All talked out about Stephen

We have to talk about Stephen. Well, actually, we don’t, but it seems that in at least every other encounter with a manager of the Republic of Ireland over the past seven years, we end up talking about Stephen.

This would be Stephen Ireland, of course, Irish football’s most talked-about exile since ‘Grannygate’ erupted at the end of a game in Bratislava in 2007 which, with the player’s subsequent departure from the camp in a state of some emotional turmoil, turned out to be his last in the green shirt, bringing to an abrupt end a brief but shining and, for a while, hugely promising spell in the international team.

At the same time, it was merely the start of a protracted will he/won’t he saga which kept the presses merrily rolling through the management reigns of Steve Staunton and Giovanni Trapattoni and which has now reached what has all the appearances of being an all too predictably unhappy conclusion under Martin O’Neill.