The differences between Martin O’Neill and Giovanni Trapattoni are more immediately obvious than the similarities but after what was effectively his first day at the office yesterday the new man suggested his tactical approach will be the same as his predecessor, ie dictated by the players available to him.
The Italian spent countless press conferences defending his tactics, insisting he had employed countless approaches down the years but that the Irish public had to accept they could not realistically aspire to having both performance and points.
As he reflected on his first training session yesterday, O’Neill rattled through various systems he had used in club management but then hinted that he too may have to cut his cloth.
“I said I’d like to play with style and panache but sometimes you have to have some realism too. If you have the calibre of player that has the ability to excite people and be a potential match winner then great, let him go, let him play.
“But if you haven’t those players available to you at the time then I think you have to have an approach, not necessarily totally pragmatic or cautious, you just have to treat players and game accordingly.
“Don’t ask them to do something they are incapable of doing; ask them to do what you know they can and if they do that well then that’s great.”
Assessment
Trapattoni's assessment of what they could do turned out to be the problem, with the talian deciding, through the bulk of his time in charge, he needed a simple system that could be understood and executed by players he viewed as decidedly limited.
For O’Neill the assessment process has only just started, but whatever he decides will dictate his strategy for getting to the next European championships.
“By March, I think I will have a fair idea of their abilities and strengths,” he said. “And then it’s a matter of putting that into the team.”
In the meantime, he says, he will be watching tapes of old Ireland games, keeping a close eye on performances at club level, and working, when he has the players, on set-pieces and, as his predecessor might well have put it, "the little details".
O’Neill still seems bemused by the notion of not being able to work on the training ground every day and maybe relished yesterday all the more as a result.
It was, he said, “a beautiful day,” before noting, in what might have been a good natured Saipan reference, that the pitch in Malahide was in “great condition”.
There was little enough actual news for him to relay yesterday – Robbie Keane stays on as skipper, at least for these two games, Keiren Westwood and David Forde will each start a game; and a couple of the absent players will swing by to introduce themselves.
But there was plenty of humour, with Aiden McGeady, for instance, described as utterly unchanged from their days together at Celtic: “He’s still as crabby as ever,” said the 61 year-old who works hard at times to set up his punch lines.
Expectations
He can be frank about his players too. On the subject of McGeady, he suggested the player he had handed a Celtic debut to had not lived up to expectations.
“He looked a wonder kid when he was 17 or 18 years of age,” he recalled. “I remember one night he played against . . . I think it was AC Milan, when he was absolutely fantastic, a Champions League game.
“He had all the confidence in the world. Now Aiden doesn’t lose confidence but it’s just that sometimes I think in terms of his development, I would probably have expected Aiden to really be an absolutely world-class player now.”
He has been impressed so far with the quality of the players at his disposal but knows a great deal will come down to getting the best out of them.
Trapattoni fell with a few and O’Neill is clearly anxious to avoid similar problems.
Asked if Andy Reid might be allowed to stay up late to play his guitar he replied: "If he plays (it) well, I haven't a problem with it but at some stage Andy will have to go to bed, won't he? If he still continued playing at 5:30am even I might be fed up with that."
He cited Brian Clough, who would tell players the night before a big match they could have a glass of wine with their meal – on the clear understanding that having four or five would have “dire consequences”.
Back then, he recalled, the pre-match steak ensured many players would be struggling by the midway point in the second half, a problem long since addressed by the switch to pasta and more suitable foods.
“So that has changed and changed for the better, and as the game has changed I have changed, I promise you. I am not a dinosaur; I do believe in giving the players a little bit of time, particularly if they have earned it but if they haven’t earned it I’ll tell you, I can be as severe as anybody.”
