The Irish Football Association hope to use flattery as a form of coercion.
Even trying to persuade Martin O’Neill to attend a meeting in Belfast yesterday involved some cajoling, since the former Celtic manager has intimated that he does not wish to be considered for the Northern Ireland vacancy. The hope of the IFA officials is that O’Neill can be worn down by their persuasions.
Beyond the emotional connection, taking charge of his national team would once have seemed humdrum to O’Neill. He was interviewed for the England job, but with the media attention and scale of expectation, that is international football at its most overwrought. Northern Ireland are on a lower tier and success tends to be measured in victories over smaller countries and not being crushed by the major nations.
The IFA are keen to make a saving on the £450,000 that Nigel Worthington was paid annually, but are prepared to raise the stakes for O’Neill. The likelihood is that he will decline, however eloquently they make their case to their principal target. O’Neill may be more inclined to act as an unofficial adviser, with Avram Grant and Dave Jones expressing an interest in the position, and Jim Magilton, Michael O’Neill and Iain Dowie remaining the leading Northern Irish candidates.
It is a measure of the former Celtic manager’s circumstances that the IFA consider the approach worthwhile. He can no longer rely on being an obvious candidate for the elite jobs. There was a time when O’Neill was a credible successor to Sir Alex Ferguson, but that was when he was hoarding trophies at Celtic. O’Neill’s spell at Aston Villa was a time of acclaim compared to the cost-cutting and subdued ambitions the club is now wrestling with, but he has been pigeonholed as a manager who wastes money on his squad and leaves behind a debt burden.
Both Celtic and Villa sought to cut the wage bill after O’Neill left, but the Northern Irishman’s judgment was never in question. The players he signed were mostly capable of playing at the level he required, but his difficulty was in adjusting to squad rotation. He is a manager of old-fashioned ideals operating in a contemporary environment.
Ferguson and Harry Redknapp, two other managers steeped in the traditions of the British game, have accepted the need to change their teams to ensure that the players are not physically overwhelmed. O’Neill continued to trust in the old conviction that a club should have its strongest 11 and play that team whenever possible.
He also continues to be portrayed as a manager who demands full authority. At Celtic, O’Neill had the ear of Dermot Desmond, the club’s major shareholder, and so his command over team affairs was absolute. He was similarly indulged at Villa Park, at least until the owner, Randy Lerner, sought to reduce costs. Only Ferguson and Arsene Wenger now exert such an autocratic power at their clubs, and Manchester United and Arsenal will surely impose a more modern management structure when the time comes to replace them.
Even after restoring Kenny Dalglish at Anfield, Liverpool employed Damien Comolli to drive the club’s transfer policy; at White Hart Lane, Daniel Levy takes charge of transfers; at Chelsea, Roman Abramovich has long felt the need to employ a sporting adviser or director of football above his managers.
With Redknapp a leading candidate to replace Fabio Capello after the Euro 2012 finals, Spurs are the most likely next of the top English sides to be seeking a new manager. Yet the suspicion is that O’Neill will not compromise in order to accept such a role. That view might do him a disservice, but then his talks with the English FA were complicated by O’Neill’s insistence that he bring his trusted lieutenants, John Robertson and Steve Walford, into the national team’s set-up.
O’Neill will surely remain beyond the reach of the Northern Irish FA, but he is becoming a manager in need of another chance to prove himself.
aNALYSIS IFA’s move for Martin O’Neill is a sign of his status, writes Richard Wilson
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