Trap lays down gauntlet
Giovanni Trapattoni has challenged some of his fringe players to show him they deserve a regular place in the Republic of Ireland starting XI during tomorrow’s friendly against Oman.
Four days after the Republic scraped a 2-1 win over Kazakhstan thanks to two last-gasp goals, they take on Oman at Craven Cottage in an international friendly.
Trapattoni has made 10 changes to his starting XI and has released senior players such as Robbie Keane, John O’Shea and Glenn Whelan from the party.
Squad members like Seamus Coleman, David Forde and Marc Wilson will be given a chance to shine while David Meyler and Robbie Brady have been handed their debuts.
“This friendly game against Oman will be a good test for some of our players such as Coleman, Forde, Wilson, and Brady,” Trapattoni said.
“That will show us how they can be integrated in to our system.”
The Republic put on one of their worst performances of Trapattoni’s reign on Friday when they needed two goals in the final two minutes to snatch the win in Astana against a country ranked 116 places below them in the FIFA ladder.
The under-pressure Italian is sure that the lush green grass of Craven Cottage will allow his players to perform better than they did on the Astroturf of the Astana Arena.
“The pitch I think can allow us to play different again than against Kazakhstan,” said Trapattoni, who was criticised for appearing to encourage long-ball tactics against the former Soviet republic.
“This game will be different and the opponents will be different.
“Oman are a good technical team but I believe that we can play better game than our performance against Kazakhstan.”
Trapattoni’s preparations for tomorrow’s game have been over-shadowed by a foul-mouthed tweet from James McClean following Friday’s win.
The in-form Sunderland winger was furious at not being called on from the bench for the game in Astana and will now start tomorrow’s game as a substitute.
McClean is not the first player to question Trapattoni’s man management and he is not the last.
Yesterday Ciaran Clark said he was baffled at being overlooked by Trapattoni for the national side despite impressing for Aston Villa recently.
Trapattoni, who called up Reading defender Alex Pearce ahead of Clark, insists he has not shut the door on the Villa man.
“We know his quality,” Trapattoni said.
“But we also have Richard Dunne, John O’Shea, Sean St Ledger, Alex Pearce, Paul McShane and Darren O’Dea available at centre-back.
“We can only play 11 players in the team but we always follow every game.”
