GREAT BANE FOR IRELAND
O’Neill admits Eriksen is one of the elite but no need to make special plan for him
MARTIN O’Neill dropped into Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night to check out the fitness levels of James McCarthy.
The Republic of Ireland manager expected the Everton midfielder to be rusty after a lengthy lay-off, and to play for about an hour. On both counts, he was right.
For his next excursion to London, another midfielder will be in O’Neill’s sights, namely Danish midfield prince Christian Eriksen. Spurs play Real Madrid at Wembley next Wednesday in the Champions League and are at home to Crystal Palace in the Premier League at midday the following Sunday.
O’Neill will attend once, if not twice, for impish Eriksen is the Danish dangerman whose influence in both legs must be kept to a minimum if Ireland are to progress to the World Cup finals.
‘He has become as important to Denmark as Gareth Bale has to Wales. He is playing exceptionally well,’ acknowledged O’Neill yesterday.
‘If you are talking about Messi and Ronaldo being the two outstanding players in the world then Bale is in that group behind that includes Hazard, Bale, Suarez, Neymar people like that.
‘Eriksen in his last year, both for club and country, has put himself into that sort of category. I can’t pay him a much higher compliment.’
So how do Ireland curb this 25year-old waif-like figure who appears to play in a Tottenham jersey too big for him. ‘First of all, you have to get close enough so that he’s not running the show from difficult positions for us, in other words 30 yards outside our box.
‘If we can get to the stage in either of the matches where he has to go further back to retrieve the ball then the better for us.’
Whether McCarthy, if fit enough, or Harry Arter is asked do the spade work, O’Neill has a nagging suspicion that Eriksen’s dancing feet can evade capture.
‘If you’re thinking about manmarking a top quality player, these players extricate themselves from these difficult positions and that’s what makes them so good.’
What makes Ireland good is the collective. There are no Bales or Eriksens in the 34-man squad named yesterday by O’Neill, which will be whittled down for the first training sessions in Dublin on Monday week.
This is a blue-collar group of workers, who clock in and out for duty, leave nothing behind, and trust that sweat, blood and toil is enough.
O’Neill can see shades of the great Forest team he played for in the late 1970s. Take out Peter Shilton and John Robertson, and Forest ’77 could have been the prototype for Ireland ’17.
‘At club level at Nottingham Forest, we had a great, great spirit, a great manager (Brian Clough) but we also felt that we had players who could turn games.
‘I don’t say that we have that here at this minute, but we try and make up for a lot of things that we don’t possess. And there are a number of ways to try and win football matches,’ he said.
‘The idea is to try to cover up the weaknesses as much as you can and go for your strengths. One of our strengths – and don’t get me wrong, it does not get you everything – but we do have a great never-say-die spirit. It was very plain when we got the goal against Wales.
‘The boys were throwing themselves around, [Shane] Duffy was heading everything that was coming into the box.’
O’Neill felt Ireland got to Wales through sheer dogged will-power as much as anything else. ‘We had a great resilience not to concede a goal and also managed to impose our will on the game,’ he continued.
‘That spirit we have certainly sustained us against Wales. When we have our backs to the wall I think that we find something.’
O’Neill wants to ‘find’ a goal in the Parken Stadium on the night of Saturday the 11th. Should that happen as it did in the Zenica fog two years ago, Ireland could be ideally placed for one final combined heave in the Dublin return.
‘For us, the big moment in the match in Bosnia was the Robbie Brady goal. While I know we conceded a few minutes later, even so, that was great to have, going to Dublin. That [scoring in the a way leg] would be a priority for us.’
Like Ireland, Denmark know what it’s like to enter the last chance saloon, as they also contested the Euro 2016 play-offs. Unlike Ireland, who prevailed against Bosnia-Herzegovina quite comfortably in the end, the Danes were muscled out of it by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Sweden.
‘They’re definitely much improved from the two-legged play-off against Sweden. I know perhaps the difference between the two sides at that time was probably Ibrahimovic,’ said O’Neill.
‘I think the experience of being in the Euros, and of getting to the Euros, has been a plus for us. The lads know the World Cup is so, so important — we might never get there again — and the prize is so big.’
‘I think they [Denmark] would be concerned about us. We’ve got every right to be concerned about them.’