GUTS NOT ENOUGH FOR GLORY
Ireland’s attitude is not in question but lack of scoring threat could kill hopes of a place in Euros
GLORY is always just around the next bend, the far side of that hill, over the horizon. Mick McCarthy’s Ireland have spent a year in pursuit of the performance and the victories that the manager insists are coming. It is a year to the day since his return to the biggest job in Irish soccer was announced. And much of the time since has seen McCarthy greet results and performances of contrasting hues, with the demeanour of a man who planned for all of this.
Hence his conviction of recent days that, if Ireland play like they did against Denmark, the play-offs will prove a fruitful diversion on the road to the Euros next summer.
Slovakia won’t know what hits them come March, apparently, and then the unfortunate winner of Bosnia versus Northern Ireland will be next to feel the wrath of McCarthy’s marching men.
This is of a piece with a statement he fell back on towards the end of qualifying, to the effect that if you’d told him a year ago Ireland would be where they were on the particular day he was talking, he’d have happily taken it.
He said this after seeing his team lose away to Switzerland following an often dismal performance that illustrated a startling chasm in quality between the teams.
When, days earlier, they had drawn a dismal game against Georgia, he announced he’d have taken four points against these modest opponents had Ireland been offered it at the start of qualifying.
So the manager nourished this sense that Ireland were in a position that gave him great satisfaction, that they were building towards a decisive intervention in qualifying for Euro 2020.
And to his credit, for almost 73 minutes last Monday, the team played as if they were about to secure the result that would have consigned much of the utilitarian puffing of recent months to history.
Ireland managed their best performance of the campaign in the game that mattered most – and yet still they couldn’t take the victory.
This is where the bravado of McCarthy and the optimism of his players after the Denmark game fails to convince.
The numbers bear repeating: Ireland scored seven goals in eight qualifying matches.
The only countries to manage fewer were Bulgaria, Montenegro, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, Gibraltar, Azerbaijan, the Faroes, Malta, Latvia, Andorra, Moldova, San Marino, and Liechtenstein (the last seven named played in six-team groups, and so played two qualifiers more than Ireland, who were in a five-country one).
Ireland were in the lowest scoring 15 teams of 55 trying to qualify for Euro 2020. Fairness insists that Ireland’s excellent defensive record is noted here, too: they conceded five goals in their campaign.
That’s a figure bettered only by the Ukraine, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Belgium and Italy.
Ireland were reliably Irish, then: resolute, difficult to get around, but their inadequacies were most marked in the area of the pitch that settles games: in attack.
These flaws were clear on Monday, with Conor Hourihane and David McGoldrick missing good chances to score.
The better sides take most of the clear opportunities that arise, and Ireland’s enduring failure to do so, for years stretching back towards McCarthy’s first time in charge, is why they are a middling international team.
A goal difference of just plus-two in a group that contains Georgia and Gibraltar is way off the standard required. The Georgians had a goal difference of minus four but the Gibraltarians’ figure was minus 28. Only two countries, San Marino and Liechtenstein, had worse goal differences than that.
That gives an indication of Ireland’s defanged forward play. It can feel mean to raise these figures given how admirable a performer McGoldrick has been, but he is an Irish centre forward in the classic model: he runs and harries and closes defenders down. He can hold the ball up very well and some of his lay-offs to bring team-mates into the game are perceptive.
He doesn’t take enough chances, though – and he is the best available to McCarthy (left).
Aaron Connolly’s absence through injury weakened options further, and if there could have been an argument made for flinging Troy Parrott into the closing moments last Monday, it is important to remember that while Ireland chased the game, they did so through long balls going into the Danish area.
After Matt Doherty’s equalising goal, Shane Duffy was running back into his own half for the Danish kick-off when he caught McCarthy’s eye.
Duffy gestured back over his shoulder towards Kasper Schmeichel’s goal with his thumb.
McCarthy responded with vigorous finger-pointing in that direction.
The message was unmistakable, and so Duffy stood on the half-way line as the Danish re-started the game, then galloped into duty as an auxiliary forward for a last 10 minutes that rattled with tension but no clear sight of the Denmark goal. The fans loved it.
There are few sights more energising in a soccer ground than seeing a big central defender sent into the forwards as a desperate measure in the search for a goal.
Nothing came of it, and if it reeked of desperation at the time, it was also a logical call by McCarthy.
Duffy is an outstanding header of the ball, a bear of man whose power is hard to repel in a penalty box. But the tactic is predictable and it produced nothing, which is what mostly happens in such circumstances.
So on the night that Ireland did a good deal well, a familiar failure did for them. And while there will still be sporadic talk of maintaining the form of this week and carrying it into the qualifiers like a standard, those fighting words are not plausible.
The defiance showed at Lansdowne Road was rousing, but there is no good reason to regard it as anything other than a one-off.
Of course, the attitude and the application will be reliably robust in the play-offs, but the gaps in quality in the side will not be easily corrected – and this is especially true in the matter of scoring goals.
Connolly should have played more matches in the Premier League by the time we reach the end of March, but were Brighton to slip into the maws of a relegation struggle in the spring, then the pressure on a young forward to keep his place in a squad with more experienced alternatives, would be intense.
Parrott might have inched into the Spurs team by the time thoughts start to bend towards March, but his club career is in the midst of its first tumult with the sacking on Tuesday night of Mauricio Pochettino and his replacement by the most divisive
‘THE BRAVADO DISPLAYED BY McCARTHY FAILS TO CONVINCE’
figure to have worked in English soccer in a decade. The departed manager helped Parrott’s career, but his replacement will have priorities of his own – and a record of complete uninterest in young talent.
For a rising player on the outskirts of the first-team squad, the appointment of the former Chelsea and Manchester United manager is not encouraging.
Mourinho is not a man much impressed by or interested in youth team promise. More dazzling breakthroughs than that of Parrott have been ignored by him.
The point is that nothing is certain. There are no guarantees, so the hope expressed by player after player last Monday night, that they will take the good display they had just produced with them into the play-offs, was no more than wishful thinking.
Even as they said the words, it sounded like a team trying to convince themselves.
Injuries occur. Form dips. Players lose their places.
The uncertainty buffets more than the young, too. Glenn Whelan was outstanding against Denmark, and the past 12 months have featured some of his best displays for his country.
But he turns 36 in January, and the grind of a Scottish winter awaits the Hearts midfielder.
The Sheffield United contingent in the team might be distracted by club worries, too. Their team are thriving now, but the league season is a long and gruelling one and the rate of matches between now and January means form is constantly under stress.
That has repercussions for national team managers.
Therefore the contention that Ireland are now to be feared because they managed 70 good minutes after a run of flaccid displays, is one that even the squad will struggle to believe as the adrenaline leaves them following the Danish draw.
Hope and guts and the memory of the good days and the conviction of Mick McCarthy that a big day is coming: these provide the armour plating for Ireland when they prepare for the battles of the spring.
We all know what’s coming – and we have reason to believe it won’t be good enough.