Delaney and O’Neill off topic as Coleman laments club’s woes
BEFORE Seamus Coleman laid bare the pain of this season with Everton, there were some topics the Ireland captain simply wasn’t going to entertain in the aftermath of the 1-0 win over Georgia on Tuesday night.
‘I find them questions very difficult,’ he replied when asked what he felt was different under Mick McCarthy. ‘No harm to yourself but whatever way I answer it, it will be [a headline] … and I am not like that. I have respected every manager from my Sligo Rovers days to now and we had some great times under the last regime.
‘Now the manager has come in and everybody is eager to impress. It was positive tonight. Six points from six is all we can look forward to. But as I said I don’t want to be answering questions that look like a comparison and be making headlines.’
When the tennis ball protest from supporters was broached, and the Ireland captain was asked if he had a message for fans during the remainder of the campaign, he replied: ‘I don’t want to get into it. I don’t want to be making headlines. I want to play football.’
The last query of the evening centred around the more adventurous, aggressive style of play.
‘No, I know what angle you are coming from. Cheers, lads. Good night,’ he said politely.
And with that he was off, but in between that game of cat and mouse with journalists, there were some things he was more than willing to go into detail on. It seems to have escaped much notice since Tuesday night, but Coleman and James McClean were involved in a vociferous conversation at the final whistle. The Ireland skipper felt compelled to have a word after the winger attempted an ambitious cross into the box during the dying seconds of added time, rather than take the ball to the safety of the corner.
‘It was nothing,’ Coleman insisted. ‘Me and James could punch the head off each other for 90 minutes and we would come off the pitch being best mates. ‘Obviously I thought he could have kept the ball by the corner flag. We got away with it, but against other teams if you do that [cross ball into box] they could [punish you].
‘They are [important moments]. James was great all night and even myself I gave the ball away in dangerous positions. ‘You have got to learn from it. No disrespect to Georgia, they are a good team but maybe if Christian Eriksen picks it up in the hole it is a different story, so it is just about learning. We have played a long time but we still need to learn the game.’ With Ireland duty now parked until the Portuguese training camp in late May, in preparation for the next Euro 2020 double header with Denmark and Gibraltar the following month, Coleman’s focus now switches to club matters. And that is when his demeanour becomes strained. It is mostly the failures of this season that continue to linger with Coleman, particularly their FA Cup exit to Millwall in January. ‘Setback? To say the least,’ he sighed. ‘It is not a question of losing to Millwall and going home, putting the kids to bed and forgetting about it. I don’t know about every player, but it is still sitting with me. ‘Every year you are thinking “it could be our year”, but it is about doing it on the pitch. There is no game taken for granted, not that we did take it for granted, it was a tough night but when you are not on it you can be put out by anyone and Millwall put us out, so it still hurts ‘Watching Millwall get knocked out of the cup you are thinking “it could have been us, it could have been us”. Things like that hurt and I think as players, they need to hurt. If you have no ambition to win a trophy or whatever then you are wasting your time,’ Coleman, who was six when the club last lifted silverware in the FA Cup in 1995, continued. ‘If I don’t win something at Everton I won’t see my career at Everton as a massive success. It’s been good but it is all about winning for me… It is something that I take quite personally, maybe a little bit too much, but I want to win something at that club. ‘There was a lot of excitement going into the season and we have had good periods and very bad periods, but that is the way it is at the minute at club level. Everton is a big club and it is a tough club to play for and it is about time that we started showing that.’
‘MY EVERTON CAREER HAS BEEN GOOD BUT IT’S ALL ABOUT WINNING’