O’NEILL: WE HAVE TO BE FULL ON
Austria will be battle of wills to the finish, says Ireland boss
JUST before Martin O’Neill scarpered for the door at the end of his pre-match press conference, one final question was put to the Republic of Ireland manager.
‘Will you put your trust in Glenn Whelan to start the game?’ he was asked.
As the most capped midfielder in this country’s history, trust doesn’t come into it with the 33-year-old. You know exactly what he offers in front of the back four.
The question now is whether O’Neill still feels Whelan is capable of doing it sufficiently.
Not that the Ireland boss was going to get drawn into that debate on the eve of this World Cup qualifier with Austria.
‘I won’t be announcing the side until I tell the players,’ O’Neill responded sharply. That usually takes place when they arrive at Aviva Stadium an hour and a half before kick-off, so there will be some who went to bed last night tossing and turning about what’s to come.
Whelan was just one of the selection issues thrown at O’Neill, who seemed to confirm Jonathan Walters would be captain by bringing him to the pre-match media duties. Questions have abounded all week regarding the fate of Darren Randolph, the first-choice goalkeeper who has played every minute of this Group D campaign but finds himself being scrutinised having made a costly error of judgment for Uruguay’s goal last weekend.
‘You love the calls,’ O’Neill said almost scornfully when he had been pressed on whether he had one to make between Randolph and Keiren Westwood, who, for the record, played his last competitive game for Ireland against the Faroe Islands five years ago.
Harry Arter’s competitive debut came in the reverse fixture against Austria last November and produced a performance of antagonistic excellence to disrupt the flow of the opponents’ attacking threat.
He helped Ireland play with energy against Uruguay and seems certain to start today as one of the two central midfielders in a 4-2-3-1 formation. The Bournemouth man has a tendency to follow the ball like a dog chasing its own tail so he will need a disciplined figure alongside him. Whelan would seem the ideal fit, especially having worked well for 45 minutes last weekend before being taken off, but O’Neill (below) wants a physical presence in midfield. Jeff Hendrick could well drop in and O’Neill confirmed that he his favoured starting XI in mind. ‘I should have a fair idea by now,’ he explained, but stressed that regardless of whether Ireland open up a sevenpoint lead over Austria, qualifying for Russia is by no means within touching distance. ‘I can’t prevent what people feel about the games, how the group has gone. I’m not in control of that but what I am in control of is the team and how they feel about it,’ he added. ‘We saw aspects of it a couple of seasons ago here, almost to the day, when the game against Scotland didn’t go our way.
‘I don’t think there was any faith lost in the dressing room, which was really great and we knew it was going to be a tough task from then on. We do have a million miles to go, regardless of what people feel.
‘A big, big game against Austria. It’s not as if to say there are four points for this game and two for some other match. It’s three points again and a win for Austria puts them right back in the competition and a win for us gives us some sort of breathing space.’
Level with Serbia on 11 points, Ireland could break free for a few hours at least as they host Wales after the final whistle blows in Dublin.
The group has not yet entered must-win territory for O’Neill’s men but, as they proved at home to Germany during Euro 2016 qualification and then against Italy at the tournament, Ireland are capable of delivering when it matters.
‘Absolutely. That night the result was of great significance to us but it was one we knew at the very beginning that we couldn’t rely on anything else, we had to go and win the game,’ O’Neill said. ‘Sometimes when your mindset is like that it focuses you and stops you from thinking negatively. We have five games left, a big match for us and a big match for Austria and I think we want to be very positive.
‘I don’t think we would have got these points on the board without being positive so let’s not just fall into our shell.’
That happened when Georgia came here earlier in the campaign. A turgid, haphazard performance was rescued by Seamus Coleman’s first international goal and it was interesting to note O’Neill’s praise of the impact Arter made in Vienna after reverting to a central role having started the game on the left side of a diamond.
‘He started coming into the game a little more and we started to find our feet. Eventually it was a great win for us but it was never a comfortable win for us. Austria pressed us the whole way through.’
There are serious doubts as to whether the visitors will be capable of doing so again considering the plethora of absentees from their first-choice starting XI. Stoke City’s Marko Arnautovic is suspended along with Stefan Ilsanker. Goalkeeper Ramazan Ozcan announced his retirement in March for personal reasons while Alessandro Schopf (knee), Marcel Sabitzer (shoulder) and striker Marc Janko (angina) are the other key players missing.
Austria’s three available strikers have 12 caps and no international goals between them. Even left back Andreas Ullmer has made himself
unavailable as he is getting married and Bayern Munich’s David Alaba has just returned from a knee injury which ruled him out for three months.
‘They have the players to adapt to different systems,’ O’Neill stressed. ‘Alaba is a very, very talented player who plays for big, big club and one of at least four players who are capable of turning the game for them.’
On Friday, Roy Keane said Ireland were going to war but that Austria would fancy their chances.
‘Roy went to war every single time he played for about 14 years,’ O’Neill pointed out. ‘What he means is you’ve got have a really strong mentality and battle through the game. We have to try and do that, we don’t have the ability to carry players in the team.
‘We have to be really at it all the time. That’s one of our strengths.
‘If we drop off, we just can’t afford that.’