O’neill claims doubling up with Stoke and Northern Ireland will be ‘dead easy’

Cristiano Ronaldo (left) celebrates with Diogo Jota after taking his international goals tally to 99 and completing Portugal’s 2-0 victory over Luxembourg – a win which secured qualification for Euro 2020. Bruno Fernandes broke the deadlock in the 39th mi

Michael O’neill has hit back at the critics who claim he cannot “double up” by insisting it will be “dead easy” to prepare Northern Ireland for the Euro 2020 play-offs in March – and still manage Stoke City.

Northern Ireland, who face Germany in Frankfurt in their final Group C qualifier tomorrow, will discover who they face in the playoffs when the draw is made in Bucharest on Friday.

The situation has been complicated by O’neill’s appointment as Stoke manager, but he is adamant he can juggle both jobs and claims the worst thing for the Irish Football Association would be to bring in a replacement at short notice.

Stephen Robinson, the Motherwell manager and former Northern Ireland midfielder, is a leading contender to succeed him. But O’neill was defiant when asked after Saturday’s goalless draw with Holland if he had thought about how he would combine the two roles. “Dead easy, we’re going to turn up on a Sunday and play on a Thursday. I can pick my squad now, I could name it tomorrow,” he said.

Researching opponents was not a problem, he added. “Our opponents don’t play between now and then, they’ve already played. We’re not going to watch individual players play for their clubs, so the work we have on the opponents, we’ll have that well in advance.

“In this job, I could watch 40 games or two games and 99 per cent of the time, my squad will be pretty much the same, so people are making a lot out of this situation, which doesn’t exist.

“There’s nobody better than me to judge this because I actually do the job. To put a coach in with a play-off situation, with three days’ preparation, wouldn’t be fair to the players or the association because of what’s at stake. And it wouldn’t be fair to the coach to go and prepare. We know our best team.

“We have one or two players to come back in – Conor Washington and Jordan Jones – but the squad picks itself other than that.”

Northern Ireland

Booked Holland

Referee

Subs

Booked