Manager looked at his options, why haven’t FAI?

HOO boy, what a week it’s been. He’s going. He’s staying. He’s going again... It was hard to keep track at times. Every time you thought you had a handle on it the ground shifted beneath you.

We were sifting the tea leaves. We were waiting for white smoke and waiting for it in multiple locations. We were looking for it outside the boardroom at Stoke City. We were even looking for it outside the RCDE Stadium in Catalonia.

There were hours when we fretted on the whims of Quique Sánchez Flores. Probably it never once entered into Spaniard’s mind that he held the fate of Irish football in his hands, but hold it he did.

When he turned down Stoke’s invitation to become their new manager it seemed all but a fait accompli. Martin O’Neill was all set to leave international football for Premier League lodgings.

That would explain his reticence to speak to the press at Friday evening’s Soccer Writers awards, wouldn’t it? The Derry man was surely keen not to talk himself into a corner... or are we reading something into his refusal to talk that simply isn’t there?

After all he too turned down Stoke City. He was and is committed to the Ireland job. Nothing to see here, move along folks. Were but it that simple. It’s blindingly obvious that O’Neill was considering his options.

Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. It’s the way of the world. We’re not even quite sure whether he’s still under contract now that the qualification campaign for the World Cup has come to an end.

Why wouldn’t he talk – as he reportedly did – with Everton? Why wouldn’t he see what’s out there before committing to another two years on the Lansdowne Road touchline? It’s common sense really when you think about it, all of which brings us to the FAI and its chief executive John Delaney.

You’ve got to ask why they weren’t scoping out their options. You’ve got to ask why were they so committed to

Martin O’Neill when Martin O’Neill, evidently, wasn’t quite as committed to them.

If O’Neill was out there talking to clubs – as he was – why weren’t the FAI out there talking, discretely of course, to other managers or their representatives? Probably because they were afraid of alienating and losing O’Neill.

It seems pretty obvious that the FAI’s basic calculation remains the same now as when they entered into the verbal agreement with O’Neill in the first place and that, remember, was before the debacle in the World Cup play-off against Denmark.

The FAI remains convinced that O’Neill is the best man for the job. It’s not an unreasonable calculation. He got Ireland to the European Championships. He got Ireland to perform well at those championships. He got Ireland to a World Cup play-off. He got us into the lead of that play-off at home in Lansdowne Road.

On paper it’s damned impressive. Some of the individual results were hugely impressive too – we won on the road to Austria and Wales, we beat Germany and Italy in competitive matches along the way and O’Neill did all of this with what many people would consider a limited bunch of footballers.

Were it not for what happened after Ireland took the lead against the Danes in Lansdowne Road we’d nearly be sold ourselves, but we can’t just pretend that didn’t happen. We can’t ignore how bad it was. We can’t ignore how the Danish manager, Age Hareide, literally thanked the Irish team for the tactics they employed in the second half of that game.

“I was surprised really because I think they played in a diamond – the midfield – with two forwards, and our centre-halves can handle two forwards, but that gave a lot of space in centre midfield for Eriksen,” he added.

Eriksen scored a hat-trick in the game and to cap the humiliation Nicklas Bendtner rounded out the scoring for a one-five defeat on the night and across the tie. If that’s not enough to force a reappraisal of our managerial options going forward we don’t know what to say.

It’s not for nothing there wasn’t an outbreak of sturm und drang amongst the Irish football public while all this was playing out last week. Quite a lot of people would have actually been relieved to have seen O’Neill go.

Four years is long enough for any man to remain in that job. It’s the natural end of a cycle. After that it threatens to become stale and after a defeat like the one Ireland suffered last November the mystique is gone too. Giovanni Trapattoni’s standing never recovered from Euro 2012.

None of which is to say that O’Neill is a poor manager – he’s clearly a very good manager – none of which is to stay he’s done a poor job – obviously he hasn’t – it’s just that sometimes a change needs to be made. Maybe that’s what’s led O’Neill to flirt with Stoke City. It’s just a shame the FAI lack the imagination of their manager.