Keith Andrews: Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane facing days of reckoning
Keith Andrews believes that if Ireland lose both games and badly underperform in next month’s Nations League double header at the Aviva, there will be no way back for the Martin O’Neill/Roy Keane management team.
“It depends on the manner of the defeats,” he said. “But if we see anything like Denmark in the Aviva and Wales in Cardiff, then I think that’s the end of the era, there’s no doubt about it.”
Describing the recent controversies in the Irish camp, in tandem with the 4-1 defeat in Cardiff, as adding up to a “shambles” and “a circus”, the former international midfielder is taking only a limited amount of encouragement from the improved performance by an experimental Irish side in the 1-1 draw away to Poland on Tuesday.
Poland in the first half, in my opinion, were playing in a testimonial,” he said.
“They allowed us to play the way we did but there were encouraging signs as some of the players played very well. But it will be a lot tougher next month against two nations that have done us over in the last two competitive games. I’m just hoping we have some bodies back and we come with a system that is at least competitive.”
On Roy Keane’s row with Harry Arter and Jon Walters, Andrews says that, if accurate, the leaked version of events as described by Stephen Ward is a serious cause for concern.
“I think it is a big issue if this is the norm,” he said. “I say ‘the norm’ as in what he is normally behaving like. It’s far from the norm to what it should be because that is not the role of an assistant manager.
Ultimately your role is to help the manager but at the end of the day it’s about the 11 players going onto the pitch and you getting the best out of them. If the incident is what we’re led to believe from the leaked WhatsApp, then that’s obviously not getting the best out of players.
Andrews said that, in all his years in the game, he had never personally experienced anything like the level of personal abuse allegedly hurled at Arter.
“I haven’t been involved in anything to that level with staff,” he said. “Verbals, yes. But not that level of abuse. I haven’t taken that on the side of a training pitch from an assistant manager. Dust-ups and arguments between players, that’s run of the mill. But it’s not run of the mill for this type of thing to go on with assistant managers, especially in this day and age. And I’ve made the point, a lot of these players have come through academy systems where there’s a certain type of preparation for games and the way that coaches speak to them and deal with them. Gone are the days of the hair-dryer treatment, they really are.”
Asked how he would have responded had he found himself in Arter’s position, Andrews replied: “I think I would probably have gone more the Jon Walters route, to be honest. I wouldn’t have missed out on playing for my country because of one individual.”
With an apology from Keane being mooted, Andrews believes the situation can be retrieved.
“I think so. They are big boys and things get said. I can’t obviously speak for Harry Arter and what his thinking is of the episode. But if I was in his shoes, with the assistant manager coming to me and apologising, then I would certainly be looking to move forward. He’s playing well at Cardiff and the style he’s playing at Cardiff is getting him more ready to play for us whereas at Bournemouth he was a fish out of water in our environment at times.
We want all of our best players available and is Harry Arter one of our best 23 players? Yes, he is.
“But these are very, very testing times. I can’t see anything changing between now and October and it’s all about those two games and how we approach them and deal with them. They’re going to be very difficult because both those nations are playing really well.”
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