System failure, but Trap won’t change philosophy

THREE years into Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland regime, certain questions remain frustratingly unanswered.

Is Trapattoni a footballing fossil whose prehistoric tactics are holding back a gifted generation of Irish players? Or is he a perceptive, principled pragmatist who, if he hasn’t quite made a silk purse of a sow’s ear, has at least managed to stretch the ear into a serviceable if unappealing shopping bag?

After the chaos of Steve Staunton’s regime we needed clarity, and Trapattoni provided that.