So, as the dust settles on the first 10 days of the Martin
O'Neill era, have we seen signs of the changes the people were baying for at
the back end of Giovanni Trapattoni's reign? Prior commitments in Donegal had
unfortunately kept me away from the arrival of O'Neill and his headline
grabbing choice of assistant at Lansdowne Road
for the first game under his charge, so I had to rely on TV highlights and
conversations with those I normally attend with to gauge an opinion. What I saw
looked broadly positive with the fact that Wes Hoolohan was employed in behind
Robbie Keane, along with the defence and midfield as a whole playing further up
the pitch giving the central midfielders more opportunity to collect the ball
from defence and a different option to play the ball into. There was a decent
tempo to the Irish play and the atmosphere was definitely helped by the
excitement generated by the new management team. Without the new team in place,
a friendly against the team ranked 117th in the world would not have looked an
attractive night out in mid-November and while the official attendance
announced at 37,100 looked to be slightly over estimated given the empty seats
on display, there's no doubt that the appointment of O'Neill probably accounted for the
guts of 10,000 of that number and you could say the same again for his
appointment of Roy Keane as his number 2.
It was a familiar feeling with the new era starting with a
goal from Robbie Keane after 20 minutes (his fifth in a row at home) and it
looked like this was an opportunity for the floodgates to open, given how poor
the opposition had looked till then. The goal was followed by a couple of
chances for Keane and for the impressive James McClean but half time
arrived with the score at 1-0. The second half began with a similar pattern, Ireland
again creating chances (again mainly involving McClean) but it took until the
68th minute for the second goal to finally arrive. Aiden McGeady, who'd also
been impressive on the flanks, was gifted the ball through a misplaced pass and
drilled it into the bottom corner. With the game safe, although it must be said
that Latvia had
never really threatened the Irish goal, O'Neill rang the changes, introducing
Andy Reid, Jon Walters and Shane Long on for McGeady, Keane and Hoolahan and it
wasn't long before 2 of the subs were involved in the move and goal of the
match. Walters did very well to play in Seamus Coleman on the overlap and he
hit a perfect ball to the feet of Long who finished well at the far post. More
changes followed with Paul Green, Anthony Stokes and Kevin Doyle coming on for
Whelan, McClean (a worthy Man of the Match for me) and McCarthy. Stokes did his
best to try and get off the mark with a couple of efforts but there was little
else of note in the remaining few minutes and the 3-0 final scoreline was an
encouraging start, judging by the highlights at least.
That said, I found some of the reaction afterwards from some
quarters, including the RTE panel, ridiculously OTT. The opposition were pretty
much as poor as you could get. The last 4 games of the Trap era against
similarly ranked opposition ended in 4-1 victories against Oman and the Faroe
Islands, a 3-0 victory against the Faroes again and a 4-0 victory against
Georgia so putting 3 or 4 goals away against the minnows wasn't an issue, even
under the safety first approach of Trap. This seems to have been airbrushed
from history in the disappointment of the final 2 games he was in charge for
against Sweden
and Austria.
Trap's problem was getting results (and victories in particular) against the
teams ranked above us. However, it was encouraging to see us mix our approach
up a bit against those lower ranked teams who we clearly have the ability to
pass our way around.
And so onto last night and the return to the scene of last
years heartbreak in Poznan for the
first away game of the new era. With holidays thin on the ground coming towards
the end of the year, I decided against being one of the 200 hardy souls that
made the return trip and settled instead for watching the game from the comfort
of the couch with a few friends. Although O'Neill had said that he intended
giving everyone in the squad a run out over the 2 games, it must be said that
the team selected was very reminiscent of what would have been played by his
predecessor with a flat 4-4-2 including a striker out on the right in Walters,
who was Captain for the night, and starts for 2 of the players who were given
far too much stick in some quarters for allegedly being Trap's pets, in the
aforementioned Green and Stephen Ward. I think it's safe to say that, had Trap
still been in charge, the team selection would have been met with howls of
derision on the message boards and comments sections of online media! But hey,
it's a fresh start and everyone's got a clean slate. Plus, in my opinion, it
was important for the manager to have a look at everyone in the squad
especially considering the squad was picked by Noel King rather than O'Neill.
Before the kick off, the esteem in which the Irish fans are
held in Poland
was clearly visible by a lovely gesture by the 30,000 or so home fans who
applauded all the way through Amhrán na bhFiann. However, once the game kicked
off, it wasn't just the team picked that was reminiscent of the
worst of the Trap era. Ireland
actually started quite well with McGeady looking to get on the ball and
generally being pretty dangerous and, following a corner that he won, we really
should have gone ahead. McGeady himself took the corner which was flicked on
perfectly by Walters but with the goal gaping, Stephen Kelly somehow managed to
head the ball into the ground and it bounced up and over the bar. The set piece
itself was very similar to that which led to Keane's goal against Latvia
and it really should have paid dividends again here. Well worked set pieces
have always been a big part of O'Neill's approach and it seems clear that a
degree of work had been done on this aspect of the game this last 10 days. But,
having started quite well, as has been often the recent case, the longer the
half went on the more ragged Ireland
seemed to become.
John O'Shea takes the wrong meaning from the talk about O'Neill's All
Ireland team......
This wasn't help by an enforced change when Sean St Ledger,
who'd been solid in what was a rare outing this season, picked up a groin
injury and was replaced by an out of sorts John O'Shea. Indeed, O'Shea was
lucky to last more than 3 minutes when he blatantly handled a ball that
Lewandowski was running onto after flicking it over his head. It was around
this time that Ireland
started to look a little ragged and Poland
began exerting more control for the close to 10 minutes or so left of the half. One thing I did notice was that, while James
McCarthy has had better games recently, there was a bite to his play that has
been missing in the past and he was prepared to demand the ball a bit more and
was more robust in his tackling. This
may have been down to him getting more experience and responsibility at a team
at the right end of the Premier League or maybe some training ground influence
from Roy Keane or even a combination of both but it was encouraging to
see. The potential is certainly there
for him to be a very important player for us if he can start combining that
facet of play with the obvious ability that he has.
Not a red???
Come the start of the second half, the pattern of the
game remained pretty similar with Poland
having more of the ball than at the same stage in the first half but not really
giving David Forde in the Irish goal anything much to do. Mention should be
made of the much maligned Paul Green who was very solid in the defensive
midfield role making a number of blocks and interceptions which helped keep
Forde relatively untroubled and he was certainly a candidate for man of the
match. The usual raft of second half substitutions duly arrived with my man of
the match, McGeady being replaced by McClean being the first of these, but the next thing
of note that happened should really have resulted in a red card after an
absolutely horrific challenge on Walters by Michal Pazden luckily not
resulting in serious injury. It's possible that the ref was lenient due to not
sending off O'Shea for his handball in the first half but tackles like that
really shouldn't be tolerated, friendly or not. McClean put a decent ball into
the box on the resumption of play but no one could take advantage and the longer
the game went on, the more difficult Ireland
found it to keep possession for any meaningful period. The very poor and heavy
conditions of the pitch certainly didn't help and it's not surprising that
players may revert to old habits early on in a new managers reign. That said,
the little bit of possession we did have should have resulted in the creation
of a breakaway chance when Hoolohan played a quick free kick over the Polish
defence to where McClean was free in acres of space, but inexcusably he had
moved into an offside position when having held his run across the line would
have resulted in a clear run through on goal. McClean had a decent time of it
the last couple of games but really needs to work on his positioning when it
comes to staying onside before we start playing competitive games again. The
final whistle sounded not long after finishing a nil-all draw that was pretty
similar to the last 2 Eastern European friendlies played under Trap against Hungary
and Serbia.
So, overall it's a case of slight changes so far rather than
a great leap forward. The new found enthusiasm the new management team have
brought is to be welcomed and, if the extra people that came out on Friday can
stick around and support the team then that's a positive too. That said, if performances
were to continue in the vein of last night's second half then it's arguable
that the crowds will fall off again. But it's far too early to be passing any
sort of judgement after 2 meaningless games, Steve Staunton's first game in
charge brought about a 3-0 victory against a Sweden side that were far more
credible opposition than Latvia and we all know how that turned out! That said,
Martin O'Neill is clearly a far cannier operator than Stan ever was and has a
wealth of experience behind him. Communication under the previous manager was
always an issue but O'Neill's handling of the media has been excellent since
taking over and to his credit, Roy Keane has been making the right noises in
his media work about wanting to learn and knowing where his position in the
pecking order is. I was concerned that the over-emphasis on the Keane element
of the appointment in the media and by supporters could prove to be unhealthy
as it's imperative in any set up that players are very clear on who is running
things. Given the force of Keane's personality, there are plenty of managers
with whom this could become an issue but I think O'Neill is a strong enough
personality himself to prevent this and looking at how both men have worked
together this last week and a half, my belief in this has been strengthened. And while the results so far can be compared like for like with Trap's results against similarly ranked teams (indeed we beat Poland 2-0 as recently as February), there's no doubt that things had gone stale by the time he left and the positivity around the team since the new appointment has been very refreshing.
So there's now a break until March before the next friendly
in Dublin v Serbia.
Before then we have the draw for the Euro 2016 qualifiers next February and it
is this draw that could really dictate the future of this era for Irish
football. Greece's play off win against Romania should now guarantee Ireland a
second seeding for the qualifiers, barring any last minute moving of the
goalposts from UEFA. Even with a tough first seed in the draw, if it's
confirmed that, as rumoured, the top 2 will qualify automatically and some of
the 3rd place teams will go into play offs there will never have been a
qualifying group with more potential for teams to go through. An attractive
draw should give the management, players and fans a lift before the friendlies
kick off again in March and another 6 months after that for the manager to get
his ideas across will give us the opportunity to generate some momentum going
into the qualifiers in September next year. Here's hoping.....
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