Ireland happy for USA to provide more welcome distraction

Amid all the talk of distractions, tonight's game against the USA somehow seems like one itself. It will doubtless be a welcome one, though, to Martin O'Neill and co, who will be happy to focus solely on the football one last time before the lengthy break from action.

After a decent World Cup, Jürgen Klinsmann’s side, even this somewhat experimental version of it, looks an interesting enough way to round off the year, although the game has inevitably been overshadowed by the hangover from Glasgow, where Shaun Maloney’s winning goal stole much of the wind from Ireland’s sails.

O’Neill said he felt the general sense of the team’s position had suddenly become unduly negative in the wake of one defeat. “We’re going into the new year with seven points,” he said. “We’ve won away from home in Georgia, done what we had to do against Gibraltar then gone to Germany and got a result against the World champions. Alright, we didn’t play well in Scotland but then I didn’t think they were startlingly brilliant either.

“I’d have taken the points we have at this stage given that the run at home was always going to be crucial. It’s not all doom, gloom and despair.”

The team is, he suggested, only actually a point short of what most people would have been happy enough to settle for in the wake of the Germany game.

In fact, seven would have seemed very healthy indeed before Gelsenkirchen, which touches on the point that his side would almost certainly be significantly better off now if it had taken its seventh point against the Scots rather than the Germans.

Peripheral players

For the moment, though, all that will have to be set aside as O’Neill tackles a relatively low-stakes game, the main purpose of which will be to give opportunities to some of the squad’s peripheral players.

Roy Keane suggested on Sunday that many of the squad members who have had to sit out the last game or two would feature and O'Neill confirmed yesterday there would be large-scale changes.

Cyrus Christie and David McGoldrick, he said, will both start, with the right back, one suspects, in a position to earn himself a regular place in the squad thanks to his potential to provide back up to Seamus Coleman at right back and, quite possibly, progress to challenge Stephen Ward on the other side of the defence.

The 22-year-old looks to have real potential, while McGoldrick, a fairly versatile attacking player whose form last season prompted some serious offers from rivals clubs in the summer, could, O’Neill feels, add to his range of options in an absolutely key area of the pitch.

Quite who they’ll find themselves playing alongside this evening remains to be seen with the manager giving little else away yesterday.

Darren Randolph, Ciaran Clark and Daryl Murphy are amongst those in a position to make cases for opportunities. The latter's prospects are boosted slightly by the notion that he might help to get the best out of McGoldrick, who is a team-mate at Ipswich.

John O'Shea's appearance at the pre match press conference might be taken as a hint that he will captain the team, although obviously not as strongly as it would have been before Robbie Keane's turn at the top table with O'Neill in Celtic Park.

The Sunderland defender's vast experience would seem well worth having in the event that players who are not seeing a huge amount of action back at their clubs are going to get run outs. What's more, there are bound to be a couple of other survivors from Friday with Ward, Aiden McGeady, Jeff Hendrick and James McClean amongst those who might make sense for one reason or another.

Asked if his priority this evening was the performance or the result, O’Neill said: “I’d like both, to win the game and play well. There are a number of people I want to have a look at, to see how they cope with this type of football, but I’d also like to get back to winning.”

He won’t, of course, be the only one, with Klinsmann targeting a first win in four after late goals cost his side victories against Ecuador and Honduras last month, and another ensured defeat by Colombia on Friday in Fulham.

He too will be making changes, although not so many.

The squad he selected for these games included about half of the group brought to Brazil for the World Cup, plus quite a few who are being brought through for next year’s Gold Cup, which the US will defend on home soil in July.

In the meantime, due to their slightly peculiar competitive cycle, they find themselves playing their 11th friendly of 2014, a run punctuated by their outing at the World Cup, where they did well to get out of what had looked a tough group, before losing narrowly to a strong Belgian side.

Interesting test

At anything like their best, which would be a considerable improvement on Friday’s performance, they have the potential to provide an interesting test for the home side and a chance for a couple of those Irish coming in to show they have the composure to shine over the campaign’s second half. As always, with these things, the initial hope is that the game is at least somewhat competitive.

Several senior US players have been spared the trip while a few of the original squad have, like Robbie Keane, have returned to the States with MLS play-offs in mind.

Nevertheless there is still some real quality, especially in midfield, where Kyle Beckerman, Fabian Johnson and Alejandro Bedoya look likely to start.

Cork-born Shane O'Neill is not here, although Klinsmann confidently predicted last night that the Colorado Rapids player, a son of former All-Ireland winner Colm O'Neill, would play for the US soon enough. The German suggested that he hopes to see the player feature at the 2016 Olympics, the sort of incentive O'Neill would surely like to be able to offer.