DESPITE THE scale of the defeat by Tottenham in this, his last game in charge, Michael O’Neill bid a dignified farewell to Shamrock Rovers and Tallaght last night, expressing the hope that supporters who had helped the club survive the dark days would remember with pleasure and pride the success they enjoyed during his time in charge.
“I think the club had won one trophy in 20 years before I came,” he said, “but we’ve won three in the three years I’ve been here and they’ve a lot more money in the bank now than when I arrived.
“To be fair, the fans have been fantastic and even tonight when it would have been easy for them to leave at 4-0, they were still there at the end. The club is about all them and it would have been great to reward their loyalty and support with a result, but it’s a hard thing to do because the gulf in class is there to be seen.”
O’Neill confirmed he is to be interviewed for the Northern Ireland job and said if he doesn’t land that job then he will be free to pursue opportunities “anywhere in the world because football is a global game these days”. He declined to say whether his decision to leave without another job to go to had been prompted by a souring in his relationship with the board. On Wednesday he had acknowledged the parting was not amicable, but would only say last night this wasn’t the time to elaborate.
Last night’s defeat and the manner of it provided a fair idea of the work that still needs to be done if he hoped to turn the Irish champions into a side that could seriously target holding its own at this level, but the reality, he said, is that with the finances of most league clubs getting worse that sort of ambition is, for the foreseeable future, beyond clubs from this country.
“Let’s face it, when there was money in the league, the clubs didn’t use it wisely,” he observed, “and the reality is we will never be able to afford the players you need to get to that level.
“Tonight was disappointing again,” he continued. “In the second half we were good, we should have had a penalty and then there was an incident on the edge of the area (a challenge on Karl Sheppard that prompted calls for a red card), but we have to be honest and say, overall, we were well beaten by the better side . . . the reality is if you’re not totally switched on when you’re playing teams of the quality we have in this competition then you’re going to get punished.”
Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, insisted he was genuinely disappointed not to have made it through to the next stage. “I wanted to win and go through, I really did and at half-time, with the Russians losing and down to 10 men I thought a three or four goal win would do us. But then I thought it might be a draw in the end over there, I really did and that’s how it turned out. What really cost us, though, was the last game (the home defeat by PAOK).
“Credit to Shamrock, though. They might have ended up with no points, but they’ve never been completely out of a game . . . Michael O’Neill and Jim Magilton have done a really good job.”
