Ireland’s players get day off, and then the pressure’s on

The Irish players will take a break from the build-up to the Scotland game today, with Martin O'Neill allowing them time with their families after more than a week of what he clearly regards as good work together.

“I’ve not been one for cooping people up,” he said after yesterday’s training session in Malahide, where many of the players were in recovery mode after Sunday’s draw with England. “I treat these players in, hopefully, an adult fashion and so far – so far – in my time here, they’ve responded.

“Famous last words, of course,” he added light-heartedly. “There’ll be three in prison tomorrow. Anyway, we’re off down now for some lunch and they’re off after that. They can go and see family and things like this here, and then we’re back in the hotel tomorrow and that’s their time.”

O'Neill was pleased to see John O'Shea in better, while Wes Hoolahan and Jon Walters came through their respective sessions without any evidence of the knee problems that had been troubling them towards the end of the club season.

Hoolahan is of particular interest given the manager admitted after the game on Sunday that he had planned to get him on for 15 minutes or so until the need to replace O’Shea meant he had used his permitted number of substitutes. But the sense seems to be that he is happy enough with the way things are falling into place for Saturday’s encounter with the Scots.

Calf problem

“Wes did some training there today which is good. It would have been nice to have got him on [against England] but he’s absolutely fine. Jon [Walters] at least got some time yesterday. And in terms of John [O’Shea], he’s feeling much better today.”

O’Shea’s exit from Sunday’s game, he confirmed, was related to an underlying calf problem that has taken a bit of management for a while, but the centre-back, he suggested, should be fine for the weekend.

In relation to his general team selection and tactics, he was anxious to convey the sense that his options are open, with David Forde mentioned positively in connection with the goalkeeping position and the possibility, however unlikely in such a make-or-break game, of switching to a three-man central defence with Seamus Coleman and Robbie Brady as wing backs, at least noted.

In reality, O'Neill is all but certain to stick with the general formation he has been employing, and most of the question marks it throws up are in attack these days, where – the likes of Hoolahan, Walters and McClean aside – the big decision appears to come down to Shane Long or Robbie Keane.

“Our problem is not getting enough goals. It’s nice to have natural goalscorers in the team and if we don’t possess them – now Robbie is coming back – but if we didn’t have them, we have to find some other way to win the game.”

Reverse the result

That might significantly add to the pressure already on a group that knows it must reverse the result from Glasgow if it is not to be left hoping for favours over the tail-end of the campaign, even to finish in the top three. O’Neill certainly doesn’t dispute that there is, for various reasons, an onus on his side to take the game to the visitors on Saturday afternoon.

“I think that’s right,” he says. “At the moment, you would have to say that there is more [pressure] on us to win and redress the situation from the Scottish game to put ourselves right into it; really that’s it.

“While it’s far from over [if they don’t] – there will be plenty of twists and turns – you would have to say that Scotland would gain a big advantage if they went and took three points from us.”

As to whether the players will rise to that challenge, he admitted there is an element of wait and see: “There are certain players who thrive on it. But nowadays, more so than ever before, you can turn what you think is a relatively easy situation into one involving severe pressure within a period of days.”

The bottom line, he said, is, “It’s up to us to win the game, regardless of the pressure. We have to go and try and win it. And the best way to do that is deal with it; to come out, be positive in the game and wrest the initiative from Scotland . It’s as simple as that. It really is.”