O'Neill believes qualification is still very much alive

Martin O’Neill answered a variety of questions on Tuesday afternoon at FAI Headquarters in Abbotstown. He labelled the new Abbotstown complex the “start of a new era” for Ireland and went on to be speak in depth about his latest squad announcement.

Of the 37 man provisional squad O’Neill commented, “A lot of players are just starting off the season, some players, as you are well aware, have settled into their squad others haven’t had as much game time.” He also made it clear that the next two games, yet again, are crucial for the Boys in Green.

“Naturally [they are] very, very important. Four games left – we have to win both games… it’s almost essential now for us and while there will be a few twists and turns, these are games that we have to win. We have to find a way to win the games both in Gibraltar and, obviously, at home to Georgia.”

With nearly all of O’Neill’s goalkeepers not playing first team football at the moment, it presents a clear issue for the Republic of Ireland boss who listed five shot stoppers amongst his provisional squad.

“It presents a problem – the situation with the goalkeeping is pretty apparent really. Shay (Given) has left Aston Villa, has gone and has not played yet with the first team. David (Forde) has dropped down a division, with Millwall, but at least he is still playing.”

Greg Cunningham has made the initial list after some time away from the international picture while Eunan O’Kane received his first senior call-up having impressed O’Neill in recent weeks.

“Young Cunnigham playing there at left back is playing at Preston. The reports have been very good about him. And, Stephen Ward, is on the bench at the minute so he’s in contention and he played pre-sason. Young O’Kane played last night [Monday v Liverpool]. Big decision to play him last night and that will give him a big boost playing at Anfield.

Disappointingly, from a League of Ireland perspective, O’Neill has not been moved to include any of the Premier Division’s star players in the provisional squad. When asked if he had been keeping up on events at home he responded: “it’s a difficult one to make assessments… yes, is the answer, I have asked my own scouting team here in Ireland to keep me informed”.

He went on to say that they do keep tabs on what’s going on in the League of Ireland but agreed with the common perception of the Irish footballing public that “sometimes it can be hard, when I go over to immediately make that assessment as to whether someone can step into our setup.” He did stress that no players will be excluded because they are playing in the League of Ireland however.

Gibraltar away and Georgia in the Aviva are surely two games that everyone expects the Boys in Green to emerge with six points from but O’Neill was wary of becoming complacent against the groups so called minows.

“Gibraltar played excellent against Germany, really excellently, in fact outside the penalty miss that Germany had Gibraltar probably had the better of the chances. I cannot dismiss anything. We need to try and win the games and we need to go as strong as we possibly can”.

It is almost certain now that Ireland will need to rely on other results unless O’Neill and Keane’s side can pick up maximum points from the four games remaining, something which the manager wasn’t ruling out.

“It’s still in our own hands.  If we can take care of ourselves, all the other things will sort out. We will have to win the two games, we’ll have to get results against Germany and perhaps Poland as well but if we can come out of these two games with six points it will be interesting to see where the table stands at that time.”