Heimir Hallgrimsson may be a dentist alongside his role as a football manager, but last week he was speaking like a doctor.
At the announcement of his squad for Ireland’s meetings with Finland (Thursday) and Greece (Sunday), the new supremo said there was a need to ‘stop the bleeding’ with a win. It feels, however, that the Irish team is in need of a much more in depth intervention: something to bring it back to life.
Halgrimsson comes across as a nice man and is undoubtedly well intentioned, but it’s already hard to see the logic in his appointment by the FAI – and it will become even more difficult to fathom if this international window has a similar outcome to the last one.
The Irish team has been underperforming for some time and the Icelandic native has been tasked with reviving the side’s fortunes yet he has only been handed a contract until the end of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Such a short deal – of somewhere in the region of 18 months – is far too short a time to try and turn this ship around. The fact that Hallgrimsson wasn’t given a longer contract smacks of the association not being entirely sure about his appointment and such a short deal gives the leeway for a change, if necessary, ahead of a potential Euro 2028 campaign on home soil.
Qualifying for a World Cup is beyond Ireland right now, so what should the short-term goal be for this squad?
Well, the immediate priority is to avoid relegation to League C in the Nations League where, if it happens, Ireland will be playing their football alongside the likes of the Faroe Islands and Kosovo. To side step that scenario, Ireland will need to start to play with a bit more authority in order to gain a few results.
Authority comes from the top, so in that sense it was encouraging to see Hallgrimsson take a few tough decisions when it came to his squad selection for this international window. Matt Doherty, who shipped significant criticism for his poor display in the match against Greece last month, has been dropped, while Callum Robinson and Alan Browne are two other notable absentees.
His selection decisions this time around suggest he has taken more of a manager’s role, as opposed to his back seat approach in September when he delegated quite a lot of responsibility to his assistants, John O’Shea and Paddy McCarthy. Given his utterances around that time, it was becoming a dangerous situation for him where he appeared to be unable to take charge of the ship himself and was letting others do the running. His failure to attend matches in England was also an issue, though now it appears those items have resolved themselves. So that’s a good start to this window.
Good managers are the ones that can eke more out of their playing squad than someone else, but a lame duck manager would be unable to inspire too much confidence in an Irish dressing-room bereft of that very feeling right now. So, Halgrimmsson needs to take this job by the scruff of the neck and there are signs he is doing that now this time around. There is also some intrigue surrounding some of the players included, such as Luton’s Mark McGuinness and Jack Taylor of Ipswich Town. They are worth a shot.
Aside from natural frustrations around the performance of the Irish team over the last number of years, there also needs to be a pragmatism attached to any notions of how far Ireland can go at present. Ranked 62nd in the world at present, a modest rise up towards 50th would represent progress, as would retention of League B status in the Nations League.
Above all, however, Halgrimmsson needs to try and get the Irish fans back believing that something positive is possible every time Amhran na bhFiann rings out before an international match.
I was among a modest crowd at the Aviva Stadium in June for the friendly win over Hungary and, granted, it was a nothing game at the end of the season. Yet, it was hard to escape the general air of indifference to the whole thing. That’s not how football should be when following the national team. This Irish squad isn’t littered with quality international players, but it has enough quality to be performing at a higher level than it currently is. A lack of belief is holding players back.
Stuck in a rut of poor form for too long, Halgrimmsson will find a receptive Irish support willing to back him and his players if they can start getting a few results. But the lethargy on show against Greece will lead to a short tenure in the hotseat.
He spoke in his press conference last week about a greater pragmatism being required, so that points to Ireland being a little bit more solid defensively. There needs to be more evidence of that in the next two matches than compared to last month’s effort against Greece, when the visitors’ opening goal from the edge of the Irish area was all too easy with defenders standing off before the shot was despatched towards goal. That’s a good starting point, but goals at the other end are really what will give fans something to shout about.
Much, maybe too much, has been expected of Troy Parrott but the Dubliner appears to have found some form in the Netherlands, where he has been banging in goals regularly for AZ Alkmaar. Still only 22, he has plenty to offer and should be given a leading role for the Finland game on Thursday.
There’s the bones of a decent Ireland team there and, playing in a set structure, they can move up the rankings and become more competitive. That’s all fans really want.