Trapattoni unimpressed by Gibson's decision

SOCCER: GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI says he believes "100 per cent" he retains the support of his players despite the departure Darron Gibson over the weekend from the squad for Ireland's opening World Cup qualifier in Kazakhstan on Friday on the basis that he remains "disappointed" not to have played in the European Championships in Poland.

“I sense it,” the Italian said fairly emphatically at yesterday’s lively opening press conference of the week.

Asked whether, in the wake of two senior players (Shay Given and Damien Duff) retiring days after he predicted they would stay on, two more (Gibson and Kevin Foley) making themselves unavailable on the basis of a sense of grievance and one (Shane Long, who this weekend said the incident was “forgotten”) publicly complaining at having been dropped from the starting eleven in Belgrade, he was, in effect, “losing the dressing room”, the 72-year-old was adamant he is not.

More pointedly, however, he dismissed Gibson’s decision to withdraw from the squad observing that: “If I stayed disappointed after losing a league or a champions league I never would have played football again; we have to get over these situations.”

Trapattoni said he would continue to monitor Gibson’s form at Everton but added the midfielder needs to “show us that he wants to be with us again”. He has called in Sunderland’s David Meyler as a replacement and rather casually suggested that he was happy enough to go with whatever other options he has as long as Gibson is off the scene.

Pressed on whether, in hindsight, he should have done more to guard against losing the player in just this way after failing to use him in any of Ireland’s three European Championship games, Trapattoni replied: “I don’t think so. Do you think [Alex] Ferguson would clarify why he didn’t play Gibson?”

When it was then put to him that the midfielder might be more important to Ireland than he was to Manchester United, he seemed rather exasperated and, in slightly comic fashion, started muttering in Italian while shaking his head and staring at the floor before looking up and uttering the player’s name several times: “Gibson, Gibson, Gibson . . . A year ago he didn’t play, then he was injured. Do you know how many times I’ve played Gibson? I said he was good and that he could be important but we couldn’t depend on Gibson. He should want to be with Ireland.”

Having initially sought to be diplomatic about the 24-year-old, it seemed, this came close to being as dismissive as Trapattoni has ever been about a player.

In the end, though, the oddest part of the entire saga is the timing. Gibson, clearly wanting to make his point, told Trapattoni he was withdrawing from the squad on the basis of still being disappointed before Everton’s defeat by West Brom on Saturday but then picked up a thigh strain during the game that would, it seems, have ruled him out of the trip anyway.

But when Trapattoni was asked whether he would have picked the player to start the World Cup qualifier and declined to answer, Marco Tardelli nodded a few feet away, clearly suggesting that he would have been handed only the third competitive international start of his career.

With Keith Andrews and Paul Green known to be unavailable for the game, Gibson must have realised there was a fair chance that was the case and yet he decided to take a stand that is likely to cost him for some time to come.

The Northerner would not come across as the most easy-going, humble or cheerful of characters but it is quite a call to make.

Previously, of course, he had repeatedly insisted that he was better off staying at United than leaving, as Trapattoni had advised he should, to play regular football but ultimately he had to accept defeat on that front.

Trapattoni, in any case, ‘suggested that he simply has to move on, mentioning James McCarthy positively and pointing to the fact that Andrews will be available again for the games against Germany and the Faroe Islands.

Despite his professed confidence that all is well in the camp, however, he must surely be hoping more than ever for a positive result and performance in Astana with which to kick off the new campaign, followed by a period, ideally a lengthy one, of calm on the player front.