Martin O’Neill stresses importance of England game as preparation for Scots

Martin O’Neill says he will wait to see how many of his players are involved in English Championship play-offs before finalising his preparations for June’s European Championship qualifier against Scotland. The manager has, however, all but ruled out adding another full-scale friendly to go with the already scheduled one against England.

The Republic of Ireland manager is concerned about the long gap before Ireland’s two games in early June that several of his players involved with Championship clubs face at the end of their league season.

The regular Championship campaign finishes on May 2nd, more than a month before England come to Dublin, but as things stand several of the squad members, including Richard Keogh, Wes Hoolahan and Daryl Murphy of Derby, Norwich and Ipswich respectively, are currently on course to be involved in play-offs, which would extend their club campaigns until at least June 15th and possibly the 25th when the final is to be played.

The top of the Championship table is, however, incredibly tight and things could change significantly for all of the clubs with automatic promotion or a finish outside the top six both equally plausible.

“There’ll be a number of players that I’ll be relying on who may not be in the play-offs,” says O’Neill, whose opposite number with the Scotland team, Gordon Strachan, will be in a somewhat similar boat, “so I have to look at that situation. That’s a long time for them.”

The match against England, he admits, is important in its own right, far more so than many friendly games but O’Neill is anxious that his players not lose sight of the fact that it is the qualifier that is the absolute priority

“The [England] game is a big, big match but I don’t think we should overlook the fact that for me it’s a build up to the Scotland game. It will be intense and that might be a good thing but from a distance, and I can only judge from a distance, I may need three or four of those players to be playing there so they have that intensity of a game and hopefully come through without injuries so as to be ready for the following week. The Scotland game is the be all and end all.”

Circumstances

In the circumstances, the northerner doesn’t feel adding another full-blown friendly is desirable with the manager seeing a more low key, training game as probably the best option available to him.

“We’re talking about [what to do]. It might be something now behind closed doors but now this game is gone we can look at the situation and see where we are. We’ll find out in the next couple of weeks who might make the play-offs in the Championship and then take it from there.”

In terms of team spirit, O’Neill believes that Sunday’s game leaves Ireland well placed for a game that his side must win even to stay in the hunt for third place and the play-off that would likely go with it.

“Overall,” he says, “I think it sets it up now for Scotland. Essentially it’s probably a must win game now for us, a big match for us but we’re still in the competition.

“We’ve got something out of it [the Poland game] with a bit of character, particularly in the second half. I thought we had spirit in abundance and I thought we showed some ability and so I really cannot wait now until June.”

Two of the key figures in Sunday's game were, he acknowledged, James McCarthy and Robbie Brady.

“I thought McCarthy came on strongly in the second-half,” he observed. “He was strong himself, brushing people aside, driving forward with the ball, which he is able to do. I thought he dominated proceedings in there and kept us on the front foot.

‘Interacting’

“Robbie’s delivery is usually better and the mix up for the goal didn’t help. But he’s a little character and he took it on board and fought back in the second-half strongly – I think James coming on [improving] helped him greatly, the two of them seem to be interacting a bit. I think on one or two occasions he might have been disappointed with his delivery, maybe more for the set pieces than anything else but I’m very pleased for him because he’s a lovely footballer.”

Robbie Keane’s general lack of impact combined with Shane Long’s goal after coming on will add fuel to the debate over which of them should start against the Scots but O’Neill felt there was logic to his decisions with regard to the pair on Sunday.

“I thought that during the course of the game, while we were looking for a goal, that Robbie, is our leading goal scorer and might just sniff out a chance at the edge of the box.

“But getting Shane on, eventually, was very, very important. He had been out of the side for a little while through injury at Southampton, and the goal will give him a lift.”