TIME TO TAKE A A GOOD LOOK INSIDE, BOYS
O’Neill feels Gibson and McGeady must do a bit of soul searching to stay in Ireland mix
AS A kid, Martin O’Neill’s club was Sunderland and his boyhood idol was Charlie Hurley, the dynamic Irish defender of the late 1950s and 1960s. The northeast of England club has never left the Ireland boss’s thoughts, even when they gave him the heave-ho as manager in 2013; he will derive little pleasure from their embarrassing tumble into League One.
That a cluster of Irish players – John O’Shea, Aiden McGeady and, on the periphery, Darron Gibson – contributed to the fall of the former ‘Bank of England’ club – so called because they used to pay hefty wages – will not have rested easy with him.
The veteran O’Shea is a fine player, and a fine character too, and when he announced his international retirement this week, O’Neill praised a ‘top class’ player of ‘good influence’.
Will he say the same of McGeady and Gibson, each of whom (arguably) harboured more natural talent than O’Shea, when they call it quits? Not likely.
When McGeady left Celtic for Spartak Moscow in the summer of 2010 as the most expensive export in Scottish football, neither O’Neill, nor any of the Bhoys brotherhood, could have imagined that eight summers later having just turned 32, he’d be heading for League One football.
In some ways, it’s handy that injury has denied him a Sunday return with Ireland to Parkhead, where he made 250 appearances, scooped four league titles, and won the Scottish Cup and League Cup twice.
The homecoming would have been anything but gladiatorial. McGeady may have made a mint from his time at Moscow, may have two European Championship finals and 93 Ireland caps on his CV, but his career, certainly at club level, never truly kicked on after his stint in green and white.
If anything, it regressed. He won nothing with Spartak, was hardly seen at Everton in the Premier League, and then left Preston after a decent season only to join a sinking ship at Sunderland. O’Neill has never left him out of a match-day squad, though, and even though he has become marginalised, he has still figured in 32 of the Derryman’s 46 internationals in charge.
McGeady is on course to become the next Irish centurion, possibly by the end of this calendar year as Ireland have eight more internationals to play. But it remains to be seen how much longer O’Neill’s loyalty to the twinkle-toed Glaswegian will last? In Navan on Thursday last, even his patience was starting to wear thin with a player he gave a Celtic debut to a couple of weeks past his 18th birthday.
‘It is not that long ago that Aiden was playing for Spartak Moscow in the Champions’ League. And now suddenly, if he doesn’t move away from Sunderland, he is going to be a League One player,’ observed O’Neill.
‘He has a lot natural talent, as much as I have in the squad to actually beat players, but you have to question if natural talent alone is enough to make you play at the highest level consistently. I’ve never been one for interfering in a player’s club situation, a player must see some things for himself. If he asks for advice, that’s different.
‘A player should always reflect on a season, and ask themselves questions such as, “Have you performed to the best of your ability?”. Aiden was part of a side that was relegated.’
McGeady beats defenders by stealth and cleverness; James McClean, in contrast, leans on physical intensity and a work-rate that is ferocious. And it is why O’Neill loves him.
‘Whether James plays well or badly for us, I don’t think anyone could say he could have given any more in terms of effort. He will do some daft things in the game, such as flying into something he should stay out of, but you never felt that McClean has left anything behind. That’s why I’ve got a great deal of time for him, because he wouldn’t have the same natural talent as Aiden McGeady. Not that many have.’
Arguably, Gibson has. With his range of passing, shooting ability and close control, he is the sort of player O’Neill might have built a midfield platform around. But a raw night in Glasgow in a Euro 2016 qualifier suggested otherwise and Gibson has hardly been seen since. At 30, he should be a mainstay of O’Neill’s current set-up. After all, this is a player who scored for Manchester United in a Champions League semi-final and a quarter-final.
At present, though, he hasn’t got a club while his last Irish cap came in the 2-1 home loss to Belarus prior to the Euro 2016 finals. While injuries held him back, the Derry native has pressed the selfdestruct button too often in his private life and his reputation, as a player and person, has been tarnished. (Gibson is due for sentencing at South Tyneside Magistrates Court in the UK on Friday, May 25, having been caught and charged with drink-driving for a second time.)
As O’Neill reflected on his plight, the admiration for his skills were evident, even if he spoke of him in the past tense.
‘Darron had the ability and the physique and while I am not saying he had phenomenal pace it didn’t seem to matter because he was able to control the football, he was able to deal with the ball very comfortable,’ said O’Neill, who recognises a large degree of unfulfilled potential.
‘If you asked Darron himself, he’d probably say, “look, I was inflicted with injuries”. There is more to it than that. You have to try and overcome these things. You have to try and get fitter and quicker for a start. You have to look inwards sometimes. It looked at one time, when he was at Manchester United, it looked as though it was going to happen for him.
‘Maybe the injuries got to him, maybe they were severe but at the end of the day you still have to look within. If those injuries have stopped you then there is nothing you can do about it but if there are other things that have stopped you, particularly if you have got the ability, then that is when you look inside.’ Even so, the door doesn’t appear to be closed for him. ‘I couldn’t dismiss it,’ said O’Neill. ‘If you said to me Darren is 34 or 35 but if he’s only 30, there is no reason in this day and age when players are coming to their peak at that time, why he shouldn’t be getting back to being a proper player. But it’s entirely down to him.
‘There’s a difference between a natural talent and your application to the game which was something I learnt as a player at Nottingham Forest when a manager (Alan Brown) didn’t fancy me, or John Robertson either,’ added O’Neill. ‘You have to come through that.’ With Wes Hoolahan retired, Glenn Whelan no longer first choice and James McCarthy likely to miss the Nations League games in the autumn following the double leg-break he suffered with Everton in January, there is every incentive for Gibson to find a club, find fitness and find himself again. Just as McGeady must find a way out of his Sunderland stagnation before contemplating trips to Wimbledon and Walsall.
Irish football stands to benefit if both players see the light.