Hendrick’s challenge to become true game changer
ON HIS way home from watching Preston North End beat Sheffield United 1-0 at Bramhall Lane last Saturday, Martin O’Neill switched on the BBC Radio 5 Live show cohosted by one of his former players.
‘Somebody phoned in to Robbie Savage criticising the team. You think “that’s very quick after the game”. But he wasn’t at the match. He actually admitted that he wasn’t at the game,’ the Ireland manager recalled, before continuing his point about the need for an immediate reaction.
‘In terms of media now, you’re talking about doing interviews straight after the game. Social media, you can be hit with anything. You just have to get on with it. It would be interesting to see how older managers, the great managers of the past, would have dealt with all that. Whatever you have to face now, those managers didn’t.’
O’Neill’s tetchy relationship with RTÉ’s Tony O’Donoghue is well known but during his early days as manager of Leicester City, when results were poor and criticism from the club’s supporters was fierce, the Derryman was able to emerge from the long grass once success arrived.
Some wrote letters which he kept in his desk and O’Neill never forgot. ‘It was nice to ring them up. I think I might have rang after we’d got promoted, or was it when we’d won the League Cup the next year?’ O’Neill recalled at the launch of the 2018 SportsDirect FAI Summer Soccer Schools earlier this week.
There was criticism following the manner of the World Cup play-off defeat to Denmark, while the delay over signing a new contract and his talks with Stoke City, has also seen O’Neill’s popularity plummet among some.
‘If you ask most managers, and they give an honest answer, then I think criticism does motivate you. Particularly if you feel the criticism is over the top.
‘You have to accept it. If you get praise for winning some games, then accept the criticism when it’s going the other direction.’
All of which can be said of both Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick, who face problems of their own as the Premier League campaign comes to a close. Sean Dyche’s side have qualified for the Europa League qualifying stages ahead of today’s game with Arsenal at the Emirates and the two 26-yearolds have had contrasting seasons.
While Brady’s recovery from a knee injury, which has ruled him out since December 2, is going well, he will not be involved in any of Ireland’s games this summer.
Hendrick, too, has been shunted out of Burnley’s starting XI for the last five league fixtures as Dyche has gone with two strikers rather than using the Dubliner in a supporting role from midfield.
The two Dubliners were aiming for big things at the start of the season, even sacrificing some of their own holiday time to train together while at home last summer.
Injury has wreaked havoc with Brady’s first full season at the club and Hendrick’s appears to be petering out, having scored twice in the league before the turn of the year.
‘I think Jeff has to now go and kick on,’ O’Neill feels. ‘It’s been a great season for Burnley, not too bad for Jeff but sometimes I think Jeff feels he can do more. From the way he performed for us a couple of seasons ago, then absolutely.
‘If you’re left as that player off the striker, in that roving role, then you’ve got to be making goals and scoring a few as well. Burnley seem content with him and that’s fine.
‘Sometimes, from my own viewpoint, Jeff has the ability to do more in matches. If he is a major player for you, then we need our major players doing more to try turn the tide of matches.
‘Robbie and Jeff had a wonderful tournament out in France. If you take the Belgium game out of it, I thought they were excellent. Sweden and, for Brady, the great goal against Italy. I thought for long periods the performance against a France team that had three or four days extra rest than us, all of those things were great.
‘Sometimes coming back, you think that you’re ready for the season when actually you’re really dead tired. Pre-season comes immediately so you’re not physically or mentally prepared for it. You need a wee bit more time. I had it myself when I came back from the 1982 World Cup and it seemed I’d only had 10 minutes [break] before doing heavy pre-season with Norwich City.
‘I was 30 years old and thought “I really don’t need this”. You stutter in the first few weeks of the season and if you’re not off to a great start, it catches up with you. I think that’s what happened to Robbie, he went back to Norwich and got the move to Burnley.’
They have both shown glimpses of their talent but as they approach the back nine of their Twenties, both must find consistency.
I definitely wouldn’t disagree with that. Sometimes that can happen. I’m talking generally here in that you can be consistent for your club for a host of games and then play intermittently for your national side and not get a kick. Yet, it can happen conversely.
‘We need to improve on aspects of the game if we’re trying to qualify for the Euros. This opportunity in the next couple of weeks for experimentation but not wanting to lose heavily. You want to try win something and retain some elements of the game that you know we’ll need for September and October.’
Criticism won’t be slow in coming if improvement isn’t quick.