Roy Keane calls for ‘streetwise’ fouling and Italian sacrifice

Roy Keane says that the Irish players have to be "streetwise" like the Italians when they face Antonio Conte's men in Lille on Wednesday evening with the former Manchester United star suggesting that sometimes winning football matches requires "sacrifice" by individual players.

“Foul, you mean?” the Corkman replied with a hint of amusement to a politely phrased question about the Irish players perhaps needing to be more willing to “stop play”, in Lille than they were at crucial moments in Bordeaux. “Yes. My advice would be, yeah, take them out.

"We saw Italy against Belgium, the player jumped all over somebody's back when Belgium were breaking and then they kicked the ball out of play. That's where you go back to the Italians – you have to be streetwise in this game. We're not here to make friends, the fans will do that. From a player's point of view, if you smell danger and you think, 'We're in trouble here', then yeah, you do whatever you can to get the right result.

“If that’s a foul, then you foul him. It’s not a crime. You might get a yellow card, you might even get a red, but your team might win. Sacrifices. You have to make sacrifices for your team.

“Does that answer your question?” asked the 44-year-old with a smile. “What do you think I would do?”

Tough challenge

Keane pretty much dismissed the notion that Conte might make life easier for Ireland by making wholesale changes but said that the strength of the opposition bench ensures that it will be a tough challenge which ever starting XI is selected. The key thing, from an Irish point of view, he said however, is that the Irish players put the Belgium defeat behind them and remind everyone what they are actually capable of now that their backs are to the wall.

“You’re not in the mindset that they’re better than you,” he says. “That’s a good start. We’re up against quality players, an established team, they’ve obviously had a very good start to the tournament, but there’s no surprises there. We had a bad day at the office the other day, but we’ve got a good group, we’ve had setbacks before and we’re looking forward to the match.

“It’s a very, very tough game; we knew that from the start with the draw we had. We had a few plaudits after the first game but we said after that game we have to move on quickly and you’ve got to try and be in the same mindset after a defeat. Get ready for the next game, that’s what football is all about. You have to deal with the setbacks, the disappointments, because football is more about setbacks and disappointments actually than the good days. So you have to deal with that and I think we will, I think we’ll be fine. Come Wednesday I think we’ll be ready.

“I don’t think tactically they’ll change from their last couple of games because of the way they’re set up. I’ve seen them a number of times: well organised, they clearly love to defend, they have got good options; they don’t necessarily like to pass it 800 times in the middle of the park; they put you under pressure by getting it forward, their wing-backs get forward, they’re a big goal threat . . . I don’t want to be talking them up too much,” he said with a laugh, “but they’ve a bit of everything, that’s why they’re a good team. They’ve no big weaknesses, vast experience from the goalkeeper to the centre halves, [Daniele] De Rossi in midfield I really like. We’ve mentioned warriors . . . well he’s up there and they have good options off the bench if they want to rotate. So we’ll have to be at our very, very best but we have beaten Italy before so, it can be done.”

Possibility

Jon Walters took a small part in training this morning and there is a possibility that he might return for the game although Keane certainly did not seem to think he would get 90 minutes and the question is whether the Stoke City player would be risked from the start or thrown on at some point if required.

Ireland, meanwhile, have been told that they cannot train on Tuesday on the Lille pitch, the quality of which has been a concern since the start of the tournament because of bad weather but Ireland’s assistant manager is not unduly concerned.

“Me personally,” he says, “I’m not too bothered. Some of the players would probably like to get a feel for the pitch but it’s obviously the same for both teams and we’ve done this before, gone away and not training on the surface. We’ve got enough on our plate without worrying about the surface. Hopefully it will be alright on the night.”