An Irish chance would be a fine thing

Martin O’Neill is clear about the single most important improvement he wants to see in Ireland’s performance against Scotland next week.

After watching his side draw a blank in Celtic Park last November and then doing the same again in yesterday’s tepid warm-up against England, the manager is anxious to discover some fresh life in the final third.

“I think we need to create more chances,” he said. “We need to create a bit more. And I think the very obvious thing, if you’re going by stats, is that the more chances we create, the more chance we have of scoring one or two. That’s what we’ll be looking to do.

“The onus is on us to come and attack. We don’t as a rule score that many goals, we haven’t done it for years, and that is why Robbie (Keane) has been so special and has scored the goals. You look to him to think that he, particularly at home, might be able to unlock defences.”

In the absence also of Wes Hoolahan yesterday, ball retention was another problem, though O’Neill preferred to accentuate the positive.

“Maybe I’m seeing it differently but I thought we did, in spells, retain the ball pretty well,” he said. “Sometimes if you retain it, you have four, five, six passes and find you haven’t gone somewhere. Once or twice in the first half, I thought we needlessly kicked it away when we were under no severe pressure.

“I don’t mind us clearing the lines but once or twice when we had control we decided to give it away fairly needlessly. I thought that we tried to retain it but what Wes will give you is this ability to get in between the lines and make something happen.

“Wes should be ok, I would like to have got him on the field of play at some stage but then John O’Shea (got injured) and some of the other players who needed football to put themselves in contention, I got them on first.

“Wes has had the play-off games, he had the little scan the other day but he’s feeling fine. I’d like to have given him the last 15 or 20 minutes but at that stage John has pulled up with the calf problem.”

O’Neill indicated there should not be undue concern about the defender’s availability for Saturday.

“I don’t think so, he was just tightening up and the last thing we want to do now is lose him. It was precautionary and we got him off the pitch.”

After the game, O’Neill also revealed that he’d spoken to the day’s guest of honour Jack Charlton.

“He called me Harry a couple of times! But I said ‘that’s no problem’. I’ll take that from Jack any day.”

O’Neill was taken with the warm reception afforded the former manager in the stadium — “I am not surprised, particularly here as an honorary Irishman. He has been fantastic — but less so with the booing of the anthems.

“I thought that as the singing of the national anthems took place, you were hoping for maybe a better response all round. But, overall, I think things have passed off okay.”

O’Neill was not, however, about to be drawn on Jose Mourinho’s description of Fifa’s €5 million payment to the FAI as “the end of the world”.

“I haven’t the time to do it, here,” said O’Neill. “Do you know what, I will (discuss it), when it’s done and dusted. Absolutely. I’ll just put my seal of approval or disapproval on it. Seriously…”

But could he understand his sentiment? “Who? Jose? Jose’s sentiment on that particular issue or in general? Well, there we are. Yeah. I’ll discuss it sometime, okay?”