THE flights are booked, the hotel is booked and the wife has been informed (in that order) so my trip to London to watch the Republic play England at Wembley in November is sorted.
What comes to mind when you think of Wembley? FA Cup finals, The 3 Lions, Ricky Villa, Wembley Way, West ‘Am, Bobby Moore, Gazza, Peter Beardsley, Terry Venables, Live Aid, Freddie Mercury, Niall Quinn, John Motson…
I’ve never been there so I can’t wait and all we need now are a few tickets for the game and an Evan Ferguson hat-trick on the night.
Somebody to manage the Republic would be handy too of course.
It’s getting on for three months since Stephen Kenny’s time as Republic boss ended (November 22) and long before the FAI formally parted company with him, it looked extremely likely that there would be a change. So this process has been going on for a long time.
There are roughly five weeks until the first fixture of this year against Belgium on March 23 so we need to get the finger out here.
What is the hold up? Will nobody take them on? I doubt that. OK, the Republic might not be at the absolute peak of their powers but there are good players there who are capable of producing much better results than we’ve seen over the past couple of years.
The quality of the Republic squad compares very favourably with the likes of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Remember the Republic stuffed Scotland 3-0 in Dublin in the summer of 2022 but it was the Scots who kicked on and we went backwards.
Scotland lost just once in their group and qualified for Euro 2024 and they play in the opening game of the tournament against hosts Germany.
With John McGinn, Scott McTominay and Callum McGregor, they have more quality in midfield than the Republic but elsewhere they are reliant on the hard work and commitment of decent, solid professionals not world-beaters.
Their goalkeeper Angus Gunn and central-defensive lynchpin Grant Hanley both play for Norwich City and former Queen of the South striker Lyndon Dykes, from English Championship strugglers QPR, is a regular up front.
Scotland manager Steve Clarke’s CV (Reading, West Brom and Kilmarnock) wouldn’t necessarily blow anyone away but you can’t argue with the job he’s done with the players available to him.
And the same must be said of Wales manager Rob Page. Page’s managerial experience at club level was at Port Vale and Northampton Town and he was shunted into place as his nation’s manager after Ryan Giggs was arrested (the charges were later withdrawn) for assault.
Despite not having top-level experience, Page has taken Wales to the brink of qualification for this summer’s Euros. With a squad dominated by players from Championship clubs, Wales became hard to beat at home and difficult to break down away and they play Finland in a qualifying semi-final next month. Should they get through it, they’ll face either Poland or Estonia for a spot in Germany.
The new Republic of Ireland manager will have a better squad to pick from than Clarke or Page.
Starting up front, whoever he is will have Premier League duo Evan Ferguson (Brighton) and Chiedozie Ogbene (Luton Town) with Celtic’s new signing Adam Idah and Michael Obafemi waiting in the wings.
There are no stars in midfield but solid performers in Josh Cullen, Jayson Knight and Alan Browne, while Leicester City’s Kasey McAteer would be a very handy addition. The team is built on very solid defensive foundations with four centre-halves in Nathan Collins, Dara O’Shea, Celtic’s Liam Scales and Andrew Omobamidele who are all playing regularly now for their clubs.
Behind them is either experienced ‘keeper Gavin Bazunu who could be back in the Premier League next season or Liverpool’s Caoimhin Kelleher who was a transfer target for Nottingham Forest during the transfer window,
In addition to those there are ‘Wild Geese’ in Jake O’Brien (Lyon), Troy Parrot (seven goals for Dutch outfit Excelsior so far this season), Festy Ebosele (Udinese) as well as the promise of Blackburn’s Andrew Moran and Leicester’s Tom Cannon to come.
So don’t tell me the players aren’t good enough to compete with Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Albania all of whom have made it to the Euro 2024 finals.
We just need the right manager and he question is: Who is he?
Various names have been bandied around for months now.
Lee Carsley, a former Republic player who has done great things with the England U21s was an appointment that would have been an interesting appointment and the front-runner but according to Shay Given last weekend the former Everton midfielder isn’t going to be the man.
There’s been talk of former Wales manager Chris Coleman, Chris Hughton, Robbie Keane and Roy Keane but, for me, if Carsley isn’t interested then Neil Lennon is the best bet.
There were some who predicted that Lennon would be out of his depth when he took over from Tony Mowbray as Celtic manager but the Lurgan native impressed as caretaker manager and, when was appointed on a permanent basis, he initiated a clear out at Celtic Park, built a new team and showed himself to be a shrewd operator in the transfer market.
He won the lot in Scotland and, before you turn your nose up at that, look at the job Ange Postecoglou is doing at Spurs since he went there from Parkhead. You have to be a good manager to win trophies anywhere.
The Lurgan native has occasionally shown a feisty side to his nature on the sideline but I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of that at the Aviva. Stephen Kenny didn’t lack passion for his country but his off-the-peg ideas didn’t cut it and he didn’t have the experience and stature to fall back on when things began to go south.
Lennon has that experience and he wants the job.
So let’s get the man in and start getting the team in shape for the Belgians next month and hopefully begin with a positive result that sets the tone for a busy year that’ll reach a crescendo with a famous win at Wembley.
And I’ll be there.
Alright, yeah, I asked the wife first.