THE ONLY MAN FOR THE JOB
O’Neill is the most viable option to lead Ireland forward but freshening up his backroom and turning draws into wins are priorities
MARTIN O’NEILL is not, physically, a big man. He does not have the bearing that former athletes retain even as they, like he, journey deep into their 60s. His thin frame speaks to a careful and disciplined attitude that has survived retirement and middle age, but on Tuesday night he looked shrunken in defeat.
He was devastated, and for most of his brief press conference, there was none of the irritation that peppered his interview with the national broadcaster. At one point, though, he lifted his head and fixed those two penetrating dark eyes on the room. He had been asked if he agreed that he had been found out by the harrowing defeat to Denmark.
It sounded like a question designed to provoke, and O’Neill obliged. In little more than a bewildered whisper, he detailed some of his career achievements.
In his gloomiest time as Ireland manager, he had retreated to the past and sought the protection of his dazzling pedigree. One does not have to parse his public comments since succeeding Giovanni Trapattoni to understand how O’Neill uses his achievements, either to explain his methods or defend himself.
A two-time European Cup winner under one of the most lionised managers in the history of the game in England, who then made Leicester relevant before a wildly successful time at Celtic followed, O’Neill’s glories are not lightly weighed, by himself in particular.
It is to a more recent past that he might revert in these days of bruised contemplation. In his four years as Ireland manager, the team have played 28 competitive matches, winning 12 and losing six.
It is the number of draws, in that time, 10, that speaks to the big problem he will have in reviving his team, should he stay on for the next qualifying campaign.
The embarrassment of a 5-1 home defeat has consumed discussion in the days since, but Ireland have generally been durable defensively under his management.
The undoubted collapse to Denmark can be largely explained by the terrible decision to remove both David Meyler and Harry Arter at half time on Tuesday night, replacing them with an attacking pair in Aiden McGeady and Wes Hoolahan, neither of whom are renowned for their defensive obduracy. It was a calamitous call – but it was also an irregular one when set beside the manager’s decisions in games generally.
That there have been presumably serious calls for a change in management based on one awful decision suggests one of two things: either Irish soccer is now observing standards of such ruthless excellence that Brazil and Germany would quiver before them; or, as is more likely, the infantilised debate that deadens social media is now being passed off for serious analysis.
Those who have criticised the manager and his tactics for years at least have the merit of consistency supporting their case, but even his most ardent critic will have to concede that a change in management will not transform the national team.
Under O’Neill, Ireland’s six competitive losses have been to Scotland, Poland, Belgium, France, Serbia and the Danes. The defeats to the Poles, Belgians and French were, in their varying ways, predictable losses that didn’t admit much in the way of doubt.
Scotland, Serbia and Denmark are countries that Ireland should expect to compete with at the very least. The team recovered from that loss in Glasgow to finish ahead of those opponents and reach the Euro finals in France.
The defeat to Serbia in Dublin in September, coming after a soporific draw in Tbilisi, ruined what had been viable hopes of qualifying for Russia next year as group winners. But it was also the first time the team had lost a competitive home match under O’Neill.
That record was doubled on Tuesday night, of course, but two home defeats across two qualifying campaigns that included tests posed by players like Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller, Mesut Ozil and Gareth Bale should not be underestimated.
Ireland can muster nothing to even approach talents of such fame, but O’Neill is nonetheless castigated for not doing more, often by critics who argue there is more talent to be coaxed from this group. They invariably instance the job Michael O’Neill has done with Northern Ireland as proof. There were seven Premier League players in the Irish team that started the second leg against Denmark; Michael O’Neill named four in the team he picked to start their second leg against Switzerland.
But if the North were not humiliated in their play-off attempt, neither did they come close to reaching Russia. The penalty incorrectly awarded to Switzerland in the first leg at Windsor Park has coloured the fall-out, but the visitors were much the better team in Belfast, while Northern Ireland managed one, late chance to equalise in the second leg.
That does not invalidate the good work Michael O’Neill has done with the team, but they are not quite the Ragball Rovers assemblage of popular repute. In Jonny Evans and Steven Davis, they have two players who would be the most important in Martin O’Neill’s team, too.
The bulk of the squad is drawn from England’s Championship, and that is the source Ireland will increasingly draw on, as the emergence of young talent at Premier League clubs becomes one of those rare, blessed phenomena that light the sky once in a generation.
Incidentally, in their attempts to qualify for next year’s World Cup, Ireland and the North both tallied 19 points, with the latter winning six, drawing one and losing three of their games, while the former won five, drew four and lost one.
Again, it is the need to crack open draws into wins that is the obvious change Martin O’Neill must introduce; the North reached the playoffs thanks to wins at home against Norway and the Czech Republic, while draws with Austria and Wales in Dublin were as damaging as the September slumps against Georgia and Serbia for the Republic.
Ireland scored 12 goals in their 10 group matches, the lowest of any country that qualified or reached the play-offs. Interestingly, though, they conceded a mere six goals in those 10 games, a figure bettered by only five countries of the 54 that took part in European qualifying for the World Cup: England, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Croatia.
That number is again illustrative of the abnormal nature of the loss to Denmark. It was a humiliation, but it was also an exception.
O’Neill and Keane are the most glamorous features of an ordinary group
That is a salient feature of Tuesday’s dreadful defeat that is too easily overlooked. However, it cannot be used to dismiss criticism, either. Ireland plainly need to perform better offensively, but doing that without an infusion of notable talent is a forbidding challenge. O’Neill will hope that players like Scott Hogan and Sean Maguire perform and score consistently in the Championship in the coming months, and the truth is that hope remains a prominent detail in the plans of any Ireland manager.
Nonpartisan observers of the national team take a more benevolent view of O’Neill’s tenure than many indigenous sceptics, leavening his failures with the realisation that he has meagre talents available to him.
As his namesake across the border has shown, though, even modest squads can be fortified with drilling and sound tactics, and that brings O’Neill’s staff into focus.
Rather than changing the manager, perhaps John Delaney will wonder if the support staff around O’Neill should be freshened. Good managers, as Alex Ferguson showed, challenge their opinions and assumptions by a regular turnover of coaches.
Roy Keane would not be among any changes made by O’Neill, given how generously the manager speaks of his assistant and one doubts if the FAI would like to see Keane go any more than they would O’Neill.
One brutal fact is that the closest this generation of Irish soccer players gets to the elite level is through the manager and his No2. They are the most glamorous features of a doggedly ordinary collection, and this has relevance when one is in the business of trying to sell tickets for a glut of friendly matches next year.
Expect O’Neill to stay in charge, then, not simply because there is no better alternative, but because he deserves another go.
Tuesday was a disaster, but O’Neill will be backed to recover – and he will have no doubts he can do so.