Meaningless game unless new players used

SOCCER ANALYST:WITH THE current economic climate, tonight's friendly against Norway can hardly be regarded as a money-spinner for the FAI, so, that being the case, when you look at it solely from a footballing point of view, what can it offer?

Well, managers generally want friendlies so they can have a look at new players, see if they can find a few who can fit into the system and do a good job when they’re needed. But if you’re not going to play fellas you need to have a look at, then I just don’t see the point, to be honest.

Even with Fifa having changed the rules so that world rankings impact on the seedings for World Cup draws it’s a largely meaningless game. The result of one friendly matters little and if you’re going to play games like this you should be using them to have a look at what we’ve got for the future.

I certainly expected Séamus Coleman and Jon Walters to start, maybe Keith Treacy too, and even if they all come on, as they probably will, they need more than half an hour or 45 minutes to show they’re up to the task.

We know about John O’Shea, we know what Liam Lawrence can do, Shane Long and Kevin Doyle too – and the goalkeeper. What are the benefits of playing Shay Given? I know he hasn’t been playing a lot with his club, but, again, we need to see if we have anything else instead of Shay. We have a few decent goalkeepers behind him, one of them should have started this game.

Surely Long and Walters together would have been better, to see what they can offer as a partnership? They could be a handful. And Doyle has played a lot of games on his own up front for Wolves this season, does he really need another game midweek?

Walters is the kind of player we’ve been looking for a while; he’s a big enough boy, he’s hard to handle and that’s something we don’t have at the moment. He’s probably a little more robust than what we have up front, more of a nuisance-type centre forward. That’s why I thought he would definitely have started, just to see if he’s up to international standard.

The same with Coleman. He’s been playing week in, week out for Everton in the Premier League, making a real impression. I remember him well from Sligo, a very, very good attacking player. He’s improved no end – he was a very good player going away, but I think he’s become an excellent player since then. He always gave you the impression he was a young boy willing to learn and he looks like he’s done that fairly quickly. He takes the advice of senior players around him, like from Phil Neville at Everton. He listens.

He offers a manager all kinds of options, he can play at right-back in a 4-4-2, he can play on the right side of midfield, as he has done recently for his club, or as a wing-back in a 3-5-2 system. He’s got loads of energy, he can defend, he’s decent on the ball and he gets into good areas.

He’s definitely someone who can play for Ireland for years to come, but the manager needs to be starting him in these games to see if he’s ready for international football now. I would have liked, too, to see Giovanni Trapattoni try another system for the game, maybe play one up, two fellas supporting from wide and three central midfielders, we have the players to play that system, it might have been useful to have tried it out. The manager would have spent some time this week, I’d imagine, explaining to the new players how we play, the system we use – there would have been no better way to complete the lesson than to have then given them their chance from the start tonight.

The one I am happy to see starting is Keith Fahey, he’s definitely worth looking at in central midfield, which, I think, is his best position. He’s more comfortable on the ball than some of the players we’ve used there; he’s someone’s who can retain the ball, and that’s been lacking for us – we just give up possession too easily.

It’s hard to know what to expect from the game, as it always is with friendlies. Norway are usually a fairly direct team, get the ball forward quickly, defend in numbers, so I wouldn’t be expecting a classic.

The manager, clearly, is just looking to win the game and while the spectators would also, of course, like to see Ireland win I think they’d be much more encouraged by two or three new, or relatively new, players emerging and doing really well. That, I thought, is what friendlies are all about.