The Republic of Ireland facing the Netherlands in Amsterdam should never be a hard sell but Evan Ferguson and Chiedozie Ogbene have emerged as injury concerns ahead of the final European Championships qualifier at the Johan Cruyff Arena this Saturday.
Temptation exists to err on the side of caution as Ferguson (back) and Ogbene have busy Premier League schedules, with Brighton and Luton, in the coming months.
“Evan has been terrific, he’s reported, he’s determined to play this week and he’s shown a great attitude coming in,” said Ireland manager Stephen Kenny. “Having not been available for his club at the weekend, he could easily have been ruled out but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He seems to be really positive in his outlook and we’ll see how he goes between now and the weekend. But he’s shown a great determination to come in this week and want to play.
“I’m cautiously optimistic, we’ll see.”
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The game almost certainly doubles as the last competitive outing for Ireland until September 2024. With qualification to next summer’s Euros denied by Kenny’s record as Irish manager, the next games of real substance are the World Cup qualifiers in March 2025.
Kenny has just six competitive wins, against Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Scotland, Armenia and Gibraltar (twice) since September 2020. Crucially, Ireland lost the corresponding fixtures to Luxembourg, Scotland and Armenia. There have also been seven draws and 15 defeats along the way, including five losses from seven in the current campaign.
The stark reality of this record heaps pressure on FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill to bring attractive opposition to Dublin to fill the Aviva stadium with 10 months of friendly internationals.
Will Smallbone also looks certain to miss out this weekend as the 23-year-old has remained at Southampton for treatment on his foot and thigh. Add the potential unavailability of Aberdeen’s Jamie McGrath and Andrew Moran’s appearance at training in Abbotstown yesterday made a lot of sense. Not that Kenny intends on starting the 19-year-old Blackburn attacker against the Dutch, although an appearance against New Zealand in Tuesday’s friendly at the Aviva does look certain.
“Starting [Moran]?” Kenny replied. “Well, we’ve two games and we’ll see over the two games. We called him up for the game against Gibraltar but unfortunately he picked up an ankle injury in the Under-21 international [against Latvia] so, certainly, we’re delighted to have him in.”
Moran’s promotion is a blow for Jim Crawford’s Ireland Under-21s, but it provides a knock on opportunity for St Patrick’s Athletic midfielder Adam Murphy to step up from a talented crop of Under-19s.
“I always take that into consideration,” Kenny continued. “That’s why we didn’t pick [Moran] in the initial squad. We’re unsure of a few players so Andrew gives us a few options in a variety of positions. His ultimate ambition is to play for the senior Ireland team. We’ll see how that goes. He’s performed very well lately for Blackburn Rovers.”
Kenny had previously earmarked Moran for a bright future in the Ireland midfield but the dead rubber nature of this week turned attentions to how that future might look.
Marc Canham, the FAI director of football, plans to get all international teams from Under-15 to senior playing a distinct Irish style. Kenny preached the same message before results forced a chopping and changing of systems that ironically brought him back to 4-3-3, the formation he coached as a club manager.
The 52-year-old was asked if his football principles align with Canham’s vision.
“The principles of how the team play should be, I’ve been very clear myself, from day one, on that. I haven’t deviated from that. I’ve taken a lot of criticism for that. That’s just how I see it, how I genuinely see it. So Marc, yeah, Marc has come in and obviously he’s got his own team behind the scenes with Shane Robinson coming in [from the Shamrock Rovers academy] and they’ll work at all levels of the game to improve things and Marc is very, very professional, very collaborative, so yeah.”
Put it another way, would Kenny set up an Ireland team to play the Dutch in Amsterdam any different in September 2020 than November 2023? “It’s not that I don’t have the capacity to learn from mistakes or from games, of course you do. What I would say is that obviously we’ve not played Holland in Amsterdam, we’ve not been far away there, we have to just get better at what we do and improve aspects of how we play and continue to improve. Every game is different. But generally I think we’re on the right track in a lot of games and played very well in a lot of those games but we have to, obviously, turn those draws into victories and defeats into draws.”
Niall Quinn, the FAI’s interim deputy CEO for nine months in 2020, reappeared this week to present the players with caps for the international season. Hard earned caps throughout an increasingly tumultuous year, memorable for all the wrong reasons.
The association’s board of directors are due to meet tonight to discuss the threat of losing government funding because of its lack of female representation and Hill’s repayment of €20,000 in expenses.
