Unlucky Doyle set to become fall guy

If the rumblings and murmurs from the Irish camp in Gdynia are to be taken at face value, Kevin Doyle now looks to be the only player from the original first XI to miss out against Spain tomorrow.

With Giovanni Trapattoni looking to congest the midfield but, at the same time, not overly compromise the 4-4-2 formation that the players are so in tune with, it seems highly likely he will replace the Wolves forward with the more bustling Jon Walters or Simon Cox.

Doyle insists, however, any change in status won’t change his mood. “I don’t know what the manager is thinking. It’s no different than always. We put each other under pressure but it’s a friendly rivalry. If he [Walters] plays or Longy [Shane Long] or Coxy [Cox] plays, I won’t mind. I want us to get something against Spain, no matter what.”

On that note, Doyle also said that he accepted being substituted against Croatia — despite providing what has generally been considered as one of the better Irish performances on the night — as an inevitable consequence of the effort and energy necessitated in Trapattoni’s approach.

“As a striker, you normally get replaced at some stage for fresher legs. I think Jonny [Walters] did well when he came on. The manager makes decisions. You get on with it.

“Whoever plays, in the whole 11, has to run themselves into the ground for us to get results. We’ll have to do the same on Thursday.”

They’ll also, it is anticipated, have to do the same as two and a half years ago. Doyle agreed with Damien Duff’s assertion that Thursday has many similar dimensions to Paris.

“We are going to have to have to play very, very, very well. We played very well that night against France but we didn’t get a result so we’re going to have to play even better than we did that night. We’ll need things to go our way but it’s not impossible.

“If you think Spain are that good, or Italy are that good, what’s the point in playing in the tournament if everyone thinks they’re going to walk away with it? That’s obviously not the case. They [Spain] won the last one and the last World Cup. France did that [in 1998 and 2000] and it’s very hard to do it again.

“They’re not in flying form. We have a chance.”

A further chance may come thanks to the condition of the Gdansk pitch. The Spanish camp have already put in an official complaint with UEFA about it, such was the extent their possession game was affected. Perhaps illustrating the effective exclusion zone the players can live in at these tournaments, Doyle said he hadn’t heard about it.

“Our pitch was very good,” Doyle said. “Our training pitch is very good. I don’t know what the pitch in Gdansk is like but, if they ploughed it up, it might help us! If we get something, it will be our usual way of doing things: the hard way.”