Familiar faces help King add depth to Trap bag of tricks

It was a bit like doing the time-warp at Gannon Park yesterday, as Ireland’s training base in Malahide played host to some footballers we haven’t seen in this neck of the woods in quite sometime — Andy Reid,Anthony Stokes,Darron Gibsonand Kevin Doyle.

If you confined your gaze to those few, you could nearly convince yourself the Giovanni Trapattoni era had all been a dream.Open up you rears and the soundtrack was significantly different too, Noel King repeatedly intervening in the training game to bring play to a halt and call the shots. “I wouldn’t have been aware of that, genuinely,” the caretaker manager remarked afterwards. King admitted he was not yet clear about his starting 11 for Cologne on Friday, though he said he does have an idea of the tactical approach his team will adopt. The rest of this, his first week as senior Ireland coach, will decide everything — but, unlike Trapattoni, he won’t be naming his side 24 hours before the game. (Beyond, that is, the bombshell dropped yesterday when he revealed that if Robbie Keane plays, he will be captain).

“It’s not about me or where I’m coming from, it’s about where the group is coming from and what the group is trying to achieve,” said King of the daunting challenge ahead. “I think the group will be trying to get a victory against Germany — as audacious as that sounds, but there is no point in approaching it a different way.