While his much less celebrated work off the ball is far too honest to merit ‘a luxury player’ tag — you can understand why Martin O’Neill harbours equally honest reservations about him, writes Liam Mackey.

For ‘The Third Man’ read ‘The Third Match’ (featuring, um, Harry Liam). So here we are back in Vienna where, this evening, your painfully punning correspondent will be making his third trip to the Ernst-Happel Stadion.

Prehistoric’ was one of the kinder words used by critics of Jack Charlton’s brand of football when he was manager of Ireland but in the foreword he has penned for a newly published biography by Colin Young, the man himself makes the claim that, au contraire – or, more likely, ‘bugger that’ – his Ireland team actually laid the foundations for the game as we know it today.

From size of stadia to size of budgets, from the number of internationals in their respective ranks to previous achievements in elite European competition — by whatever measurement you chose to compare and contrast Dundalk and Zenit St Petersburg, the two clubs seemed separated by a gulf of almost cosmic proportions going into their Europa League game in Tallaght on Thursday night.

For the week that’s in it, what could be more appropriate than to address the congregation with a reading from the Book Of Bob?