Eschewing open attractive football for an approach that makes matches more “ugly” and “dirty” will yield greater dividends for the Republic of Ireland against England on Saturday and beyond, according to former Boys in Green winger Keith Treacy.
New Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson will get his reign underway in earnest on Saturday next when England come to the Aviva Stadium in the UEFA Nations League B opener.
The Icelandic native has already repeatedly pointed out that he will aim to go back to basics tactically as he looks to engineer an improvement in competitive results that largely eluded predecessor Stephen Kenny in a tenure that, at times, saw Ireland attempt to be more expansive on the ball.
England, under their caretaker manager, ex-Ireland midfielder Lee Carsley who was himself heavily linked with the Irish job, will provide a stern first test for Hallgrimsson.
While Treacy sees the subsequent game against Greece next Tuesday as being more important as a litmus test of any signs of progress under Hallgrimsson, the former Burnley and Blackburn Rovers player believes the former Iceland and Jamaica manager is right in aiming for a style of play that could make Ireland harder to beat.
He pointed to a template that provided encouraging performances – although not results – under Kenny in games against elite opposition like France and Portugal in Dublin and which Hallgrimsson’s assistant John O’Shea appeared to lean towards as interim boss in the March and June windows.
“I think the blueprint is there and I’m not surprised that Heimir has looked at it and thought this is the way it has to be,” Treacy told the RTÉ Soccer Podcast.
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“Because we had the ‘can we be a bit more sexy, can we play a bit more attractive football’. We tried to do it against lesser nations. We tried to do it and we’ve come up short an awful lot.
“The game’s where we’ve been a bit more workman-like against France, the Dutch, we’ve done okay. I know we’ve lost those games but we’ve done okay and been really competitive.
“So why not take that blueprint and apply it against everybody. And I mean that against everybody, even when the so-called lower (ranked) teams come to the Aviva – and there’s not going to be an awful lot of them because we’re so low at the minute – but if a lower team comes to the Aviva, we can open up, get the goal and then start playing a little bit prettier.
“But against the likes of England, even against the likes of the Greeks, it’s going to be really difficult because these are good footballing nations.
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“So I’m not surprised because when you look at our midfield players, there’s nobody you can fizz the ball into and tell them to make us tick and be the quarter-back for us.
“There’s nobody there. There are a load of people that go and get you the ball back but don’t really know what to do when they have it.”
Pointing to Southampton’s Will Smallbone as an option who could potentially develop into a potential conduit in midfield with a full season of Premier League experience across 2024-25, Treacy added that the lack of viable playmaker in the here and now leaves only one option for Ireland.
“We just don’t have it so it’s got to be ugly, it’s got to be dirty,” he said.
“Very few teams will come to the Aviva thinking, ‘Lovely, let’s have a game of football against Ireland’, because we will make it dirty.”
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Watch Turkey v Republic of Ireland in UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying on Friday from 5.40pm on the RTÉ News Channel and RTÉ Player
Watch Republic of Ireland v England in the UEFA Nations League on Saturday from 4pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.