1 week Ago By Neil O'Riordan
GIVEN he referred to ten Ireland players being injured, it was probably no surprise to Heimir Hallgrimsson that he found himself talking about somebody not there. But he may not have bargained for being asked about somebody who retired eight years ago. Someone in the FAI thought it was a good idea to bring Robbie Keane in to make a caps presentation on Monday night.
While Hallgrimssson described Keane’s presence as a positive , he also made it clear that the invitation had not come from him. Ordinarily, a visit by the country’s record appearance-holder and goal-scorer would be a cause for celebration but that is not how it was received when it was publicised online. A relationship with some of the country’s football fans already strained by him remaining part of the FAI’s cash-strapped payroll when Stephen Kenny did not want him as part of his backroom staff has further soured.
Keane’s insistence, on taking the Maccabi Tel Aviv job in June 2023, that he was a football man not interested in politics became an increasingly difficult line to hold during the destruction of Gaza. He left, but only after he had completed one year at the helm , winning the league title. And, with the Israeli bombardment continuing, claiming an ever-increasing civilian toll, there are many unwilling to forgive and forget.
If that was the type of controversy off the field that his employers had hoped to put past him, Hallgrimsson will hope for better decision-making on it tonight. Ireland’s Nations League campaign will be judged by this evening’s 90 minutes. Repeat the victory in Helsinki here and two wins can be trotted out as tangible evidence to support claims of progress.
Lose against a team which has dispatched three of its starters last month to play with the Under-21s and we will be back to what became a recurring theme in Kenny’s reign of turning a corner only to find we were in a dead end. But, as much as Finland’s hand might be weakened by prioritising the Under-21 European Championship play-off, Hallgrimsson has not exactly got a full deck to choose from. The absentee list has grown to double figures and at least four of those would be in the shake-up to start.
The gaffer said: “We need to quickly adapt someone new into those roles. There’s always a preference to have all of your players fit and ready. “I think we’ve counted ten players that we have already selected or would have selected if not injured but that’s just how it is at international football.
“You never know what team you will have available. “You keep it simple, be consistent in what you’re saying, so when the player comes in, even though he wasn’t in the last camp, he will know more or less what we want. “If we continue that we will improve as a unit and more players will be in the know of what we want when they come in here.
“That’s our job, to have consistency in the national team.” Replacing some is easier than others with the absence of Robbie Brady and Chiedozie Ogbene particular blows . Festy Ebosele is one candidate to be the right-sided attacker.
He would not normally be as advanced as the Ipswich Town man but showed the potency he can carry with his contribution to Brady’s winner last month. Hallgrimsson said: “Pace is always good. Nothing beats pace.
You cannot coach pace. You cannot coach height. “So these things, you need to have in your team of course.
We have a lot of other fast players as well.” The composition of the rest of the team will largely hinge on whether he decides to go with one or two strikers up front. Evan Ferguson and Troy Parrott teamed up in Greece.
The 57-year-old reasoned: “If can we create more with two strikers in the centre, that is something we need to be flexible on. “But it also depends on what players are available, who are we playing and what kind of defence they have, will they have possession like Greece did. “It’s something I like.
Playing two strikers gives you options that you don’t see much in the game today. "But we have other ways of hurting teams by playing with one striker. "It’s how you see the game in your head and decide to go with this.
“But if you’re talking about the past it was usually a big one and a quick one. "They’re kind of a combination of those. Troy and Tom Cannon run into space.
“Finn Azaz and Sammie Szmodics too find spaces. Evan is really good in front of goal.” With Will Smallbone among those in the treatment room, it means Ireland do not have a Premier League midfielder in their squad.
Asked about the gulf between the Championship and international football, Hallgrimsson said: “It depends on the player, what position you’re playing etc. “I often said that for a goalkeeper or a centre-back playing League One, it would be OK because they test you a lot. “It depends on so many things, Obviously we would like all our players playing in the Premier League, in the top teams, in the Champions League against the best players.
“That is the ultimate goal but you can still be a key player in a national team playing in the Championship or even lower. “I think this league is improving a lot, it needs real quality to be playing in the Championship. "It’s not only the quality, it’s the amount of games, it’s the load on the player, so you get a massive amount of games, of playing time.
“Sometimes you have players in the Premier League not playing. "|Is it better to be playing day in, day out in the Championship or in the Premier League on the bench playing a few minutes?” Such is Ireland’s limited pool of options, the Icelander knows he cannot afford to employ any hard and fast rules or he could soon trip himself up. And he made it clear that, as much as he would like consistency of selection, there will always be room for a bolter with no starting XI yet set in stone ahead of the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
He said: “We are trying to be consistent in what we are saying and asking for. “I feel like the decisions we make in training and meetings talking together, people are getting more and more on board. “Hopefully in the future it will not matter if a player is missing, there will be a replacement with the same knowledge on what we want.
"You’re always looking, you’re never like set. I think we’ve found good connections between players on the pitch. “But there’s always space for better players in teams, whether it’s a national team or a club team, and then it’s the form as well.
“The next games are in March, so you never know who’s playing at that stage and who is maybe injured or not playing well or not playing at all, so you can never decide your team for March when it’s November.”.
