Martin O’Neill: Long balls not in our gameplan

With one game to go in the international calendar year, Ireland’s 2018 stats make for grim reading: Played 8, won 1, drew 3, lost 4, goals for 4, goals against 10.

Martin O’Neill: Long balls not in our gameplan

With one game to go in the international calendar year, Ireland’s 2018 stats make for grim reading: Played 8, won 1, drew 3, lost 4, goals for 4, goals against 10.

Football managers will always try to accentuate the positive but, faced with the unavoidable reality of those numbers, Martin O’Neill has no option but to concede that there has been precious little sign of progress for Ireland since that 5-1 mauling by Denmark brought 2017 to a brutal halt.

“I would like to have thought we could have found a wee bit more going forward,” said O’Neill. “Maybe have got an established goalscorer, but it hasn’t been.

“It’s certainly been a disappointing year in that aspect, no question about it, and we have to regroup.”

With the Danes lying in wait in Aarhus, there could well be more disappointment in store before the year is out, but O’Neill is already looking beyond that final Nations League game.

“Well, the bigger picture is the Euro qualifiers,” he said.

“There is no question about that, regardless of what happens on Monday night, and that has always been the case. I think we will be ready for it. We were ready for it a couple of years ago. We had a really strong battle to qualify for the Euros and we got through it to the playoffs.

“I’m hoping one or two of the young lads in and around the scene, who have only played a couple of games, can come through, but like everything else, we have to try and score a goal. That would be nice, but we will regroup and get ready for it. When the draw comes in (on December 2, in Dublin), it will give us that momentum for a start and, when the proper games kick in in March time, we will be ready.”

Whether O’Neill is still in situ by then remains to be seen. Depending on the FAI’s view, another bad result against the Danes could prove a tipping point, after Thursday night’s deflating scoreless draw with Northern Ireland ended in a chorus of boos at the Aviva.

O’Neill regularly talks about how he is ultimately responsible for his team’s performances but, in the aftermath of Thursday’s game, he admitted to frustration at what he saw as a dearth of individual responsibility and character.

“It’s not to do with tactics, it is to do with taking the game by the scruff of the neck and having the character to do that,” he said.

“I think that’s it, taking a bit more responsibility for a situation and being able to deal with it. Seamus Coleman mentioned about translating what we do in training into the big game. That’s it. The training had gone exceptionally well this week, but it’s being able to translate that and take that decent play, more than decent play, on the training ground into the game. That is easier said than done.

“I’ve known a lot of players who are very decent on the training ground and have never been able to translate it into the big games, but that is something we have to work on.”

“What we were trying to do in the game was not to be playing so many long balls, to be attempting to play through teams. We’ve got three men at the back, we’ve got two wide players and what we wanted to do was to get a little bit more midfield play, get on the ball and create a bit more in and around the penalty area.

“Young [Callum] O’Dowda: I think he’s got the ability to do that, but he hasn’t played in the last couple of weeks for Bristol City and, sometimes, it is a little bit difficult for a young kid, not having played for a week or two, to come into the international scene and be able to produce that. I’ve got some faith in the lad. He’s done well for me and I think he can improve but, like everything else, he has to find his way into Bristol City’s first team to have that little bit of extra confidence.”

For Monday’s game against the Danes, O’Neill is also hoping Robbie Brady will feel the benefit of getting 90 minutes under his belt against Northern Ireland and he reckons that Seamus Coleman, only relatively recently returned from long-term injury himself, is also getting stronger with every game.

A damage limitation approach might be overstating it but, in Aarhus, the manager certainly hopes to avoid being as generous to Christian Eriksen and company as Ireland were when they met in Dublin 12 months ago.

“That night, we got well beaten after chasing the game and I said that, look, I don’t mind losing by the extra couple of goals if it’s case that we made a full attempt to get something out of it,” he reflects.

“It’s not our intention on Monday night to be going out and leaving gaps left, right and centre, but we want to be a little more creative if at all possible and I think we should be able to be.”

Suspended for Monday’s game, James McClean’s international year is already run, the manager admitting that, as with the team as a whole, the Stoke man’s form in 2018 has been a concern.

“You would have to say that he was probably our talisman in the World Cup qualifying group, culminating in his goal in our game against Wales. So, yeah, I think James realises that he hasn’t reached those levels for whatever reason it might be. He isn’t playing regularly at club level either and I think those things do affect you.”

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