No drama? Gus Poyet gave Keith Andrews both barrels last night as the Greece manager breezed into Dublin in advance of the European Championship qualifier at the Aviva Stadium and accused the Republic of Ireland assistant coach of making a “cheap accusation”.
Poyet also responded to Matt Doherty and Stephen Kenny claiming that “six or seven” Greek players dived during his team’s 2-1 victory in the qualifier in Athens on June 16th.
“Be men,” said Poyet.
Andrews was first on the menu, after the Dubliner revealed on Tuesday that an Irish coach who works at an English club spent time in the Greek camp last summer. Andrews suggested that the Irish coach had assisted Greece’s preparations.
“They sent [the Andrews quotes] to me two days ago,” the South American began. “It was sad. I was very disappointed. I don’t know Keith. From outside I seen him talking on [Sky Sports] and the way he played football I felt he was an intelligent man but he made a mistake, a big mistake, because he is lying.
“First, I don’t invite people to watch my training. Secondly, nobody told me how the Republic of Ireland plays. Third, if you look how your country played before they play us: France at home, 5-4-1. Three days before that, they played Latvia, 5-3-2.
“How did they play against us? 5-3-2 in the first half, 5-4-1 in the second. Do you really think I need information? Let’s say [Andrews] is young, he made a mistake, made excuses but I was disappointed, very disappointed.”
Andrews is 43 years old.
It was put to Poyet that Gary Dicker, the Brighton under-21s coach, who played for the Uruguayan when he managed the club between 2009 and 2013, was at the centre of the storm created by Andrews.
Again, he took no prisoners.
“Gary is one of the most intelligent players I had in my time at Brighton. He is proper Irish. Proper. And I promise you, this is one thing that is important, we talked more about good Brighton play than the Republic of Ireland.
“Definitely Gary had nothing to do with that. He was in Greece, yes he was. He went to the game and the day he came to [Greek training] we done nothing to show him in case he told the Republic of Ireland! Gary is a very honest man, he is a top bloke. It was a cheap accusation, very cheap.”
Poyet was only warming up. Next, the former Spurs and Chelsea midfielder addressed Doherty’s insistence that the red card he received in the dying seconds of Ireland’s defeat in June, for an incident with Liverpool’s Konstantinos Tsimikas, was caused by a theatrical dive.
“When [Doherty] was in Spain, at Atlético Madrid, was he not watching the games? Was he on another planet? It’s football.
“I never had a coach who told me to dive, I promise you. Did I dive when I was young? Yeah, a lot. Then I came to England and the first thing they said to me was ‘don’t’. And you need to learn. The first one who told me three times was Dennis Wise, he said ‘don’t do that, you are in England now’, and you learn.
“Do you want me to control the whole world with players who go down?
“Doherty made a mistake,” Poyet continued. “He reacted to something and he got sent off. I don’t think tomorrow we will come in here thinking of anything like that. We come in here thinking, intensity, power, defending, one v one, balls in the air, and for that there is no way you’ll go down.
“You need to defend. Let’s leave it at that, let’s play the game the best we can with ability. When it goes against you it hurts, sometimes it goes the other way, it’s how we play the game nowadays. We went down to 10 men in France after 15 minutes and they put up 14 minutes [injury time]. I was thinking I wanted to play three more but that’s how the referee controls the game. I am surprised, I only read the Keith Andrews part – play the game. Be men.”
Initially, the 55-year-old refused to reveal his system, as there were “too many Irish here, sorry”. Then he told us anyway. “No, we won’t change the way we play. There will be three midfielders. No drama.”
“No drama?” the translator wondered?
“No drama.”
