IRELAND BOSS MARTIN O’Neill will sign a new contract “within days,” according to FAI chief executive John Delaney.
The 64-year-old coach’s future has been the subject of much speculation in recent months, after he guided the Irish team to Euro 2016 and helped them reach the last-16 stage of the tournament in France.
Before the Euros, the FAI confirmed that O’Neill would be staying on in his role, but confusion arose after it emerged the Derryman had not signed on the dotted line despite previous assumptions to the contrary.
However, speaking at Sport Ireland’s Field Investment Announcement today, Delaney confirmed that it was a matter of when not if O’Neill would sign the contract.
“There are no issues about that,” he said. “Before the Euros we announced, with Martin, that the management team’s contracts would be renewed and that they would be staying with us through the World Cup qualifiers.
“I spoke to Martin last week, the contracts are there to be signed and it’s only a matter of myself and Martin meeting up to sign. I would say in the next week or so, the next time I meet him, but everything is agreed.”
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Delaney waiting until he got a hand out from the Government to sort out O’Neills contract..
Hopefully he will call up a few of the younger lads in September.Were we the oldest squad at the Euro’s?.
We were, we had an average of 29.
We were but we weren’t reliant on a lot of those older players unlike Russia and CR who where our closest comparisons.
Ya our bench was def the oldest, first eleven were quite young particularly after the changes after the Belgium game
Plus having an old squad isn’t usually a bad thing, Argentina had the oldest squad at the last World Cup with an Average age of 28.6 I believe and they didn’t do to badly at all.
That’s great, one of Irelands best managers for a while now.
Best thing John Delaney’s done in a long time
We need to do whatever it takes to keep the man. No doubt premier league clubs will be keeping an eye. He’s been the best thing to happen to Irish football in a long while. The man is a pro. Look at how he handled the Jack Grealish situation. He didnt care that a nobody like dunphy was trying to publicly shame him for not running after him. He dosent prostitue himself for lads that dont want to play. The way he brought in younger players at the right time before theolder lads were over the hill has been brilliant aswell. A terrific manager and no doubt england would love to have someone like hom
I think Eamonn Dunphy should be gaffer
He needs to be a hell of a lot better in the tactics department. Hopefully he will make some changes in personal and get in a tactical astute assistant. The tactics he deployed against Belgium was an absolute disgrace at any level of the game.