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).

It’s been coming for a fair old time. Long made his Ireland debut in San Marino in 2007 and the years since have crammed in an awful lot of potential and moments of spark without real peaks being hit or a starting spot nailed down. That late half-sliced equaliser at home to Poland last March was only his second goal in a competitive qualifier for Ireland (his first was at home to Russia back in 2012).

Martin O’Neill didn’t start him again until the final game in Poland after Long was underwhelming away in Scotland and it’s really only since the turn of the year that there’s real clarification about the number one striker position.

Long has always had that rawness of energy but the narrative suggested Long would remain this hurler-cum-footballer, for better and worse. But there’s a feeling that something’s shifted in the past six months or so. O’Neill has spoken of more awareness of other aspects of centre- forward play, Koeman has referred to him gaining more tactical nderstanding of the game. And sort of like Jamie Vardy, Long’s hit that streaky momentum where weaknesses have turned into strengths and everything he touches now works.

He’s always been deadly in the air – remember that friendly goal at Wembley – and five of his 10 league goals were headers. The finishing has become more efficient, if not yet perfect. Goals against Newcastle and Chelsea were one-v-one finishes tucked neatly away, and he did smash that one-v-one pretty convincingly past Manuel Neuer last October.

That pace and intensity make him a real test for defenders. One of his four assists this year came in a frightening display of speed on the break against Aston Villa where he seemed to make up a huge gap with a defender to get to a clearance. For his goal against Man City recently he flashed past the centre-back to get his toe to the cross. In the Slovakia friendly he won two penalties through sheer bursts of speed.

If we take the Holland game as evidence he’s willing to score dirty two-yard tap-ins now as well. Ireland must work out a more consistent way to supplying him with decent ball. Crosses from Brady and Coleman ought to provide more headed opportunities. And Wes Hoolahan should be given the ball when Ireland break to pick out Long’s runs.

That goal against Germany was sourced from Darren Randolph’s long boot and it was interesting to hear Long speak last week of learning how to alter his runs in behind defences. One great replay angle on that goal shows Long setting off into the path of the ball seconds before any German defender figures out where it’s going to land. Ireland has probably never had a player up front who offers so many different qualities and the big box that was unticked all along (reliable goalscoring) appears to have been sorted.

When the Guardian profiled a key player from each squad before Euro 2012, they picked Shane Long for Ireland - his tournament amounted to 15 minutes chasing a lost cause against Croatia and 25 in the meaningless Italy match. He’ll go to this tournament the main man up front, expected to run into the corners and set the pressing tone up front, win long balls in the air, create chances from nothing and now to put away any chances that come up as well.

Sweden and Belgium also have the sort of defences that might be vulnerable to Long’s gifts. Ireland won’t create loads of chances but one may be enough for Long this summer. When Ireland played a qualifier in Stockholm back in spring 2013, Long worked his way past the last defender quite snappily early on but blasted over the bar when one-v-one with the keeper, the sort of snatched finish that seemed to define him back then.

Sweden can expect not to be let off the hook so easily this time. Shane Long’s time has arrived, finally.

Previously in the ’Analysing Ireland’ series:

Analysing Ireland: The perennial predicament with Wes Hoolahan

Analysing Ireland: It ain’t what you’ve got, it’s all a matter of how you use it

Analysing Ireland: The unembroidered value of tigerish James McCarthy

Analysing Ireland: Where will the Euro 2016 goals come from?