Analysing Ireland: Has Shane Long’s time arrived?

Just before half-time in Southampton’s home home with Arsenal last December, Sadio Mane clipped a lovely pass in behind Per Mertesacker to set up a chase for Shane Long. There was only going to be one winner – Long terrorised the Germany defender with his pace all day and had already had a goal harshly disallowed, but his attempted dink over Petr Cech had too much on it and sailed over the crossbar for a wasted opportunity.

If there was a tendency to wonder if this was typical Long, all brightness to create chances but lacking the precision to finish them, what followed suggested a turn in the air.

Early in the second-half, Long showed for a ball in front of his marker, curved a lovely first-time pass out to Mane and sprinted into the box for the return, which he slotted without fuss. And right at the end he ran through for another one-v-one and banged in his second. This suddenly felt like a different Shane Long and he’s not looked back since, going on to join a fairly elite group of Irish strikers this century to hit 10 Premier League goals in a season (Niall Quinn 99/00, Robbie Keane 99/00 and every season from 02/03 to 08/09, and Kevin Doyle in 06/07).