MANAGER FLUFFS SIDELINE CALLS
Decision to omit all-time leading scorer may return to haunt Ireland
THE MOOD was melancholic, if not quite menacing, as a regiment of Republic of Ireland fans slipped out of Glasgow at dawn yesterday on a red-eye Dublin-bound shuttle. Voices were hushed, some of them hoarse, as reflections on the night before unfolded.
Perspective was needed as word got around of the death of a 22-year-old Scottish supporter at the game, after a fatal fall down a Celtic Park stairwell. In this Irish platoon, at least everyone was going home, in one piece. One fan, speaking calmly, blamed Irish manager Martin O’Neill for setting his team up not to win. ‘When you play for a nil-all draw, it’s like Russian Roulette,’ he said.
Another was scathing of Ireland’s safety-first approach. ‘We never got the ball down and tried to play. It was all long ball stuff,’ he said.
The negative vibes were understandable as Ireland had just lost an argument to their noisy neighbours and conceded vital ground in the quest for a place in the Euro 2016 finals.
While fiercely contested, Friday’s derby duel was a technically inferior qualifier, pock-marked by broken play, hoofed balls and repeated errors. It was decided by a set-piece play 16 minutes from time, initiated and executed by Shaun Maloney, one of the night’s better performers.
From O’Neill’s perspective, it was a goal which could easily have been avoided, as his post-game manner indicated.
‘Games now, at whatever level, are being decided by set-pieces. That’s how tight they are. The disappointing aspect from our viewpoint is that it wasn’t something [a corner] they [Scotland] took quickly. We had about six seconds to get into cover positions and go out and deal with it. They had two men out [at the corner], so first of all we should have two men out; we didn’t.’
While O’Neill felt his players switched off for those vital moments, the 1-0 defeat has placed the manager under scrutiny regarding his selection − which was disrupted by injury − and match strategy.
O’NEILL defended his contentious call to drop Robbie Keane, even though his line-up contained two out-and-out strikers, off neither of whom Keane would have enjoyed feeding. A month ago against Germany, Keane was picked on his own up front for a game where Ireland didn’t need to score, yet on Friday was left out for a game where a goal was needed as the game was there for the winning.
It was a huge call but O’Neill’s instincts told him to trust the Shane Long-Jon Walters combination, even though they were untested as a pairing despite starting the game with 78 caps between them.
‘I just thought with Jon Walters, he can play in a number of positions, he plays wide for Stoke, he played wide for us in Germany, and I thought we’d start him up there,’ he said. ‘I think Scotland probably wouldn’t have been expecting us to play the two men up there. I thought he (Walters) was getting joy early on; he was causing them a few problems. He won countless balls in there, sometimes when he didn’t have a right to do so.’
O’Neill also felt the inclusion of Long might yield a profit through the Southampton striker’s pace.
‘Shane’s ability is trying to stretch sides and I thought if they (Scotland) were going to play a little bit further up the field, that was exactly what we could do with, if we could have the armoury to put him in on goal once or twice.’ In an indirect criticism of the Irish forwards, he continued.
‘I think what we can do is improve our hold-up play. It’s alright sending balls in that direction but when it’s played into you, this is what is important, to try to get hold of that ball because everything evolves from that.’
On a night of half chances, the presence of Keane, on a ground he knows so well, might have made a difference. As it was, it was too little too late when he was called upon. At least Keane was available, unlike James McCarthy, who missed a second successive away qualifier but whom O’Neill expects to play for Everton next weekend.
O’Neill made the startling admission that he’d have probably taken a chance on McCarthy’s fitness had it been a club fixture.
‘At club level, I think we could have afforded to risk him in the game,’ he said. ‘I know as a club manager, if you think that a scan is clear on a certain day, then you would have to really give that (a player’s selection) consideration, maybe more than we were able to.
‘But psychologically, I think it’s important too that the player feels it’s alright. That’s always a consideration too.’
Asked was McCarthy’s club position a ‘consideration’ on Friday night, O’Neill didn’t demur.
‘James was getting better every single day and I’m quite sure he’ll be available to play for Everton next weekend. We were hoping that James might have been able to have done something, it was important for him that he did some work on Thursday and it wasn’t to be the case so we thought “well, we must leave him now because he might last two minutes in the game”.
So did O’Neill suspect that McCarthy was reluctant to face Scotland, and the wrath of Scottish fans, in his home town?
‘Oh, no, not at all. ‘I think James wanted to play. Absolutely,’ said O’Neill.
After Tuesday’s friendly with the United States is out of the way, O’Neill will turn his thoughts to the first of four home qualifiers in 2015, against Poland on March 29.
Having witnessed the throaty roar of the Tartan Army at Celtic Park, O’Neill would love to crank up the revs in Dublin for the remainder of the campaign.
‘The Aviva on Tuesday night will be totally different to the Aviva against Poland,’ he said. ‘It’s probably up to us to try and get an atmosphere going; we’ve got to try and sustain it and hopefully then the crowd will draw something from it all.’