Hot Press is sometimes criticised for not being hard enough on Irish bands, as if giving people a mauling in print is some kind of badge of honour. Well, it isn’t.
Just look at the appalling way in which Steve Staunton was treated by the press here over the past fortnight, in the wake of the 5-2 drubbing the boys in green received at the hands of Cyprus. Who’d want to be part of that twisted excuse for journalism?
The Irish manager was the target for a level of dog’s abuse that wouldn’t be heaped on a dog under any circumstances nowadays, for fear that the ISPCC would have you hauled up before the courts. There is no justification for this kind of vilification. The Sun’s stunt of sticking Stan’s face on the body of Kermit The Frog and sending Miss Piggy out to a training session wasn’t actually the worst of it. It was the stories that were deliberately aimed at undermining him, the ones that pretended to insider leaks and that categorically stated that he was finished if the Irish lost to the Czech Republic that really stank.
And then there was the pursuit of his family, and the attempt to drag them into the pitiless process of roasting Staunton on a spit.
Great fun for the hacks involved, I’m sure, if you’re into gouging somebody’s heart out to get your kicks. But it was horribly obscene.
In the context of all that, no matter how badly wrong you might have thought he got it in Limassol, no decent person could do anything other than breathe a sigh of relief when Ireland got the draw with the Czech Republic, that made it impossible for the FAI to dump Stan. It would have been too gruesome to contemplate, if all that journalistic viciousness had been rewarded with a head on a platter. Now that there is a bit of time for Staunton to reflect on his mistakes and to grow into the job, here’s a few observations that might just help. Or not…
1. Talking about a four year plan is mistake. It sounds like you’re getting your excuses in early. It also risks sending out the wrong signals to the players, i.e. that getting beaten doesn’t matter. As the past few weeks graphically illustrated, it does. A lot.
2. Leaving Lee Carsley out of the squad was a symptom of that kind of misplaced emphasis on the long-term. Carsley is a very good footballer, who is playing as well as ever, in a decent Everton team. I like Graham Kavanagh, who does a similar job – but Carsley will give you a lot more. He keeps himself lean and fit, and at 32, has two or three more good years in him.
3. His performance against the Czech Republic was a superb lesson in hugely effective midfield play. He patrolled in front of the back four brilliantly, worked hard, got some big tackles in and distributed the ball cleanly and well. Michael Ballack he ain’t, but he’s the most effective central midfielder we have. It was a significant error of judgement not to pick him. And it was an even bigger error of judgement to refuse to call him up when the injury list began to mount.
4. Against that background, the Ireland manager needs to learn that what he says matters. After the Czech game, he’d have been far better to hold his hand up and say ‘Lee proved me wrong out there tonight – I should have had him with us in Cyprus’. That kind of honesty goes a long way. Instead he said something to the effect that he knew what Lee could do, merely inviting further derision – because, well, if he did, he would have had him in Cyprus. Any eejit could see that we had no one to hold the midfield together there – a big factor in the hiding we got.
5. The excuse that a lot of commentators are trotting out – and that is an undercurrent to what is being said by Steve himself, and by the FAI boss John Delaney – that we ‘don’t have the players any more’ just doesn’t stand up. The Scottish team is a star-free zone, and yet they beat France recently and are near the top of a tough group. Northern Ireland humbled England not so long ago. The Greek team that went all the way in the last European Championship were a bunch of hod carriers, compared to France, Italy, Holland, Spain or Portugal. Winning in international football is first and foremost about organisation, preparation, a good game plan, the players knowing what they are doing, being able to anticipate the opposition’s strengths and working out how to defuse them. Of course, it helps if you have a Thierry Henry, who can conjure a goal out of nothing. But the other basic coach’s stuff goes a hell of a long way if you get it right.
6. Besides, we have better players than the nay-sayers allow. Shay Given takes care of himself, but the challenge is to work out how to get the best out of Steve Finnan, Richard Dunne, John O’Shea, Damien Duff, Aidan McGeady, Robbie Keane, and Andy Reid. For example, can you afford to play Duff and McGeady? Certainly not without making sure that there’s a lot of steel in the middle of the park, as the Cyprus debacle illustrated.
7. It is essential not to underestimate the opposition. The willingness to leave Andy Reid in London; the decision to play Stephen Ireland alongside Kevin Kilbane; the decision to risk it with an out-of-form Andy O’Brien – these all suggest that there was a level of complacency in the Irish camp about the Cyprus game, a feeling that all we had to do was run at these boys and they’d crumble. It is part of the manager’s job to ensure that the best eleven available are on the pitch every time and that they are ready to perform.
8. There’s been a lot of bunk in the press about the players not caring. Names are casually thrown into the list of culprits in this regard: I’ve seen Damien Duff mentioned, as well as Robbie Keane and John O’Shea. But anybody who watched Duff’s reaction after his cross had been guided home by Kevin Kilbane at Lansdowne Road could see that accusations of that kind are ludicrous. These guys care. The manager’s job is to get them mentally right, to get them ready to spill blood if necessary. It was obvious against the Czechs that the spirit is there. An important part of Steve Staunton’s job is to make sure that we can see it. Always.
9. Finally a suggestion: take a course in public speaking and handling the media. And I don’t mean mastering the art of spin. You need to go into a room full of hacks knowing that you have something interesting to say. Learn to say what you want to say, and not to fill the gap with off the cuff stuff where the brain hasn’t fully engaged. It’s worse than silly, after a 5-2 defeat, saying that the lads have never let you down when it is so bloody obvious that they have – and badly. If you’re good at talking to the media, you become far less easy to lampoon. More importantly, people will start to believe that you know what you’re doing if you sound like you do.
The glass is half full. The way Paul McShane played, and brought the best out of John O’Shea – who had his finest ever game for Ireland – suggested that Steve Staunton will be faced with some very interesting selection dilemmas. He needs hard men and leaders on the pitch, including Lee Carsley, to get the best out of Duffer, Reid and McGeady. Thing is, we’re not out of the hunt yet.
That’s the attitude he’s got to take into the next four games – and if we can take twelve points, including defeating Slovakia, then it’s all up for grabs. That’s what he needs to drum into the Irish players’ heads.
And fuck four year plans: the best plan is to cultivate the winning habit now.