Regan is in danger of staking too much on O’Neill
WHEN Michael O’Neill holds talks with the SFA over the Scotland job, he’ll be playing with the strongest possible hand.
Most people go for an interview with no idea if they’ll get the gig. Hoping to do just enough to see off the other applicants with a bump up the pay scale.
For most, there’s an element of self-doubt; a nagging concern that someone else will nick in at the last.
But the current manager of Northern Ireland has no reason to fret over Scotland’s commitment.
Or feel a pang of guilt about asking for a few grand over the going rate.
It’s pretty obvious now that there are no other candidates. An SFA sub-committee have assembled a shortlist with one name on the page. When O’Neill meets Stewart Regan and Co, there will be no one else in reception awaiting their turn with a CV in sweaty palms.
Regan couldn’t have made his desire to hire the Northern Ireland manager more obvious had he taken out a billboard on Belfast City Hall. Or laid on a private limo from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
O’Neill is numero uno. Out on his own. The main man.
In the name of self-preservation, the governing body will claim otherwise. Just in case.
Publicly, Regan says the SFA plan to take as long as necessary to get their man. Yet the fact they’ve made their move now, days after Switzerland eliminated O’Neill’s team from the World Cup play-offs via a dodgy penalty, should leave no one in any doubt as to their target.
Forget the reports of doubling O’Neill’s current salary of £500,000 to seal the deal.
Scotland haven’t qualified for a major tournament since 1998. SFA board members wouldn’t pay £1million a year for Pep Guardiola if he pitched up on the Hampden steps in a See You Jimmy bunnet. It’s a part-time job and Scotland have no competitive games until September next year.
But that doesn’t change the fact that O’Neill now has every right to go in asking the earth.
To start negotiations with a seven-figure salary demand and work his way down.
An intelligent man, he’s been in football long enough to know an open goal when he sees one.
If Northern Ireland come back with a bumper pay rise and yet another new contract, no problem.
He can go to the SFA and use it as a negotiating ploy.
And with Regan and his cohorts seemingly hell-bent on getting him, they’ve left themselves precious little wriggle room.
Legitimately, people will ask if O’Neill is really worth more cash than his Coventry City mentor Gordon Strachan.
But O’Neill took a team to the last European Championships. Strachan didn’t.
He already has his base in Edinburgh. And, as a former Hibs and Dundee United winger who began his managerial career with Brechin City, there’s no chance of a culture shock.
Neither will the lack of solid, hardened Premier League defenders with a Scottish birth certificate unduly trouble him.
Much has been made of Jonny Evans and Gareth McAuley providing the kind of Northern Irish spine Scotland simply don’t have. But McAuley turns 38 in a fortnight and won’t be around much longer. Hearts veteran Aaron Hughes is the same age and played in half the World Cup qualifiers.
A pragmatist, O’Neill adopted a direct, up and at ’em style with Northern Ireland because he didn’t have too many alternatives. When he looks at the pool of players available to Scotland, he sees plenty. More, at least, than an ageing Northern Ireland squad closer to the end of the journey than the beginning.
Chances are Scotland will reach Euro 2020 because it’s easier to qualify than miss out. And with two ‘home’ games at Hampden already guaranteed if they get there, the new man has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not only to take the national team back to their first major finals in 22 years, but to make history by becoming the first to take Scotland past the group stage.
O’Neill knows all this. He also knows how much the SFA want him.
Compensation isn’t an issue. The question, now, is whether the SFA can meet his salary expectations. Frankly, they can’t afford not to. Chief executive Stewart Regan has pretty much stacked all his eggs into one basket. Fail to get his man now and they’ll finish up scrambled all over his face.