NICE ONE GORDON NOW WE KNOW YOU’RE WORRIED

GORDON STRACHAN is happy to fight dirty and Mart i n O’ Nei l l should be delighted. Ireland are relevant again, and the proof of it was Strachan’s attempt to justify the boos certain to hound James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady on Friday night.

This is a match of major importance. It could decisively tilt the campaigns of both countries in qualification for Euro 2016. It is precisely the kind of huge event that the Irish team has been removed from, and it is the stage to which O’Neill was charged with returning Ireland.

The match will be the point, and that is a novelty for the Irish team. Too often in recent years the 90 minutes of action have intruded on vexed, exhausting debates about non-selection (Stephen Ireland, Andy Reid) or managerial controversy (Stephen Staunton, Giovanni Trapattoni), with the drama strictly confined to press conferences as the games themselves dribbled into irrelevance.

Not this week. This week, Ireland supporters get to feel the prickling tension and the buoyant excitement of fans with a reason to cheer. Even the cack-handed ticketing distribution for this event cannot obscure the point: Ireland are centrally involved in a prime-time qualifier.

The Scotland manager knows it, which is why he was phlegmatic about the certain booing of t he Scottish-born duo McCarthy and McGeady.

‘As long as it is pantomime humour then we don’t mind that. If it goes beyond that then that’s not fine,’ said Strachan. Booing is unpleasant but common, and the booing of a bigot sounds exactly the same as the ‘pantomime’ booing he alludes to, which must be a regional Scottish variant devoid of nastiness.

There will be hate-packed idiots abusing the Irish pair throughout the match, and trying to argue there are degrees of booing is nonsense. McCarthy and McGeady should not be greatly bothered, but the attempt at Jesuitical argument by Strachan betrayed his anxiety.

Scotland are three points behind Ireland in Group D, and a win for O’Neill’s men would cause serious damage to the ambitions of the home team. Both countries have home games against Germany and Poland in the six qualifiers remaining after next weekend, but Scotland have three home and three away matches, including trips to Dublin and Georgia, whereas Ireland have four home fixtures and two away ones.

Ireland have the trickier conclusion, with a home game against the Germans and a trip to Poland, while the Scots host the Poles before visiting hapless Gibraltar. However, Ireland have plausible grounds to believe they can collect six points from their September double header, when they play Gibraltar away before the Georgians visit.

The Scots have to go to Georgia and then play the Germans at home on those dates, and four points looks their limit. The stand-alone fixtures next year see Ireland host the Poles in March, with Gibraltar in Scotland, before the Scots and Irish meet in Dublin in June. That has the potential to be important – but only if Ireland let it be. They can scuttle the Scots in five days’ time, and in a pool this claustrophobic, they must do.

Ireland, Scotland, Poland and Georgia are contesting two places: the second automatic qualifying place and third, which guarantees at least a playoff. Poland top Group D with seven points, ahead of Ireland on goal difference. The Germans are third on four points, the same total as Scotland, with the Georgians gathering three points from their first three games to place fifth.

Germany will right themselves, with the reaction to defeat against the Poles and a draw with Ireland slapping them out of any World Cup hangover. Joachim Low will see his injury list shorten and their place as group winners still looks sure.

It is the squabble below them that fascinates, and under O’Neill Ireland have shown their ability to squeeze points from tight quarters. They did it in Gelsenkirchen but more importantly they did it in Tbilisi, when they won at the expense of a direct rival, triumphing while harming the Georgians.

That is what they can do in Celtic Park: not only win, but mortally wound the Scottish while they are at it. Strachan needs every advantage going and if that includes an atmosphere stoked to hostility by a loathing of McCarthy and McGeady, he will take it.

They are grown men, familiar with the blind spots of supporters. Booing should not cause anyone’s hair to turn grey with shock, but it was instructive to see Strachan grasp so early for leverage.

He is no fool. He understands what this match means, and O’Neill will know it as well. Ireland fans, meanwhile, should savour it. The last time the national team were involved in a contest of this significance was June 10, 2012.

It was their opening tie of the European Championships against Croatia and the sense of occasion lasted 49 minutes. That was the time it took the Croatians to score their goals in a 3-1 win that neatly and brutally exposed Ireland’s technical and tactical inferiority.

THE REST of that tournament was one long tooth pull, and expectation did not last long in the qualification matches for the 2014 World Cup, either. That campaign was dismal with the most heat generated by rows about Trapattoni’s future following the 6-1 pulverising Ireland took from Germany.

O’Neill has rescued Ireland from those abject days, thanks to rigorous preparation and unapologetic pragmatism. He has no time for the absurdities that pass for analysis in some studios, and results justify him.

Results justify anything. Strachan will therefore explain away the howls of a mob, because he cannot afford to overlook any possible circumstance advantageous to his team. They are under pressure, the kind of pressure only major sporting contests can inflict.