Gavin Cooney

SO MUCH FOR a settled selection. 

Heimir Hallgrimsson arrived into the Ireland job hoping to establish a squad hierarchy and thus a settled starting XI, but the vagaries of injury, form and club selection, along with the sheer sameness of so many of Ireland’s options, means he has been performing surgery inside and outside his dental practice. 

Hence Hallgrimsson has changed about a third of his squad for this week’s World Cup qualifiers against Portugal and Armenia, with midfielder Jayson Molumby among those earning a recall. 

Molumby was simply omitted for last month’s games, and not even avoiding the taint of association with defeat in Armenia softened the sting of exclusion. 

“It was really tough for me”, said Molumby. “You feel a lot of emotions. Angry, disappointed. Gutted. A lot of things go through your head. I am just happy to be back.”

Molumby says he didn’t get an explanation from the manager as to why he was left out, but he is keen not only to make a point this week, but to change perceptions. 

“I am playing in the Championship”, he said. “It is not the top level. It is not the Premier League. But I know what I am as a player, I am not going to dribble past three players and stick it in the top corner. I know my strengths and weaknesses. 

“I am passionate, I care, I’ll work as hard as I can. I feel I don’t get enough credit for my technical ability. I am not overly technical, I am not unbelievable on the ball, but I can manage myself and I am good enough to play on the ball at this level. Hundred per cent.

“I feel that gets looked over with that part of my game.

“I’m not just some fella running around kicking people. It’s part of my game where I like to be aggressive and add energy to the game. I just believe in myself I guess. 

“I think I can be tough to play against. I can be aggressive but not over aggressive. I have had a couple of silly red cards in the past, only two in my career and I’ve played 200/250 games or whatever. People can label you as indisciplined or something but Im an aggressive player and it will happen sometimes that you overstep the mark. But I’m just working as hard as I can and doing my best.” 

Molumby believes in himself but such has been Ireland’s years-long marooning among football’s backwaters, it is hard to parlay that self-belief into outward confidence in an Ireland jersey. 

This was one of Hallgrimsson’s first diagnoses, that the jersey weighed too heavily on some players. 

Molumby shed light on this reality in his response to an unrelated question.

“I think I can be a bit self critical at times”, replied Molumby. “It’s hard to justify myself starting for Ireland when I have started many games in the past for Ireland.

“We haven’t won a lot of games so I’m not here to be saying I should be starting for Ireland. It hasn’t been a successful time since I’ve been here and I haven’t really achieved much personally. I haven’t played at a big tournament, I haven’t won a big away fixture against a Portugal or France. It’s tough.” 

Molumby has made 29 senior appearances for Ireland, and is among a now reasonably experienced generation of Irish players whose experience has been largely miserable. He had to wait 13 caps and almost two years before Ireland won a game in which he played – the 3-0 Nations League win over Scotland in 2022 – while, all in, he has got onto the pitch for only five wins. Conversely, he has been involved in three and five-goal defeats to England at Wembley, three of the four recent losses to Greece, an ignominious home draw to Azerbaijan and the disastrous home defeat to Luxembourg.

This is not to make an example of Molumby, but merely to accentuate the fact that he is one of a flood of players in their mid-twenties who have precious few happy memories in a green shirt.

Molumby’s mission to shift perceptions and instil a real kind of confidence mirrors that of all of his team-mates this week.