O’Neill to mix things in final audition
When O’Neill says he regards this evening’s game at the Aviva as “pretty essential”, that description is entirely in the context of recognising that the protracted build-up to his first competitive game as an international manager will finally end in just four days’ time, with the start of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign.
“The boys who are pretty well assured of playing on Sunday are already thinking about it,” he said yesterday.
“There’s a long road ahead with a glorious place at the end — and that’s where we want to get to.”
Against that backdrop, tonight’s match might mark the end of the phoney war but it also provides O’Neill with one last 90 minutes of action in which to assess the state of readiness of his troops for the serious engagements ahead.
Some he already knows plenty about, others less so and, consequently, tonight’s line-up will be, he said, “a mixture”, combining a few of the certain starters against Georgia with ones who are back in contention but haven’t yet had much of an opportunity to show the manager they are entirely ready to answer the call to arms.
Chief among the latter are the returning duo of Shay Given and Darron Gibson, both of whom will feature tonight. The veteran Given — back sharing a room in the Irish team hotel with fellow old boy Robbie Keane — will likely divvy up the goalkeeping duties with fourth-choice Rob Elliott, O’Neill pointing out that he’s already well up to speed on what the current numbers one and two, David Forde and Kieren Westwood, have to offer.
Like Given, Gibson will make his return after a long absence, with James McCarthy — who was suffering from blisters yesterday — probably going to sit this one out. That was always in O’Neill’s mind anyway, the manager suggested, as he looks to rotate his personnel with, he admitted, “one or two” decisions still to be made about Sunday’s starting line-up.
“He looks comfortable, in really decent shape,” said O’Neill of Gibson, after getting a close-up view of the Everton man back in training with the Irish squad. “I’m actually looking forward to seeing him play.”
Gibson’s fellow Derryman James McClean is another who is short of game-time since suffering a hamstring injury in July and, having been limited to non-contact training for much of this week, it remains to be seen if O’Neill feels it’s worth taking a chance by putting the Wigan man on the pitch tonight. Kevin Doyle too is a player in search of regular football and, to that end, O’Neill warmly welcomed the striker’s transfer deadline-day loan move to Crystal Palace.
“I think Kevin would admit himself this is big for him,” he said. “He’s pretty pleased with it. It gives him a chance to get up and running. Naturally, I’m pleased for him but he needs to play. He and Stephen Ward basically missed all summer and I think Stephen is pretty pleased too with his move to Burnley.”
On Doyle’s former Cork City colleague, Shane Long, O’Neill noted that he has been played wide-right on a couple of occasions since his move to Southampton but he was also was at pains to emphasise that how the player might be deployed at club level would not necessarily impinge on how O’Neill sees him playing for his country.
“Where Shane feels most comfortable is centre-forward,” observed O’Neill, who added nothing to suggest he views the situation any differently.
While West Ham’s Joey O’Brien is the latest withdrawal from the squad, with an ankle injury, and Jonathan Walters had to cut short training yesterday with a knock, O’Neill is not unduly phased by the extent to which, as the campaign’s big kick-off approaches, injuries and match-fitness concerns might limit his options.
“We’re fine, although one or two might not have played much,” he said. “Seamus Coleman has come back strong from his hamstring injury and that was the main concern. (The injured) Jeff Hendrick could have been in reckoning. He’s getting stronger and more confident. If anything, I actually think that the games we had at the end of the season were particularly good for him. After the setback of not making it to Premier League, he came through brilliantly, really strong.
“But setbacks, everyone has them, they’re going to happen. We’re strong and ready to go.”
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