That’s it for another month so.
Ireland condemned to the play-offs for not being brave enough to go at Poland when we had nothing to lose.
And of course, Eamon Dunphy lays all the blame at Martin O’Neill’s door for the lack of Wes Hoolahan. He even predicted the shambles beforehand.
But a number of points – six in total – have been raised since the rant and the game.
1. Dunphy has been consistent
The RTÉ pundit’s remarks naturally get a lot of backs up and plenty have been calling him out for not whinging about Hoolahan before this campaign.
Wesley Hoolahan was available for qualification campaigns for: 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and Dunphy never cared.
— Gareth Penrose (@garethpenrose) October 11, 2015
But Dunphy has long since been calling for Wes’ inclusion in the team, particularly under the Trapattoni era.
With this, at least, he has been consistent. But perhaps he was slightly unreasonable about O’Neill on Sunday night.
2. Martin O’Neill wanted to play Hoolahan
Ireland deployed a diamond formation against Poland – an even more deliberate diamond than they did against Germany and they had a clear man playing off the two strikers in the hole. Jeff Hendrick had to deputise in that role in Warsaw. Don’t tell me that Martin O’Neill wouldn’t have wanted a fully fit Wes Hoolahan there.
Don’t tell me that he wouldn’t have preferred our best maestro to play in a role specifically designed for a maestro. A role that was clearly still being used against Poland.
It wasn’t like we were deliberately set up to play uber conservatively. There was purpose in the formation at least but Hendrick in that role didn’t give us the same effect. McClean was lost with his narrower position and Whelan offered nothing.
The Brady shift back to full back didn’t exactly work out either and, whilst there was probably calls to be upset that the manager drifted from the German tonic, it shouldn’t have all been laid at the door of Hoolahan’s absence.
Some of the other selections, in hindsight (except Whelan, that didn’t require hindsight), didn’t work but it wasn’t just the Hoolahan issue which surely the boss would’ve wanted to go with.
3. Hoolahan came to the manager
The player himself said he’d rather not start. There’s no way that didn’t happen. No matter how much Dunphy doesn’t want to believe it.
If our most creative player wasn’t feeling particularly energetic or sharp and he voiced those concerns, then O’Neill had every right to think he would leave him in reserve.
4. Should the manager have told him he’s playing anyway?
Your best player comes to you before the cup final and he says he’s tired. How do you react?
Tell him to suck it up, you’d think. You’re 90 minutes away from France. You have one more game until the summer. You’re playing and that’s it.
If you’re busted after 70 minutes, we’ll revisit the issue but get us qualified before you think about putting your feet up.
5. Is Hoolahan’s flagging of the issue more concerning?
We’re all quick to jump on the manager but surely O’Neill would be more worried about Hoolahan’s mentality heading into their biggest game of the campaign – more worried than he would’ve been of not playing him.
A player has basically told him that he doesn’t fancy it. Do you really blame the manager for not forcing him onto the field from the start?
He needed men who were mad keen to go to war in Poland – tired, injured or not. He didn’t need question marks over any of them and he especially didn’t need doubts being cast from the players themselves.
Dunphy tried to dismiss that issue with no argument. Rather than just admit, “okay, if the player has said that, that’s more his issue”. Instead, he blamed O’Neill.
6. We still should’ve used Hoolahan sooner
50 minutes gone, we haven’t picked up from a dreadful first half and, if anything, it’s getting worse.
Then you hit the panic button.
Then you get tough.
Wes, you’re coming on. I don’t give a damn about how you feel.
We couldn’t afford to be nice about it anymore. It was clear that we needed our best ball-player and we needed to take the fight – a proper fight – to the Poles who were the only thing standing between us and qualification.
And we had nothing to lose.
If Wes didn’t last 40 whole minutes, so what? We didn’t make it anyway and we’re now going to the play-offs anyway. When it was slipping away, take that risk. We needed to.
But it got delayed and delayed and, finally, Hoolahan was sprang from the bench with 18 minutes left of normal time. It was much too late.
It was almost as if we didn’t want to bring him on too early just in case we scored and then we’d have to defend again. And you couldn’t possibly have a player with a bit of bravery on the ball on the pitch when you have to defend.
It’s back to the same argument. Players like Wes Hoolahan show all that’s wrong with football in Britain and Ireland.
But O’Neill shouldn’t be blamed for not playing him on Sunday night. His only fault is not panicking sooner and forcing him onto the pitch.
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