expected for the match. And a halfempty stadium could catalyse any thoughts of change within the leadership of the FAI into action. That is not certain or perhaps even likely, but decisions of this nature cannot be determined by the atmosphere in the bleachers.
There is enough evidence available to John Delaney and his board, should they wish to use it, to justify change. The point has been made in the days since that thoroughly dispiriting loss to the Welsh that change in Irish soccer should spread further than the dugout for international matches.
It is not an either/or situation, however. To suggest that changing the management of the national side fails to address more general failures in leadership, itself ignores the obvious deficiencies in Ireland’s performances over the past 12 months.
The team’s reliance on players struggling to survive in a British club system that has never been so competitive is not something for which O’Neill should be held responsible.
But Ryan Giggs was in the same circumstances, denied his two stars – plus a first-choice youngster in Ethan Ampadu – and forced to pick a side resourced by men largely drawn from teams in the Championship. Ireland had twice the number of Premier League players in the starting team that Wales had. Both squads are heavily dependent on England’s second-level clubs.
The yawning difference came in how the two sides played. Under the direction of Giggs, Wales are playing a bold, attacking style centred on maintaining possession of the ball.
Their limitations are obvious, particularly without Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, but so is their liveliness and the extent of their preparation.
Ireland were muted in comparison. But the Welsh showed that players who may be technically unadorned can be coached into coherence and even ambition.
At their best in the age of O’Neill, Ireland were very well drilled, and their first two qualifying series provided regular evidence of sides designed pragmatically but effectively. Even their obduracy is diminishing now.
The financial cost of paying up staggeringly lucrative contracts could be enough to delay a decision from Delaney and the FAI. But the need for change is clear. It shouldn’t be left to supporters to decide when it arrives.