EMMET MALONE ON SOCCER:The signs are the coach is trying to infuse English structure with continental patience

THE LATE goal conceded by Ireland at the Bruchweg Stadium in Mainz over the weekend might have reminded us that the team being renovated by Giovanni Trapattoni is still some way from being the finished article. What seemed more interesting on Saturday, though, was the extent to which this most continental of coaches has adapted his approach to suit players rooted in the "English" game.

Trapattoni may not travel to watch his players in action for their clubs but that hasn't prevented him settling rather swiftly on a style that suits them and a ranking order, one influenced to a considerable extent by the evidence he has gathered from watching all those DVDs we keep hearing about.

A man in his position might have been expected to take the opportunity to have a look at as many as possible of the panel available to him during his first few months in charge.

But setting aside the two training games in Portugal, he has not felt the need to. In the three friendly games he had to prepare for the start of this campaign he has used substitutes extremely sparingly, preferring instead to start laying the groundwork for a settled team and system.

True, there were five changes on Saturday from the side that started against Serbia but almost all are explained by injuries or players being unavailable for other reasons.

And even when the team took the field in Croke Park he appears to have made some major calls about how his Ireland side would play, with the holding midfielders and wingers.

By the middle of last month, with just about everyone to choose from, the side he fielded was virtually the one he picked for the first outing of the World Cup campaign.

There might yet be wholesale changes for tomorrow's game in Podgorica and there are bound to be a few forced upon him over the course of the campaign, but there has been very little in the two press conferences he has given since Saturday's win to suggest he will tinker any more than is absolutely necessary.

And while, on the face of it, there is nothing hugely controversial about the side he has picked, he has certainly made his mark.

His broadside on Brian Kerr after Saturday's win might have been what generated the headlines in the Sunday papers but of more significance were his latest comments on the decision to leave Andy Reid on the sidelines, something Steve Staunton was fiercely criticised for until he relented late last year.

There has long been some uncertainty about the actual need for Reid to have missed the end-of-season trip to Portugal. The Sunderland midfielder certainly appears to have been tired after a difficult season but there is a belief in some quarters he could have travelled.

Whether it is true or not Trapattoni, in what may serve as an important warning to other players, pointed to his absence then as having been a central factor in his ongoing omission from the team now.

That, he said, had been when he decided what way to construct his side and, deprived of the opportunity to work with Reid, he handed Glenn Whelan an opportunity that the previously neglected Dubliner has eagerly seized.

Kerr worked closely with Whelan at various levels but never selected him while in charge of the senior national team and expressed doubts over the weekend about the player's ability to make an impact at competitive international level.

Trapattoni, however, stuck with the 24-year-old even after what was a poor enough showing against Colombia in London. It's early days but against Georgia, the Stoke City midfielder did enough to suggest the Italian's faith in him had been deserved.

At the back, Steve Finnan's return has allowed the coach to settle on what he clearly feels is his best defence. John O'Shea's versatility still means Trapattoni has a little room for manoeuvre but having expressed satisfaction with the way the back four performed in Oslo, he passed up the opportunity to bring Paul McShane back in and switch the Manchester United player to one of the full-back slots.

More than once, the former Juventus boss has criticised his predecessors for switching Finnan to left back, something the player himself appears to have been seriously unhappy about, not least because the decision was never explained to him, while Kilbane's experience and industry have been enough to win him the number three shirt.

The strikers pretty much pick themselves these days but the decision to play with two wingers has been interesting.

He may have made mistakes with what he did have available to him but, to be fair, so many of Staunton's team selections were shaped by the absence of injured or suspended players that it's difficult to make a judgment on the tactics employed.

Before him, though, Kerr more or less settled into a playing pattern of 4-4-2 with one attacking and one defensive wide player in away games but two more creative men at home.

On Saturday, Trapattoni sent out a signal that he will look to attack down the flanks even in potentially tricky away group games.

A great deal may change over the months ahead, of course, but it remains noteworthy at this stage the extent to which the Italian has set out his stall for the campaign ahead. Jack Charlton, Mick McCarthy, Kerr and Staunton all, with mixed results, toyed to one extent or another with changing the shape of the team. Sometimes they did because of a determination to accommodate their most talented personnel and at other times because it was felt a particular system would improve the team's performances.

The early signs are Trapattoni, a man who has seen at close hand just about every tactical approach employed at the top end of the game over the last half century, is seeking to provide the players with a structure they understand and feel comfortable with.

Sure, there is an emphasis on retaining possession, short passing and levels of patience not always associated with the middle-ranking Premier League sides for whom most of his squad play but for all that, the shape of the team he picked on Saturday has, from a continental point of view, a rather English look about it.

It might just be that a man brought in transform this Irish side, is merely going to tweak it instead. Montenegro tomorrow will provide further evidence of whether he has correctly gauged the scale of the task.