O’NEILL AND KEANE CALL IT QUITS ON REPUBLIC ROLES

MARTIN O’Neill’s five-year reign as Republic of Ireland manager is over after he yesterday agreed to step down from his role.

The Football Association of Ireland announced that they had parted company with the 66-yearold by mutual consent after a dreadful run of form and results which had seen his team win just once in nine matches during 2018.

O’Neill’s departure, along with those of assistant Roy Keane, goalkeeping coach Seamus McDonagh and assistant coach Steve Guppy, was confirmed in an FAI statement two days after Ireland ended a deeply-disappointing first Nations League campaign with a 0-0 draw in Denmark.

It read: “The board of the Football Association of Ireland have mutually agreed with Martin O’Neill to part company.

“The FAI Board will meet promptly to discuss the process of recruiting a new manager.”

The Derryman, who replaced Italian Giovanni Trapattoni at the helm in November 2013, took charge of 55 games and capped 65 players during his tenure, 28 of them for the first time.

He guided Ireland to the Euro 2016 finals, a run which included a famous victory over world champions Germany, and they beat Italy to reach the last 16 at the tournament.

The Republic also came within 90 minutes of this summer’s World Cup finals, after beating Wales 1-0 in their group decider, only to be beaten 5-1 in the second leg of their play-off against Denmark in November last year after raising hopes with a 0-0 draw in Copenhagen.

That drubbing at the hands of the Danes at the Aviva Stadium signalled the start of a downward spiral which had thrown O’Neill’s continued presence into doubt in recent months.

Perhaps more worryingly for , they have not scored a single goal in 397 minutes – approaching seven hours – of football amid growing dismay over the perceived negativity of O’Neill’s approach.