After a week when Damien Delaney suggested Irish football needs a new identity, a scan of England’s Barclays Premier League teamsheets suggests what it really needs is a miracle.
Ten Premier League matches over the course of three days brought only 14 Irishmen into view. Worse again, one of those was Delaney, who called time on his international career last Thursday in possibly the first case of someone retiring before they were afforded the chance of breaking through.
Of the rest, Jack Grealish still hasn’t decided whether he wants to stick or twist, Stephen Ireland, a Stoke City substitute in their draw with Norwich, is a week away from celebrating the eighth anniversary of his self-imposed exile from international football, leaving just 11 Premier League players who want to be part of Martin O’Neill’s future.
None of them, by the way, is on the books of last season’s top six, while three Irishmen who did play last weekend are in their thirties. So, for that matter, are two of those who were on the periphery of the action - Jon Walters and Shay Given. Given, by the way, will be 40 next birthday.
Yet if the future looks glum, then bear in mind that the scenery at the moment isn’t particularly picturesque either. Eight years have passed since an Irish side won a competitive international against a team ranked in the world’s top 40; 14 years have elapsed since they defeated a real, genuine world powerhouse. Given, Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Richard Dunne and Kevin Kilbane all featured that day against Holland and between the five of them, they practically carried Irish football through the following decade.
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Now three of them are gone, Given and Keane will soon join them, and no one from the current Under-21 set-up looks ready to step in and take their place. To deepen the depression, the scouts who once scoured the League of Ireland to find uncut diamonds no longer believe another Seamus Coleman, James McClean or Wes Hoolahan is waiting undiscovered.
An identity crisis?
It certainly sounds like one but Kenny Cunningham, the former Ireland captain, remains to be convinced.
“The debate about us not producing players, it bores me and I just don’t buy into it,” Cunningham said. “The day we get an Ireland team on the pitch, and get the maximum out of those players on a regular basis, then that is the time to have the discussion about a lack of talent and what we have to do to resolve this.
“For now, it is a different story. I genuinely think there is more to come from this squad in this campaign. These players are better than they have been portrayed. We just need to get the very best out of them.”
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However, O’Neill, to all intents and purposes, has not done so.
“It has been a strange campaign. I saw a solid display against Georgia,” Cunningham said. “I will discount the Gibraltar game because it was such a straightforward win. Germany was disappointing in the manner of the performance, our ball retention, our passing, our attacking threat on the night. Yes, we got the late goal, we threw the kitchen sink for the final few minutes, got a point and everyone thought it was great. But performance-wise, I was disappointed.
“We showed flickers against Poland and actually, the Scotland game at home, was probably the best I have seen us play in this campaign. So if you are asking me: ‘Do you think we have produced our best under Martin and Roy?’ The answer is no.”
Quite where the answers will come from remains a mystery. No Irishman will get a taste of Champions League football this year, while Robbie Brady and James McClean were the only Irishmen Premier League clubs spent money on during the summer.
In this context, is there anything tangible that O’Neill can do? Cunningham believes so, arguing that a tactical rethink on the manager’s part, and a return to the 3-5-2 system he used so effectively at Leicester, and also, for a considerable period of time, at Celtic, is required.
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“Can you see Seamus Coleman as a top quality wing back? Absolutely,” Cunningham said. “Can you envisage Robbie Brady being used on the other flank? Yes you can. So can we have a conversation where we play 3-5-2? If we have, then we can keep three in midfield and play two up front. Have we got two strikers who can play together up front and hurt the opposition? I think we have.
“Shane Long and A.N.Other can easily play together, high up the pitch, and prove to be a physically imposing partnership. So that is all interesting. That is a footballing challenge.”
Most immediately, O’Neill’s challenge is to collect six points from Ireland’s next two games, against Gibraltar and Georgia, and hope Scotland or Poland slip up in their forthcoming fixtures.
Further down the road, a return to this debate is inevitable even if Cunningham is bored with it. Ireland’s fans, after all, have had a lot more to be bored about in the last three years - the team’s performances for a start. Will they get better? A switch to 3-5-2 may help. A change at the top, in terms of the administrators running the game, would help a lot more.