If the week when Martin O’Neill named his final squad for the European Championships could have represented the heralding of the summer to come, it also told us how little Ireland has moved on from the past.
When O’Neill arrived in Dublin to be unveiled as Ireland’s manager in November 2013, he talked about rejuvenating the squad, while always emphasising the key requirement for managers as far as O’Neill is concerned. “I live or die by results.”
But he wanted the squad to evolve as well. “I’m hoping in the next eight or nine months, someone arrives on the scene who none of us have thought about.”
Some of us had dismissed the words of his predecessor as another example of Trapattoni’s rigid conservatism. Shortly before he left the job, Trap remarked, “I know this group of players. Sure a new manager will not change three, four or five. 100 percent, there will be no chance. A new manager will continue the same way. I have the advantage of knowing the players, knowing the set-up.”
When O’Neill named his 23 players for the European Championships in Cork on Tuesday night, it was a group that Trapattoni knew. Only one of them – Cyrus Christie – was new to the scene. Shane Duffy was capped for the first time under O’Neill, but had been around Trapattoni’s squads, during which time, of course, he suffered a terrible injury.
O’Neill and Keane had hoped it would be different, that Harry After or David McGoldrick would make a charge. They might yet be involved if a player’s fitness becomes a worry this week, but there has not been the overhaul that the management team might have expected.
A few months after his appointment, O’Neill commented on the failure to find these players many assumed were out there.
“In the back of my mind, I thought, ‘There must be five, six, seven young lads playing who will maybe break through’ – and that may be the case. But at this minute, I haven’t spotted it. Maybe I’m in the wrong place.”
Jack Grealish would have been a perfect addition in that time and perhaps he would have remained committed to Ireland if he had been called into squads earlier.
O’Neill looked at what was happening at Aston Villa under the management of Paul Lambert and seemed to take that as a confirmation of his decision to go slowly with the player.
“He has to play regularly at Villa, for his own peace of mind as much as anything,” O’Neill said in April 2015.
“This time last year, when I was having conversations with him and his father, I bet he probably thought he’d have started more often than he has this season,” O’Neill said back then. “I haven’t asked him that question, but I bet he’d have thought ‘you know what, I bet I’ll start between 15 and 22 games’. And you know what? He hasn’t.”
Grealish shone brightly at Villa under Tim Sherwood, but who knows what changes might have occurred in his club career if he had been called up by O’Neill, who instead used the club failures as confirmation of his own conservative instincts.
Ireland have moved on from that, but the squad selection was a reminder that the issue remains, that the search for players has been, in the main, fruitless.
No matter what happens in France, it is a critical problem for Ireland and it may become worse if the senior players in the squad retire. The oldest squad in the competition needs rejuvenation, but nobody knows where it’s coming from.
On Wednesday Roy Keane might have been most critical of Aiden McGeady, but the underlying point – and one Keane stressed – was that nobody has come through to challenge the players who were established. It was tempting to think they had almost been selected because of the absence of a challenge rather than because they’d made a compelling case for their own inclusion.
Keane also said everyone was entitled to an off-day, but the worry for the management is that the game against Belarus wasn’t an off-day for his second XI, that this was a performance that confirmed where they are now.
It was a reminder of how much Ireland will demand much from their first-choice players, and the most urgent demand is that they stay fit.
The squad announcement itself was handled well by O’Neill and the FAI. O’Neill is attentive in those situations – he had previously travelled to see Paul McShane to tell him in person he wouldn’t be part of things – and there was a genuine sadness at the departure of David Forde.
The week in Cork was the perfect preparation. The sun shone and the game in Turner’s Cross was a beautiful occasion, lacking only a performance from the home side.
The week ahead will be about preparation for the Sweden game. Keane and O’Neill went to Stockholm for Sweden’s game against Wales on Sunday and, perhaps, it’s just as well that Ireland have a squad used to the manager’s ways.
Neil Lennon spoke about O’Neill’s methods on Off the Ball last week. “He will pull a rabbit out of the hat,” he said, and since the win against Germany there have been indications that O’Neill is managing to produce his old tricks with the Ireland team.
If that is done, it will be done in O’Neill’s idiosyncratic way. Lennon believes Ireland will finish second in their group and he gave further insight into his old manager’s methods. Under O’Neill, Leicester were promoted in 1996 and in the pre-season preparing for the Premier League, they played a back four in all their warm-up matches. On the opening day of the season, they played Sunderland. “We travelled up on the Friday, no conversation, no tactics – fuck all. As is Martin’s wont.”
On the morning of the game, O’Neill read out the team and told them they’d be playing 3-5-2. “I trust you, trust me. Just get out there and do it.” Sunderland drew 0-0, but the system became customary under O’Neill.
He places trust in his players, while keeping them guessing too. The team will be named at the last minute on Monday week and there will be a surprise in the selection. That is almost guaranteed with O’Neill.
It may be that Stephen Quinn comes into the side, but there are few exciting options for the manager.
The week to come may not be all about looking forward either. O’Neill may yet have to explain weekend reports about a comment he made on the stage at the Opera House in Cork, a remark which underlined once again that he can be at his most tiresome when he is trying to be funny.
But he is at his best in a dressing-room before a game. After Ireland won in Tbilisi, Quinn talked about the moving address O’Neill had made before his first competitive game as Ireland’s manager. In the weeks to come, Ireland need the best of O’Neill to overcome the mediocrity elsewhere.
