After falling foul of the last manager at one stage and, it seemed, criticising the interim
one when he didn’t get a look in, Shane Long may well have done enough to catch the eye of the new one with the 26-year-old scoring the pick of Ireland’s goals in what was a comfortable first outing for Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane.
“Yeah, I think it was good football,” said the West Brom striker who had barely arrived into the proceedings when he grabbed his 10th international goal after 79 minutes.
“I think Jon Walters played Seamus down to the end line and he put a ball right on my toe. It came at me a bit quick. It was an awkward finish but if I’d missed I’d have been long regretting it.”
Instead, he’ll be hoping to start in Poznan next Tuesday where O’Neill has suggested he will make changes in order to have a look at the options open to him. Long is hopeful but insists he’ll keep his head down and wait his chance under the new man.
“The gaffer’s obviously managed at a lot of top teams and has a lot of knowledge of the game. Obviously Roy was the player that he was and I think I can learn so much from the both of them. I’ve been lucky through my career, I’ve had some very good managers and hopefully I can impress this one and push my name in for starts in the games to come.”
Asked about last month’s tweet in which he appeared to be referring to Noel King as a “cowboy”, he replied: “I didn’t name any names in the tweet . . . the press made what they wanted of that and blew it up a bit more than it was meant but it’s a new start for me. I’ve never played under the gaffer and never met Roy. So it’s a fresh start for me. I just want to make a good impression and hopefully I did that tonight.”
