ON THE EVE of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier clash with Portugal, Paul Dollery was joined by Gavin Cooney and David Sneyd on the latest episode of The Football Family podcast.
And with a star-studded Portugal side lying in wait – and Cristiano Ronaldo on the hunt for a record-breaking 110th international goal – the three lads discussed whether Stephen Kenny should move away from his preferred style of football in favour of a more conservative, defensive approach at the Estádio Algarve.
“Only up to a point,” according to Gav.
“Ireland should still try to counter-attack, because that’s the best way of pegging Portugal back.
The idea that we should just sit in and defend the penalty area like the Alamo is kind of totally pointless, because Ronaldo is going to get you, so you might as well try and retain some effort on the counter-attack, and try and keep the ball in some situations, because Portugal shouldn’t press us like you would imagine other teams like Luxembourg press us.
“Ronaldo is not really going to press Shane Duffy, so it’s worth trying to pass the ball a little bit without taking too many unnecessary risks.”
David feels a departure from Kenny’s favoured football philosophy wouldn’t do any favours for the manager’s image.
“I think he has to kind of show that the way he is going about things, the players are buying into it.
“Obviously you have to tweak things – you’re not going to play the same in every game – but Gav hit the nail on the head, there is no point in it. First of all, Ireland are not good enough to defend for that long, and they are playing against a team who have the tools to break you down even if you do play like that.
“You want to see progress in how Ireland are playing and a capability that they actually are able to do something when it is put up to them, but when you look through the players that we have and where they are at at the moment in terms of their clubs and their careers, (some of them) not even playing… It’s a lot to ask.
“It’s such a tricky one. You just hope that the adrenaline of the night and maybe having a belief in what the manager is trying to do and how that has been drilled into them kind of pays off a little bit, and you hope that everything that we are being told, that Irish players can do something a little bit different and still have their backs to the wall but be a bit more capable, this is going to be another indication to whether that is the case or just a complete fallacy.
“We’ll have a bit of an idea I suppose tomorrow evening.”
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