Martin O'Neill...

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 OnTheOneRoad wrote:

I think the penny would drop if we could clone Marouane Fellaini 10 times, give out 10 Irish passports, play all of them in front of Darren Randolph, and finally wonder why we have 20% possession against Georgia when all of our players play for Manchester United.

We look at our players and the clubs they play for as if that tells the whole story a bit too much. We could have 11 Premier League players and it wouldn't necessarily tell us anything. I think the issue is that we have a lot of players who do a job for certain clubs, and are signed because "you need a player like that at your club". There are a lot of teams around the bottom of the Premier League or top of the Championship that could do with what James McClean offers - his pace, stamina and aggression. Similarly, lots of clubs have taken a punt on Shane Long for his willingness to run the channels, pace and physicality, David Meyler does the basics well and is a safe man to put into a midfield, Jon Walters is a big strong experienced old head with an eye for goal, Glenn Whelan saw off X amount of players bought to be his replacement at Stoke, and so on and so forth.
The problem arises when you try to build a team of players from that. Obviously as an international team we can't go out and buy players to build a balanced side and lots of international teams are unbalanced. But our players for the most part fulfil a defined role at their clubs which is more often than not that they are recruited for their work rate, pace, physical strength or defensive attributes - meaning it doesn't matter if our players play in the Premier League or wherever else, in terms of figuring out how good they will actually all perform for us when put together. In our strongest squad, there are very very few players who would be considered technically of a very high standard, particularly in midfield where it is most sorely needed. Two who would be of that quality (Brady and Hendrick) have not performed for us since 2016. One (Hourihane) has looked awful in the games he has played so far, though that isn't to say he can't turn it around.

It's telling that Declan Rice has been such a revelation for us for the simple fact that he is comfortable in possession, can pick a smart pass, and remains composed. He is a 19 year old centre half coming off his first full season of professional football that we are playing in midfield and looks set to be a key player in the Nations League because of the fact that we don't have anyone else who can do this. 

Some fair points but it still doesn’t explain how the likes of Burnley can finish seventh with three or four Irish players playing in important posistions while having a big lump like Chris Wood up front. They may have some technical midfielders like Defour and Gudmonsson in midfield, but these lads aren’t Iniesta or Xavi and aren’t good enough alone to turn a side with technically poor players like Stephen Ward and Kevin Long into a Europa League standard side. Clearly there’s more involved in Burnleys success than one or two half decent midfielders. 

Why were we able to play effective yet decent football in some of our Euro 2016 games / qualifiers, yet we cant pass the ball five times in succession vs Georgia? If anything, lads like Brady and Hendrick who were young at the time should now be in their prime and be better players now than they were back then. 

Also, at this stage in their careers I’m not sure if anybody is signing the majority of that Sweden squad for their technical ability. Seb Larsson, Ekdal and Svensson who play in midfield for the Swedes are every bit the journey man that the majority of our players are. Are they really head and shoulders technical ability wise than our players? I’m not so sure. 