Martin O’Neill says he and Roy Keane best men to lead Ireland

After confirming that he has signed the new two-year contract he had apparently agreed with the FAI back before the European Championships, Martin O'Neill has insisted he and Roy Keane are the best men to bring Ireland forward and defended his decision to persist with what is clearly an ageing squad.

"My job is essentially to qualify for competitions," he said after naming a 33-string preliminary squad for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Moldova. "I can't go into the transfer market to change players around so you have to work with what you have and hopefully as you go along some younger players, the likes of Robbie Brady come through, the likes of Jeff Hendrick make progress.

“You are looking for new blood to come in but that blood still has to prove itself and in the meantime you still have to get some results . . . so I could sit back here and if John [Delaney] agreed with me and the FAI, my employers, agreed with me, I could say, ‘Listen, you know what I’m going to do, for the next three years I’m going to bring young players in; we won’t qualify for a competition but maybe in four years’ time we might have a crack at the Euros’, but it’s not in my blood to do that.

Pleasure

“I can’t take my eye off us trying to qualify for the competition. That’s my job and that’s where I derive the pleasure from. Us qualifying and us doing pretty well out in the Euros, that’s the bottom line for me, that’s the point.”

Signing the new deal, on what are believed to be improved terms, had, he insisted, never been an issue, just something to be gotten around to.

But he says that he and his backroom staff, all of whom have also extended their stays until the end of the World Cup campaign are “delighted” to have done so. And, he also suggested, the FAI and fans should be pleased too that he and Keane have opted to stay.

Personal view

“My own personal view, and I’ve proved it I think, is that Ireland’s best chance of qualification for the World Cup in Russia lies with myself and Roy Keane. I want to be around, I want to do it, want to try and qualify. And it’s a long process again. It was the same when we started off in Georgia a couple of years ago. But the best chance is with myself and Roy at the helm.”

Asked if there was a get-out clause in the event that the offer of an attractive club job came along, he declined to get into the specifics of his terms of employment but was, at the same time, fairly emphatic that the situation would not arise.

“Listen . . . I’m not in the habit of disappearing. I want to try and do well in the competition. We’re trying to push on again from the Euros. Who knows what might happen. I don’t know, is the answer. But is there a determination to go and try to qualify for Russia? Absolutely.”