Cautious O’Neill refusing to take victory over Gibraltar as a given

There was good news and bad news for Martin O’Neill on the biography front yesterday with interest in Roy Keane’s latest work easing to the extent that there was barely a mention of it as the Ireland manager spoke to the press after training in Malahide. The media, though, were interested in James McClean’s claim that he has already started on one and gleefully asked the older Derryman about it.

He looked glum, paused for a moment and then observed drily: “I thought you wrote an autobiography when you’d done something,” which was more composure than the nearby association press officer had mustered when McClean himself had revealed the news a few minutes earlier.

The Wigan Athletic winger had suggested the title might be “Marmite,” on the basis that “you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it”. Most people in a position of responsibility that the player deals with would probably bet on it falling into the latter category but, if the project is real, then publication day should at least be another busy one for Twitter.

When O'Neill was eventually asked yesterday whether he had found some time to leaf through Keane's latest volume, meanwhile, he gave the idea short shrift. "I have things to do this week," he responded, "like Gibraltar. I am not concerned about anybody's book at this moment, particularly my assistant manager's."

Firmly focused

O’Neill was at pains to suggest that, while he is firmly focused on Saturday’s game, people need to be reminded it is a game, like any other, which has the potential to go wrong.

“We have to win the game, it’s really just as simple as that. We have to win the match. This is very important for us. There are three points on offer, we have to go and win the game,” he reiterated.

"I was at a Fifa conference in Russia a couple of weeks ago and a lot international managers got invitations to it. Some parts of it were pretty decent, particularly the international managers who were at the World Cup, talking about their experiences there. That was very, very good.

"But everybody was gathered in a group. (Georgia coach, Temur) Ketsbaia was just in front of me – I was speaking to him – and the Polish boys were over to the side. I was speaking to them and they were saying . . . the game against Gibraltar how relieved they were to get the goal in the first half."

The match finished 7-0 but, insisted O’Neill; “the only time they felt comfortable really in the game was when they got the second goal. And when I watched it back I understood totally. Gibraltar had a chance to equalise in the match, a really good chance – the lad stepped inside and the ball flashed just over the bar.

Six points

“Obviously, we have to win the game. But they found it difficult. They scored a host of goals towards the end of the game but they said they’d found it difficult. And I wasn’t sure what they meant until I watched the game. And, honestly, Gibraltar did cause a problem or two.

"So this idea that it's just all over . . . we're expected to win the game, absolutely. It's really important for us to be going to Germany with six points however we do it. But that's why I cannot concentrate on anything else other than the game on Saturday."

He has, he admits, plenty of decisions to make between now and then with all 26 players, including newcomer, Brian Lenihan, training yesterday. Despite that the manager says he is still weighing up the option of adding at least one more, possibly at right back where the 20 -year-old former Cork City defender seems highly unlikely to actually feature despite, as O'Neill put it, not looking out of place in his first senior international session.

The northerner seems happy to have brought the Hull City player and slightly anxious about the lack of a specialist right back but is understandably wary of the suggestion that the quality of the opposition might make taking a chance on Lenihan a viable option.

The importance of the occasion, he observed, as well as the pressure to win can make experience a precious enough asset on the night.

“Of course it can,” he said.

"I have experienced it at club level, at Celtic Park where the expectation, particularly in the SPL, of swamping all other teams from early in matches is there. When that early goal doesn't come the growing frustration of the crowd can transmit itself to players. But I have enough experience in the field hopefully to be able to cope with those situations."