SOCCER ANGLES:The news that Giovanni Trapattoni has signed a new contract will not have been welcomed by Sunderland midfielder Andy Reid
SO GIOVANNI Trapattoni has a new contract with the FAI, as revealed yesterday. But, judging by the squad announced for next month’s World Cup double-header, Trapattoni has nothing new when it comes to Andy Reid.
With the Italian in charge until 2012, it could be a long wait for the Irishman to play for his country again.
Which is a shame. It is a year since Reid and Trapattoni had an altercation in Wiesbaden. It ended with the player being hit over the head with a rolled-up copy of Gazzetta dello Sport and exclusion from his national squad.
Since then Trapattoni’s Irish career and the World Cup campaign have developed, promisingly so. Trapattoni is viewed as almighty.
Fair enough. But Reid has also developed. More slowly at first, but then in the last three months, rapidly. He is now an established, genuine Premier League footballer with the physical capacity to match. He is one of the best Irish footballers around.
In Trapattoni’s opinion yesterday, however, not as good as Liam Miller. Or Aiden McGeady. Or Glenn Whelan, Stephen Hunt and the rest. In purely playing terms, it is a laughable position to take.
This column is not a vehicle for Andy Reid, no bandwagon. It feels important to state early in it that I do not know Reid. I have met him once for an interview, 17 months ago, shortly after he joined Sunderland. I had not spoken once to him before then and not once since. I liked him when I met him, he is a different kind of professional footballer, more thoughtful.
And you could, of course, see his talent. That’s why he was capped by his country in the first place, not because he is thoughtful.
In the first few games Reid played for Sunderland he stood out simply because of his composure. There were questions about his build but Reid’s first-touch made them seem secondary.
Sunderland stayed in the Premier League in part due to Reid’s arrival. But last season was tumultuous for the club, more so than has ever been let on. Roy Keane’s departure was only part of it, the Drumaville men were also organising their exit strategy. There was uncertainty about the future and uncertainty about how the team was going to play on a Saturday afternoon.
Everyone was touched by this, but the players most of all. According to a recent interview, Reid said there was a lack of “direction” from Keane.
When Steve Bruce became Keane’s permanent successor in June, it appeared Reid’s direction, like that of other Irishmen on Wearside, was out the door.
Along the way though, something clicked in Reid’s head and it led to a physical change that is metabolically impressive, but also symbolic. For Trapattoni not to witness this does not reflect well on him or those around him.
At Darlington in a pre-season friendly, the sight of a slimmed-down Reid was almost alarming. In the first minutes, as he sprinted down the left, reporters checked their teamsheets.
After the game Bruce spoke in the tunnel of a young man fighting for his place, who had lost the guts of two stone.
Soon it was to emerge that weight loss was only part of it. Reid had taken to running in Northumberland with a fitness coach and when he strode past a few journalists on Tuesday night at Sunderland, Reid looked chiselled, not just someone who has shed a few pounds.
It is showing in his play. He was the most creative player on the park on Tuesday against Birmingham and, against Hull a fortnight ago, apparently Reid was excellent.
Statistically he covered more ground than any other player on the pitch that afternoon and produced more high-intensity runs than anyone else. One of those who would be assumed to do more running was Hull’s Stephen Hunt. He didn’t.
At Burnley last Saturday, once again Reid was Sunderland’s best player and once again was top of the club’s statistics.
The transformation in him is visible, so at the very least the FAI must be curious. Yet while the association had a healthy presence at Bobby Robson’s memorial in Durham on Monday afternoon, and rightly so, there was no request for an FAI ticket for the game down the road in Sunderland the next day.
They did not miss much in terms of a contest, but what was missed was another slick performance from Reid and, when the substitute’s board went up with five minutes left, the replacing of captain Lorik Cana. Cana has just arrived from Marseilles but he has impressed. As he departed, Cana made for Reid and handed him the armband.
It was one tiny gesture but that it did not feel outlandish showed in its own small way the esteem in which Reid is held by his new Sunderland colleagues, some of whom know him only from July onwards.
This feels significant. These are people who do not know the Reid from September 2008. He has changed.
The change warrants monitoring by Ireland at the very least.
Brown is under unfair pressure
AFTER SIX league games of last season, Hull City, marvellously, had 11 points. In their first-ever season in the top flight, they had won at Newcastle and Arsenal and were about to go to White Hart Lane and win there too. Hull and manager Phil Brown were the story of the moment.
After six games of this season, Hull City have four points and only pointless Portsmouth lie below them in the Premier League table.
Today Hull travel to Anfield, where you imagine their main task will be preventing severe damage to their goal difference column.
Hull and Phil Brown are again a story, only this time it is not of the charming newcomers variety. Now Brown is talking about the importance of next month to Hull’s season.
Immediately that is translated as short-hand for “Brown has a month to save job.”
In October Hull will play Wigan Athletic , Portsmouth, Fulham and Burnley, games from which they – especially Brown – probably need to get a minimum of eight points.
Hull’s manager is not universally popular.
He seems a bit too pleased to be Phil Brown. But while he may well have made mistakes, the achievement in taking Hull into the Premier League – and keeping them up – must merit the privilege of taking them down again, or not.
Has Brown not earned that?
