Martin O’Neill very satisfied despite stalemate

Martin O'Neill was delighted with his side's performance against Italy at Craven Cottage, despite another frustrating night in front of goal.

The Ireland manager saw his side hit the crossbar and force numerous saves from Italy goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu, but once again, despite some very promising build-up play there was no way through.

Nevertheless, reasons to be cheerful.

"I thought we played very, very well,," said the Derryman. "Italy started well and David Forde made two very good saves but after that we settled well and I thought there was a 15 minutes spell when we played very, very well. We could have scored a couple of goals but we were playing well and I thought that we continued that in the second half.

The atmosphere was in stark contrast to that of the Aviva Stadium last weekend when Ireland lost 2-1 to Turkey in front of a paltry crowd at the cavernous ground.

“When I heard that there were going to be over 20,0000 people this morning, I realised that nobody was taking this as a friendly game,” added O’Neill. “They were gong to take it seriously and we wanted to match that. I thought our play was great, very, very competitive and I think with the way we’ve played there, we’ve given ourselves some real confidence.

The manager added that he has generally been of the opinion that his side has not been getting the results it has deserved so far.

"I think that in the games that we've played, I think apart from Poland on a very poor pitch, I think we should have won all of the matches that we have played, but it's all in the build up to the European Championships and hopefully we're saving it for the qualifying games.

The uncomfortable question of the future of his assistant Roy Keane was bound to rear its head, but O'Neill brushed it away, insisting he is unlikely to know before Wednesday as to whether the Corkman will be filling the vacant manager's position at Celtic.

“I haven’t spoken to him about it at all today. We were concentrating on the game and I’ll reiterate what I said the other day, I assume that something will be resolved before Amercia.

“I think it will be resolved by Wednesday, I couldn’t really tell.

“It’s not a deadline, my assumption would be that Celtic like everyone else would be looking at candidates, they’ve got games coming up and I sassume they’ll make a decision relatively quickly. I could be wrong of course.

He added that if Keane did go the whole camp would be “very disappointed”.

“My own view is that he has settled in very, very well indeed. The players have really taken to him as I expected and he has been terrific around the place, so I’d be disappointed. I haven’t spoken at length to the players but I think the general feeling is that they would want him to stay.”