Having spent the best part of this week denying that either he or his players are taking a win for granted in this evening’s first home qualifying game of the European Championship campaign, Martin O’Neill became a little exasperated when the subject was brought up again at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.

“Sometimes I have a little laugh to myself,” he began with more than a hint of frustration at the way, he clearly feels, the media can sometimes pick a tree to bark up and then stick with it regardless. Ultimately his message was pretty stark: “We’re not good enough to be complacent.”

Oddly, just a few hours later, that’s just what this evening’s visitors contended had been their undoing last time out. After a good first half against Poland, they suggested, they began to believe they really were on top of the task of containing Robert Lewandowski and co.

“But you can’t lose concentration at this level,” admitted their coach Allen Bula, “because if you do for even five or 10 minutes, you can be destroyed and that’s what happened us last month.

“I know Poland are a great team but I thought we made them look better than they are and that is a pity.”

Some sympathy

O’Neill clearly has some sympathy for his opposite number’s view. He has been at pains this week to emphasise his belief that Gibraltar were hard done by with regard to the scale of their defeat in Faro where just over half of the seven goals they conceded came in that short second half spell Bula mentions; 10 whirlwind minutes during which the occasion, and of course the Poles, completely got the better of them.

The same players were positively wide-eyed after their first look around the Aviva stadium a few hours later which, one might have thought, would have had an intimidating effect on them. But Bula was still bullish, insisting that he and his players had come to implement the lessons learned on their competitive debut and ultimately win second time out.

It’s an admirable ambition but one that should suit O’Neill well enough.

Most teams in Gibraltar’s position would happily come and ‘park the bus’, challenging their hosts to open them up and Ireland have struggled more than once to get to grips with the more resilient of determined defences. Usually they prevail, just, but if there’s even a hint of complacency the manager might do worse than ask Paul McGrath, Denis Irwin or Ronnie Whelan, all of whom played in the 0-0 draw in Liechtenstein 19 year-ago, to remind the current generation how even minnows can give your pride a mauling.

Still, even they were beaten by a total of 14 goals to nil in the two countries’ three other meetings with the two home games won very easily and there would be no excuse for the hosts failing to win this time, whatever about the margin or manner of victory.

The manager was criticised in some quarters last month for a team selection that failed to include Wes Hoolahan but, of course, in the way of these things, the result tended to justify his means.

This time out, there are a number of considerations that will shape his team selection, Séamus Coleman’s absence probably chief amongst them.

Genuine problem

While James McCarthy’s injury opens the door fairly neatly for the return of Darron Gibson, Coleman’s leaves the manager with a genuine problem given the lack of a second regular right back in the squad.

O’Neill has repeatedly talked about the times he has employed a three-man defence and, given the opposition, it’s certainly an option but he’s less likely to go down that route in Gelsenkirchen on Tuesday and may feel that this is another opportunity to allow his players to get to grips with a shape that could be called upon then.

Hoolahan seems likely to return either way but playing with a defender less would allow O’Neill to play a second striker too. Shane Long may feel he heads the queue if that’s the way the manager decides to go and Kevin Doyle is an obvious contender too but it is Daryl Murphy who is playing most regularly these days and with five goals in his last six league games there is a decent case to be made for the 31-year-old to get his second international start.

Aiden McGeady will play on one wing with James McClean, perhaps, the most likely to start on the other and the pair should have more than enough about them to trouble then topple their opponents.

O’Neill, though, yesterday stressed the likely need for patience and that may apply to those in the stands at least as much as it does to those on the pitch. But, he insisted, “we’ll have to be on the front foot from moment one”.

Eventually, he hopes, the goals will come for a good performance and a big win would provide as firm a foundation as the group could hope to establish for taking on the world champions next week. Going there with six points is the bottom line, he admitted however.

That wasn’t complacency, of course, just a refusal to countenance the appalling alternative.