McCarthy favourite for Ireland job
MICK McCarthy is the front-runner in the race to replace Martin O’Neill as Republic of Ireland manager after his five-year reign came to an abrupt close.
O’Neill, assistant Roy Keane and their staff parted company with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) yesterday after its chief executive John Delaney had held talks with the 66-year-old in London on Tuesday evening.
The split had looked increasingly inevitable after a poor Nations League campaign which drew to a close with Monday night’s 0-0 draw with Denmark in Aarhus, during which Ireland failed to muster a single shot on target.
Poor results – Ireland have won just one of their last 11 games and have not scored in 397 minutes of football – and uninspiring performances in the last year have seen O’Neill and Keane’s stock fall.
And the boos which greeted the final whistle in last Thursday’s 0-0 friendly draw with Northern Ireland at a sparsely-populated Aviva Stadium are understood to have brought matters to a head.
The FAI is keen to make a swift appointment, with the draw for the Euro 2020 finals due to take place in Dublin on December 2, and, as one of the hosts, they do not want to be seen as presiding over a team in flux as Europe’s great and good arrive in the city.
To that end, McCarthy, who took the Republic to the 2002 World Cup finals in the Far East during a previous spell in charge, represents an attractive proposition.
He has a proven track record, already has a relationship with the FAI hierarchy and, perhaps more importantly to a governing body still paying for the redevelopment of the Aviva Stadium, is available without the need to pay compensation after leaving Ipswich in April.
McCarthy is by no means the only candidate, with Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers and Hibernian counterpart Neil Lennon having also been mentioned in dispatches, while Brighton boss Chris Hughton and Dundalk’s Stephen Kenny would have popular support.