Martin O’Neill firmly on course to be next Ireland manager

Martin O’Neill remained firmly on course last night to be appointed Republic of Ireland manager by the end of next week after he made it clear to the FAI that he is willing to take the job on if the two sides can reach agreement on the usual terms and conditions.

Money is certainly not expected to be an issue but the 61-year-old's backroom staff just might be if his intention really is to include Roy Keane as his assistant, something he was widely rumoured to be intent on doing yesterday.

The move would be a surprise on all fronts with the Corkman an unlikely number two for all sorts of reasons. He would, on the face of it, seem far too unyielding for the subordinate role and might be expected to consider himself above it even after a couple of disappointing attempts at club management.

His outspoken views on the association hardly make him all that attractive to an outsider looking to have somebody local to smooth things along either.

And then there is the more specific matter of his particularly difficult relationship with John Delaney.

On the face of it, O'Neill might be expected to bring in somebody with more of a reputation for working at close quarters with players on the training ground whereas Keane, like O'Neill in several of the posts he has held, has tended to leave that to others, in the northerner's case primarily his old Nottingham Forest team-mate John Robertson.

Part-time involvement
That changed at Sunderland as Robertson apparently didn't want to move up to the north east and O'Neill took training far more often. The Scot might be more open to the sort of part-time involvement than an international job would involve although it is far from certain that he would be well enough after a heart attack a few months back.

There are other options open to O’Neill, however, including some decent Irish ones. For all that, Keane would undoubtedly bring a certain insight to the table. He and O’Neill know each other quite well through their work for ITV and are said to hold each other in fairly high regard.

There may well be some coolness towards the idea around Abbotstown where Keane would hardly be expected to become a company man on the basis of being paid a wage by the association.

But it seems unlikely that if the former Aston Villa boss really does want the younger man on board that it would be a deal breaker and the additional box office that Keane would represent would certainly be welcome if only the cost is not too high.

Details of what O'Neill wants are sketchy at best, however, but the association is at least clear now that having taken a few weeks out to weigh up his options the former Northern Ireland skipper is up for the job.

Been discussed
Having previously dealt with the organisation through intermediaries for the most part he apparently met with one of its officials this week in London where a broad outline of what might provide the basis for a deal is believed to have been discussed.

The association will have a board meeting before things can go much further but that is expected to happen early, possibly next Monday, while O’Neill is away for a few days for his broadcast employers on Champions League duty.

The meeting will also be updated by the two-man committee of Ray Houghton and Ruud Dokter on their activities over the past few weeks, although this looks increasingly like an exercise in the association covering itself by being able to say that every plausible candidate was met and interviewed.

Mick McCarthy’s representatives had made it known that he would not be interested in speaking to the pair and O’Neill appears not to have dealt with them at all.

Assuming the board approves his candidature, O’Neill is likely to hold talks with the association’s officials immediately and he could well be unveiled as early as the latter half of next week. It is understood, however, that as of last night absolutely nothing has been agreed and so there remains some potential for the entire process to fall apart.

If it doesn’t, then the former Celtic manager will almost certainly be the one to cut the roughly 40-strong squad selected by Noel King down to the group that he actually wants to work with for the games against Latvia and Poland.

O’Neill appears to have had nothing to do with any aspect of selecting the opponents or the preliminary group of players whose clubs were informed yesterday that their release would be required, but the games will provide him with a valuable early opportunity to get a sense of what he will be working with for at least the next couple of years.