Little hurry for O’Neill to seek exit while Irish eyes still smile
MICHAEL O’NEILL namechecked former Northern Ireland assistant coach Stephen Robinson when recently discussing his reluctance to dive headlong into the madness and materialism of club football.
O’Neill used Robinson’s plight at Oldham Athletic — where he was fired after just six months in charge in January — and the sacking of Gary Rowett at Birmingham City weeks earlier to highlight the point.
The fee to trigger O’Neill’s IFA release clause is £750,000 for English Premier League clubs and slightly less for Championship sides such as Norwich City who held informal talks with him last month.
‘What price happiness?’ though, asks Motherwell manager Robinson.
That’s why he always tells Edinburgh-based O’Neill that he would be ‘crazy’ to leave the love of Northern Ireland.
‘I can’t believe the English Premier League hasn’t called for Michael,’ said Robinson.
‘Yes, it would be detrimental to Northern Ireland, but he deserves it.
‘I say to him all the time that he’d be absolutely crazy to leave. He has a life. It’s not every day of the week, although Michael makes it every day of the week because of his work ethic.
‘Club football takes up your life and your family’s life. Michael is shrewd, clever.
‘He has lived on the outside of football as well, worked in accountancy.
‘So he knows the realities of outside world while I don’t think a lot of others do.
‘If he takes a club job, it will be the right job and right decision. I don’t think he’s going chasing it.
‘I believe he’s very happy with what he’s doing at the minute. If he goes to club football — and I’m sure deep down there is a desire to — then he will be extremely successful.
‘But for now I think he’s looked at it and gone: Are you going to get an opportunity to build something like he has done in NI?
‘Michael has a terrific job at Northern Ireland which he created for himself, by the way. Because it wasn’t a terrific job before. It was a difficult job.’
O’Neill hit out at the volatility of the domestic game where the sacking culture rules shortly after being linked with the Leicester City job vacated be the ruthless firing of Claudio Ranieri.
No new club manager on the scene is permitted the chance to build towards a sustained model for success, like O’Neill was by the Irish Football Association while Robinson was in charge of the lower age groups.
O’Neill took 10 games to record a victory as manager — 1-0 over Fabio Capello’s Russia at Windsor Park — and his record stood at P18 W1 before Euro 2016 qualifying began.
Euro 2016 qualifying finished with a historic first place for a fifth seed, granting Robinson a key backroom role in the superb story of a summer of last-16 success in France.
On Saturday the football nation transformed by O’Neill will be in Azerbaijan seeking to stay bang in contention for a place in Russia at the World Cup Finals next year.
‘At no stage did fans call for his head when he couldn’t get wins and, credit to the IFA, they stuck with him,’ noted Robinson.
‘That showed great steel. They could see what we were doing at youth level.
‘They knew Michael was the right man for the job and have been proven right. Out of the Under-19 and Under-21 teams we worked with, 13 moved into the full squad and were at the Euros.
‘So it took us four years to get there but Michael’s patience with that process was great. We were losing games but he said: “Don’t worry about it, just keep pushing boys forward”.
‘It was purely about developing players for the full squad. He had a plan and a vision — and carried it out. That long process took a bit of backbone because we were going to lose games at first-team level.
‘He’s the best I’ve worked with. Michael’s attention to detail is unbelievable. We had four players in Steve Davis, Jonny Evans, Craig Cathcart and Gareth McAuley to base the team around.
‘What he’s done shouldn’t be possible. He’s built up a great spirit and atmosphere. Boys can’t wait to leave their clubs to join up now. When I first played, no one wanted to go.’