Armstrong hopeful O’neill will
The SFA’S approach to the Irish Football Association for permission to speak to Michael O’neill has the 48-year-old’s many backers within these borders heel-clicking with delight. Many are predicting that the process need only be a snap of the fingers away from concluding with O’neill succeeding Gordon Strachan as Scotland manager.
Such a scenario does not sit well with Gerry Armstrong. When set out to the former Northern Ireland forward yesterday – a man who has watched and waxed lyrical about the wonders O’neill has achieved in charge of his country as an analyst on Sky – he seemed to struggle to desist from employing a phrase regularly uttered on the streets of his native Belfast. The one that goes “catch yerself on”.
“I’d be surprised if Michael swapped one international job for another,” said Armstrong, who earned 63 caps and scored Northern Ireland’s most famous goal – the winner against hosts Spain in the 1982 World Cup finals. “I can understand him being attracted by a club job but I don’t think he will rush into anything. I can’t say I can get inside his mind but, even if I could, I’m not sure I’d find one that was entirely made up. He will take time to mull things over, I’m sure.
“I might not know what he’ll do next but I can say what he has done for us in the past few years has been fantastic.”
Armstrong lets heart dictate to head when it comes to O’neill. The thought of losing a coach who turned no-hopers into fearsome competitors is too much to bear. Yet if O’neill does depart now – and Sunderland, Rangers and the USA national team are all credited with an interest in him – it will be on the back of failure.
The World Cup dream was extinguished in Switzerland on Sunday night, the end of a remarkable run of odds-defying performances. The apex of which was reaching the knockout stages of last summer’s Euros.
Armstrong, though, sees what happened in Basel in an entirely different light. Framed, no doubt, by what happened to O’neill after he took charge in late 2011, as he sought to take the team to a first major finals since 1986. For one win in 18 games to give way, effectively, to progressing from three straight groups – the qualifiers for Euro 2016, their section in the tournament itself and then the World Cup qualifiers – has Armstrong swelling with pride.
“Think about Sunday. If not for that disgrace of a penalty decision in the first leg [that gave Switzerland a 1-0 win] it could have been all so different,” he said. “The Swiss are one of the form sides in Europe, hadn’t lost on their own patch since 2008, and yet against little Northern Ireland they were hanging on at the end, kicking the ball anywhere to get the nil-nil. A Northern Ireland with only four players of real note in Jonny Evans, Gareth Mcauley, Chris Brunt and Steven Davis.”
The fact that the West Brom trio of Evans, Mcauley and Brunt could form three-quarters of a real calibre backline gives an indication of the rock on which O’neill’s Northern Ireland success was built.
He would be faced with different challenges, and different strengths if he were to be tempted to take charge of a Scotland squad that painfully lacks in the centre-back areas, but has talented ball players in more advanced areas. That needn’t make for a disconnect in terms of what O’neill would inherit with Scotland because Armstrong doesn’t think he is wedded to a single approach.
“Michael developed a style of play that suited the players he had. It so happened they were defensive types,” said the respected pundit. “What Michael did so well is gel a
0 Gerry Armstrong: O’neill fan. group of players. Yes, he made his team difficult to beat but a big part of what they were good at was analysing the opposition for the weaknesses that made them beatable.”
His Scottish assistant Austin Macphee was central to that tactical groundwork and Armstrong recognis- es that O’neill and his team could have strong pulls when it comes to Scotland. Even aside from the matter of the SFA being prepared to double the £500,000-a-year salary he receives from the IFA.
“I appreciate that Michael lives in Edinburgh, that Austin is Scottish and works for Hearts, and that the other man in their team Jimmy [Nicholl] has a 30-odd year association with Scottish football. I know these guys will know the Scottish leagues inside out and that Scotland have been on the up in the past year with their results and performances.
“I get all that, but still I’d be disappointed if he went to another international job. The players love him, the fans love him and everyone on the Irish FA board loves him. I don’t want to think about where we’d go from here if we were to lose him, but if that did happen we’d all wish him well.” Oliver Mcburnie remains upbeat about Scotland Under21s’ European Championship qualification prospects despite a double-header disappointment.
Scot Gemmill’s side lost 2-0 to their Ukraine counterparts at Mcdiarmid Park on Tuesday night, when a goal on the stroke of half-time by Andriy Boryachuk was followed by a second in added time by Viktor Kovalenko as the home side piled forward in hope of a leveller.
The 1-1 draw with Latvia at the same venue on Friday night meant only one point from a possible six and left the Scots in fourth place in