Captaincy fits like a glove for balanced Given

AS THE speculation over Robbie Keane’s availability was effectively ended by the news that he had spent the previous evening drinking – and singing – in a Malahide hostelry, it became clear that Ireland will be led from the back against the Armenians tonight.

The role isn’t new to Shay Given and he looked relaxed as he sat alongside his manager at the pre-match press conference and almost immediately went to work on setting the record straight with regard to who should fear who ahead of this evening’s critically important game. However, one fears, he might be a little too balanced in his outlook to set pulses racing in the dressingroom.

“We know they are going to cause us problems,” he said, “much more than Andorra did on Friday night but we’re confident. We have belief going into it with all those clean sheets behind us and hopefully we can get the right result.

“We went out there and beat them 1-0 in hot and humid conditions. I know some people said we scraped through but I thought we did well on the night. Now, we’re on our home patch and we have the belief that we can beat them. I know they have the same belief but it’s in our own hands, it’s up to us to go out and do the business.”

The basis for Armenia’s remarkable charge for a top-two finish over the last 12 months has been the injection of young and talented players that their coach, Vardan Minasyan, decided to promote from the under-21s upon taking over the side not long after the draw was made for this tournament.

Trapattoni has countered this week by playing up Ireland’s superior experience and nobody in the home side this evening has been involved in more big games like this for his country than the man who will captain the side this evening.

Most have not gone entirely to plan, of course, and tonight, Given admits, might yet prove to be the last time although he insists he has not decided.

Anyway, he observes, he is focused for now on the challenge of securing a place in the play-offs and, after that, a place in what would be only his second major championship.

And it’s important, he claims, that the hunger of the crowd inside the Aviva Stadium this evening matches his and the other Irish players’ hunger to be in Poland and Ukraine next summer.

“Yeah I’ve been there, done it and got the T-shirt, but each game brings up it’s own set of problems,” he says. “We’ll respect them but I think they’ll fear us as well.

“They’re a real threat of course; I don’t think they have a super strategy but they’re all players of real quality and they’ve showed that in their last three games.

“So it will be a real test for us at the back but then hopefully we’ll test them at the other end too, we have Aiden and Duffer and the two strikers.

“It’s very important that we get the crowd right up for it as well – if they have a few pints before the game they’ll get the place rocking and the atmosphere right, I really believe that if they get behind us it will spur us on and with them being young, well, I wouldn’t say that they might fall apart or anything but if we get at them the way we did Andorra and it’s loud inside the stadium then they’ll certainly know that they’re in for a game.”

A bit more noise than there has been at recent home games might also keep a team with a tendency to lose its way during the games pushing forward rather than dropping deep and hanging on but Given, like his manager, is careful to note the dangers too of showing too much bravado.

“It’s always very difficult in that situation,” observes the 35-year-old, “because a lot of teams across the world, when they get a goal ahead the mentality is not to concede a goal.

“We need to believe that we can go and get another one but it’s important to retain the right balance, to have controlled aggression in the game and not go gung-ho. We can’t leave ourselves exposed at the back because they have players who can hurt us.

“But then we have the players to hit them on the counter-attack as well. Hopefully they will play into our hands.We’ll see how it goes,” he concludes with characteristic reasonableness, “words are easy but we’ve got do it on the pitch and I’m confident in the ability of our players to do it.”