Ireland boss may reap what Eriksson sows
England’s manager Sven Goran Eriksson was so perturbed at disruptions to England’s intended international programme that he spent two days discussing the issue with a selection of Premiership managers. And while Ireland have had no direct involvement in the talks it is inevitable that developments there will impact on Ireland’s programme.
Matters reached a head for England when they played Australia earlier this season. Eriksson sent out an entirely different team for the second half of that match because of pressure from managers to rest their stars and it led to serious repercussions. The fact that Australia beat England for the first time did not go down kindly with FA bosses who argued that Eriksson’s substitutions had robbed the game of any significance.
There was also a disapproving reaction from FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, who suggested England had done football and the fans a disservice. Several high profile Premiership managers have made public their reluctance to support international football on the basis that too many calls are being made on their leading players.
Brian Kerr revealed that Ireland’s team captain against Norway, Matt Holland, had already played 60 games this season. Kerr said, however, that he had not received any request from the managers to restrict the playing time of the players by substituting them as early as possible.
Said Kerr: “I understand the pressures on managers to produce results. There is a difference in the financial rewards for the clubs based on the positions they finish in the Premiership, even if you finish in 12th or 13th or 14th place. That is a pressure on the managers.
“I understand that and I know there were problems with the timing of this fixture. But there is rarely a time when international fixtures are comfortable for the clubs. In the Summer they like the players to be taking a break, to spend the time resting and recovering. In September and October the season has just got up and running, in February the season is starting to come to a pitch where every game is important. There is no simple answer to that, the debate will go on for a long time.”
Kerr spoke of his pride in leading the national team before the home supporters for the first time.
His time spent watching Ireland from the terraces at Lansdowne Road had made him acutely aware of the importance to the fans of seeing Ireland play in similar matches and he said: “I just hope that international football always retains its importance and its profile.
“When you see the international team of any country playing and what it means to the people of that country, the pride of the nation in the team, it shows that it deserves a special place in the football calendar even though the monetary reward in club football is much higher and there is much more money at stake and so on.
“It’s often the pride of a town or a city compared to the pride of a nation so I think that international football has to retain that place in the pecking order of games.”
Ireland’s next three matches are critically important to their prospects of qualifying for the European finals in Portugal next year and the victory against Norway was of great value because of this. It afforded Kerr a small opportunity of departing from the tried and trusted in an effort to enhance the potential of the team. It gave him the chance to assign a new role to Damien Duff, to expose David Connolly to a rare opportunity of starting a game, to allot valuable playing time to the inexperienced Nicky Colgan and to experiment with Steve Finnan at left-back.
These are exercises he could not have indulged in were this a competitive match. And the pity of it is that he does not have another similar opportunity or two before Ireland play Albania and Georgia in Dublin next month. As it was it could be said with confidence that all of experiments were enlightening and it is possible that two of them will lead to significant changes for the competitive matches.
Finnan must be a live candidate for left-back provided Stephen Carr is fit to occupy his regular pace and Duff, of course, showed that his dribbling skills can effectively be used in any role. But Kerr will have to adopt a conservative approach when Ireland are next in action against Albania on June 7, in the interests of securing the win Ireland need. He will have to stay close to the team selections he opted for in the away matches against Albania and Georgia in March and it is likely Duff will be back at centre-forward. The chief regret this observer had as regards the team selection for Norway was the fact that John O’Shea was injured.
Norway showed how important physical strength can be and O’Shea obviously has all the physical and skilful requirements to develop into a pivotal figure for Ireland, perhaps in central midfield.
Meantime Kerr has plans to set up a full-scale practice match behind closed doors when the Premiership season ends in a couple of weeks. He will bring the players to Dublin for five training days and then send them home again for a week before re-grouping for the championship matches.
He professed to be not overly concerned about the break from the end of the club season and the match against Albania and said
“A break for some of the players will be good, it will give them a chance to recharge and for their bodies to recover from what’s been a long season.
“In Matt’s case he is up at 60 games already this season. Some players have played less than that and you can average it out somewhere between 20 and 60 but it will be a time to recover.
“In between we’re going to have them in for five days and then we’ll take them in for the matches and we’ll make sure they’re ticking over.”
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