Manager and players must learn from their mistakes — and quickly

I have to say I was surprised by Martin O’Neill expressing disappointment the Irish players didn’t do more with the ball in the defeat to Belgium on Saturday.

Surprised because, to want your team to be comfortable on the ball, to be more composed and look to play through midfield, you must first develop that kind of culture in your team. And I’ve seen no real evidence of that having being attempted since the start of the manager’s reign, to the degree that, to me, there’s very little difference between how Giovanni Trapattoni and Martin have gone about the job.

The first thought that seemed to enter a lot of Irish players’ minds in Bordeaux was to get rid of the ball, hit it long for Shane Long and hope for the best. And that’s the way we’ve played in many of the games throughout the qualifying programme. So to suddenly expect the team to get the ball down and play in such a high stakes setting as the game against Belgium — well, it was never going to happen.