The Football Association of Ireland’s (FAI) decision to appoint Martin O’Neill as their latest manager is one that strikes the majority of seasoned observers as perfect – almost to the point of being foolproof.
A renowned leader of men, who will command the respect of a group of international footballers, O’Neill added to the feel-good factor surrounding his replacement of Giovanni Trapattoni by announcing he will be assisted in his duties by Roy Keane.
One imagines that the ideal scenario in the minds of the duo’s new employers will be for the energetic O’Neill to inspire the revival of a side that, under the stewardship of the previous manager, had become decidedly staid and lacking in any imagination – before handing over to Keane to maintain its renewed momentum.
The new boss’ two-year contract allows for either party to bail if all doesn’t go according to plan during the forthcoming European Championship campaign. Thanks to Michel Platini’s avaricious, somewhat hair-brained extension of the continental tournament’s finals to include an extra eight teams, it is difficult to imagine anything other than Irish qualification – and, therefore, O’Neill remaining in situ for a tilt at taking his adopted nation to the Russian World Cup of 2018.
Nevertheless, there are no certainties in football. Just ask the FAI, O’Neill, and Keane.
The governing body probably believed when, in 2008, they hired the esteemed Italian Trapattoni, that for their top dollar investment they were securing Ireland’s return to biennial tournament participation – having recently endured a third successive failure to progress from a preliminary pool.
Indeed, the superbly decorated Trapattoni quickly organised a stubborn and well-drilled team which went through a World Cup qualifying group without defeat, only to miss out on the 2010 South African competition by virtue of Thierry Henry’s infamous handball that allowed William Gallas to score the decisive goal for France in an ensuing play-off.
Trapattoni did achieve the task he had been brought in to accomplish when he steered the Irish to their first finals since the 2002 World Cup, making capital on a favourable play-off draw against Estonia to demolish the Baltic state and progress to the European Championship of 2012. Still, the septuagenarian manager’s conservative style prevented his being taken entirely to the hearts of the Irish nation
It is perhaps fitting that the landmark performance of Trapattoni’s reign came with a backs-to-the-wall 0-0 draw in Russia during that 2012 qualification period. On that night in Moscow, Richard Dunne produced an inch perfect defensive display, while other Trapattoni lynchpins Glen Whelan and Keith Andrews toiled away in the centre of the park.
The watchful approach employed to secure a point in Russia served its purpose, but the former European Cup winning boss’ steadfast refusal to veer away from his safety first tactics at the finals lead to his overseeing a lamentable trio of showings in Poland.
The Andrews-Whelan axis was brutally exposed, and decisions such as that to select then West Brom forward Simon Cox for a man marking role on Spain’s Xavi Hernandez, while leaving the ageing legs of Robbie Keane isolated in attack, only added to the aimless brand of Ireland’s football.
Without a two-year contract extension already in his back-pocket, Trapattoni would have returned home a dead-man walking. Instead, he was in place for 2014 World Cup qualifying in which an opening last gasp win in Kazakhstan was followed by the humiliating 6-1 home defeat at the hands of Germany. That heralded a predominantly dreadful series of displays and, eventually, the removal of the manager.
A look at the roster of talent latterly available to Trapattoni perhaps makes his team’s complete lack of impact on a group also featuring; Sweden, Austria, and Faroe Islands, the standout failure on his Ireland CV.
In accepting this Irish challenge, O’Neill will have cast his eyes across the players at his disposal and immediately detected a bunch capable of plenty more than that which has been yielded across the past 12 months.
The eleven that started Trapattoni’s final match in charge, – a 1-0 loss in Austria that sealed their World Cup exit – had Everton’s James McCarthy in its engine room. The exceptional 22 year-old has gone from strength to strength since his early season switch from Wigan Athletic to Goodison Park and, with a fair wind, he will be at the crux of his country’s midfield for a decade to come.
O’Neill will be shorn of McCarthy’s excellent club mate Darron Gibson for an extended period but, with the former Manchester United man due back well ahead of Ireland’s potential appearance at France 2016, he would complete an all-purpose duo in the midfield area – assuredly a pair blessed with guile, mobility, and controlled tenacity all well in advance of Andrews and Whelan.
Another Evertonian, Seamus Coleman, is developing into a dynamic right-back of some class, while Dunne is restored to fitness and enjoying an imperious spell of form.
Whereas Trapattoni long relied on Sean St. Ledger, a centre-half who plies his trade outside the Premier League, the new management team, thanks to Coleman and Stoke City’s Marc Wilson’s grasp on the full-back spots, can utilise John O’Shea in his preferred berth at the heart of the back-four. Ciaran Clark is establishing himself in Paul Lambert’s progressive Aston Villa side, and represents a fine alternative to Dunne if injury hits the 34 year-old once more.
Anthony Pilkington and Wes Hoolahan, both of Norwich City, and Hull City’s Robbie Brady, represent genuinely bright creative options, and operate in the top-tier of the English game.
Moreover, the time has come to end the striking reliance on Robbie Keane. Shane Long is a terrific front-runner, while Jon Walters and Conor Sammon, admittedly neither of whom is the most elegant of footballers, provide a marked physical dimension in the mould of Niall Quinn or Tony Cascarino – each being capable of upsetting more celebrated adversaries.
Keiren Westwood, who is furthering his personal cause by playing regular football at Sunderland, is ready for a prolonged stint between the Irish sticks and, therefore, to finally end the conundrum of how best to replace the marvellous consistency of Shay Given.
There are others at different ends of the age spectrum, including; Anthony Stokes, Kevin Doyle, Jeff Hendrick, Andy Reid, and Aiden McGeady, who will be vying for involvement in the new manager’s maiden competitive game.
Another sure to throw his hat into the selection ring is James McClean, the winger that O’Neill brought to life, in some style, at Sunderland. Now on the fringes of Wigan Athletic’s first-team, the Derryman’s career is in urgent need of a kick-start. That he, O’Neill, and Irish football will be joining together, at a moment when they have in common that requirement for an injection of something fresh, can engender a prosperous outcome for all concerned.
Indeed, McLean’s emergence was a symbol of O’Neill’s initial transformation of Sunderland. When Steve Bruce’s tenure was ended at the Stadium of Light, the choice of the ex-Leicester City boss as his successor seemed sure to bring about a considerable re-invigoration on Wearside – a banker, in fact, on par with today’s imminent renaissance of Ireland’s national side.
A man who had in the very recent past led Aston Villa to three consecutive top-six finishes, bettering their points tally on each occasion, and already enjoyed unparalleled success at the helm of Wycombe Wanderers and then Leicester City, was widely expected to seamlessly transfer that magic touch to his spell in the North-East. To add to the feel of O’Neill and Sunderland being a model fit, the manager had a self-confessed boyhood allegiance to the club.
The portents were good when he dragged a team, which had sat 17th when he first took charge in December 2011, up to eighth place before the end of the following March. Suddenly, and rather startlingly, however, it all went very wrong.
An F.A. Cup quarter-final defeat against Everton sparked a rotten close to the season. It was a collapse that the Northern Irishman couldn’t arrest. Twelve months after that cup defeat an increasingly tired and dispirited looking O’Neill left his post, with the Black Cats 16th in the Premier League, having won seven of 31 games in the season.
So deflated did the characteristically effervescent manager appear after his unforeseen harrowing experience at Sunderland, many onlookers anticipated that we might have seen that last of the man who, in five years at Celtic from 2000 onwards, won three Scottish Premier League titles, and guided the Glasgow club to the 2003 UEFA Cup final.
The return to football of a refreshed O’Neill will prove for captivating viewing – even more so for his choice of right-hand man. With places available in France for 23 of the 53 teams that enter qualifying for Euro 2016 there is every chance that the 61 year-old, who spent the best years of his playing incarnation under the tutelage of Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest (when he became an English and European champion), will exit the game in a manner far more apt for a revered figure, than would have been the case if the Stadium of Light had been his final stopping point.
Moreover, Platini’s 24 country finals offer a near open goal into the knock-out stages – the group phase will be shorn of its intensity due to only a third of the competing nations being eliminated at this juncture.
For Keane, there is the dual opportunity to complete the reparation of his relations with the Irish people, while re-establishing his credentials as a coach of some promise.
Since he was dismissed as the manager at Ipswich Town in January 2011, the seven times Premier League winning ex-Manchester United midfielder’s input to the football world has been restricted to his insightful punditry offerings on ITV Sport.
It is fair to conclude that club chairmen have shied away from Keane, in part, due to his confrontational and sometimes volatile nature. Fresh out of a successful assignment those traits would prove no bar to his recruitment but, during a little over one-and-a-half seasons at Portman Road the Cork born boss couldn’t raise his Ipswich team beyond the ordinary, with the drip of stories regarding dressing room clashes with his players all too frequent.
O’Neill will appreciate more than anybody, though, the scale of Keane’s deeds in his first managerial post. Taking control of a Sunderland side that had been dismally relegated from the Premier League, and was sitting at the wrong end of the Championship, the then rookie manager steered his team to that year’s title – and, to quote the day’s chairman Niall Quinn, ‘lifted the place off its knees’.
In view of the Black Cats’ ongoing struggles, Keane’s top-flight endeavours at the Stadium of Light – maintaining the club’s status in his one full term at that level – are thrown in a more favourable hue.
That O’Neill’s avowed respect for one of his Sunderland predecessors is reciprocated, indicates that Keane detects a man in his new boss who demands the most exacting of standards – not only from his players, but all who surround him. It is, of course, the perceived falling short in the preparation facilitated ahead of the competition by the FAI and then manager, Mick McCarthy that caused Keane’s walking out on the chance to captain his country at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
For that ‘dereliction of duty’ some of Keane’s country folk are yet to forgive. That will not be true of the men he is due to instruct on the training field. This aspiring bunch will only see in front of them an Irish footballing God. In turn, working with international players will guard against the frustration Keane encountered when in command of lesser mortals at Ipswich.
The chipper presence of O’Neill will blunt Keane’s cutting edge, while the coach himself can only have benefitted from close to three years away to reflect on his approach. Crucially, a student of the game, Keane has remained immersed in its every event and evolution throughout that period.
When Ireland suffered their 4-0 hammering against a rampant Spain during Euro 2012, Keane reacted with incredulity to the jollity among the swathes of Irish supporters in the ground. Speaking on television he said;
‘I think the players, and even the supporters, they all have to change their mentality. It’s just nonsense players speaking after the games about how great the supporters are.
‘I’m not too happy with all that nonsense. To praise the supporters for the sake of it, let’s change that attitude towards Irish supporters.
‘They want to see the team winning, let’s not kid ourselves, we’re a small country, we’re up against it, but let’s not just go along for the sing-song every now and again’.
It is precisely that mind-set that O’Neill, Keane, and Irish F.A. chiefs will share. The fans will still party unashamedly in France if, as predicted, their country qualifies, but the vin rouge will taste a whole lot better if the team’s results are more in line with the heady Jack Charlton inspired era than those they’ve tolerated of late.
Everything is in place for the Republic of Ireland to start bloodying a few illustrious noses once more. Messrs Keane and O’Neill, however, will remind you that nothing in football is guaranteed.
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