Martin O’Neill hails McClean and eyes up Hogan

Martin O'Neill expects to meet with Brentford striker Scott Hogan over the Christmas period to discuss the possibility of the 24-year-old accepting a senior call-up directly with the player.

The manager has previously discussed the issue with the player’s agent who informed O’Neill that after a couple of injury ravaged seasons Hogan’s priority was to concentrate on getting his club career back on track and his preference was to use the international breaks as opportunities for rest and recovery.

O'Neill says that he accepts that completely but, speaking on Thursday as he and Keith Andrews launched the FAI's Spar-sponsored primary schools five-a-side programme (see www.fai.ie/primary5) he suggested he is likely to sit down with Hogan in the coming weeks in order to see whether the player might be getting to the stage where he is more open to being a part of the international set up.

“We’ve certainly got the opportunity now, coming up to Christmas and slightly after,” he said. “The agent did say he’d want to have a conversation, so I’ll hopefully have that and we’ll go from there.”

O’Neill has made no secret of his desire to have a natural goalscorer in the squad again now that Robbie Keane has retired and Hogan has eight in 17 games for the Championship side after finishing last season with seven in four.

It remains to be seen if the Manchester-born player, who qualifies for Ireland through two of his grandparents, could make the step up to international football but given the number of players in the squad who are playing their football in the Championship, O’Neill certainly seems keen to get him involved.

A little of the urgency has perhaps been taken out of the situation by the fact that the team has been scoring goals with seven overall in the four World Cup qualification games played so far and three in the last two for James McClean, long a particular favourite of the manager.

“He’s a gem of a lad, really great,” said O’Neill. “He’s a lunatic but a great lunatic. He has matured, there is no question about that. All the jokes aside, he’s definitely matured. He’s matured both on and off the field. And do you know what? He feels as if is a big player for us now which is very, very important.”

Central figure

His goals have certainly made him a more central figure with his two in Moldova inspiring confidence in O’Neill. The manager watched the breakaway that left to his successful strike on Saturday in Vienna.

“The first goal that he scored in Moldova was really great. I know Jon Walters has laid it off to him but he still has to manoeuvre it and stick it in the corner. That was a big goal for us. You were getting into the last 20 minutes of the match and we were still level in a game that we should probably be winning but you’re not.

“But he scores and then he gets in at the post for the other one. And then he takes this goal [against Austria] brilliantly. I mean brilliantly. Whatever you say, it might have gone through the goalkeeper’s legs but he has driven it so hard that it hasn’t given the goalkeeper time to adjust. It was not easy.

“There’s a funny thing about it: sometimes when James is in a position he’ll maybe drive something wildly but do you know at that moment, just at that moment, I thought: ‘I think James is going to hit the net here.’”

For all of McClean’s social media scrapes, he is regarded as having an exemplary attitude to his fitness and preparation although O’Neill says it was his work ethic that almost kept him out of the Austria game after he picked up the back problem that prevented him training through the first couple of days that the squad was together last week.   “He picked up the injury because he was suspended and wanted to do some extra work,” he says. “I was sort of pleased that he was suspended for the game [at Leicester City], selfishly. I was thinking: ‘he’ll be fine, that’s great, he’ll have a week off.’ But James never takes a week off, he wants to do something else, sometimes to the detriment of himself.

“So he’s in there doing some weights and hurts his back a bit but then he goes out to train. The medical team came in on Monday and told me that ‘James is not in great shape’ but James is one of the group that would think, ‘I’m going to do something about this’.

“He’s great. Really great. Absolutely, he is,” continues the manager with a smile.”[But] look, a cautionary note about McClean. Remember that great time when he was stepping onto the pitch against, was it Poland? And even Roy had said to him – Roy, of all people – be careful. And he said ‘I am, I am, I will be, I will be, I will be’ And then the Polish boy’s legs were over the stand . . .”