Ireland vs Serbia: Is this the game that will get Martin O'Neill sacked?

Is there any hope for us at all? Is there even a possibility that we will qualify for the World Cup in 2018? Do we deserve to? On the evidence of Ireland’s utterly dire performance against Georgia on Saturday, the answer on all three counts would have to be: no.

Thankfully, that isn’t the whole story. But you don’t have to be a glass half empty merchant to feel that we are essentially rudderless as a team, and that if we do scrape through, it will be despite rather than because of the quality of the management.

Tonight, we line out against an excellent Serbian team in Dublin. In terms of class, they are way ahead of Georgia: just as technical, but far more experienced and infinitely better at squeezing out results. So badly have we allowed the train to go off the rails, that even if we draw against them, the likelihood is that Wales will snuggle up alongside us in equal second place by monstering Moldova.

In fairness, we then have a marginally easier penultimate tie, playing at home to Moldova while Wales take on Georgia, in Tblisi. But the grim likelihood is that Wales will win anyhow, meaning that we will have to beat Wales in the final game, in Cardiff, to qualify for the play-offs. Easy.

Tonight, then, looks perilously like a win or bust scenario. So how did it come to this sorry pass? And who precisely is to blame? That is the $50 million question…

PASS COMPLETION: THE TRUTH

Here lies the rub. At no stage in this World Cup qualifying campaign have Ireland really looked like the real deal. There have been moments in different games when the machine clicked. In particular, the performance against Austria away was a solid one, capped with the sight of Wes Hoolahan exquisitely unlocking the Austrian defence with a wonderful pass along the inside left channel for James McClean to run onto. McClean gathered the ball and struck it powerfully: it shot between the keeper’s legs and into the back of the net, to win the match.

We also triumphed at home to Georgia, but the Irish performance on the night was horribly scrappy and the goal was a freak one, run in – literally – by the Irish captain Seamus Coleman, in what might best be described as a bizarrely chaotic manner.

Did we deserve to win? Not really. Even our 3-1 victory over Moldova was laboured. In a powerful personal statement of intent, James McClean struck on the double that night, but the overall performance was crude, lending weight to the burgeoning realisation that, under manager Martin O’Neill, Ireland are bereft of ideas. They even seem to lack a basic game-plan.

If you needed confirmation, then the game on Saturday against Georgia provided it in abundance. Ireland went into the tie as favourites. Georgia were ranked 112th in the world; Ireland are 29th. Georgia were short a few of their better players, including their captain, Jaba Kankava. We had beaten them in every international match to date between the two countries.

To put it mildly, things did not go according to the script. Ireland scored after three minutes, with a Shane Duffy header: we were on our way! Or rather we weren’t. Ireland did what Ireland – under successive managers – have tended to do. We sat back and – in the manner of a practiced masochist – began to gaily absorb the punishment. It was thoroughly excruciating to watch.

I have to say that when I saw the team sheet, I felt a bit queasy. Was Robbie Brady really playing in the centre of midfield? He hasn’t played there very often. It’s not a position he is comfortable in. Meanwhile, sitting on the bench we had Wes Hoolahan, David Myler and Conor Hourihane – all centre-midfielders with years of experience between them.

In a way, I understand how it happened. Robbie Brady deserves his place. He might have been chosen at left-full back, but Stephen Ward has been doing well at Burnley so far this season: he’s had a lot of game-time so he is fully match fit and ready; and he scored a brilliant goal for his club a few weeks back. It might have felt like a big call to leave him out.

Jonathan Walters and James McClean have both done well in wide positions for Ireland and they are among our hardest working and most committed players. Martin O’Neill probably felt that he should leave well enough alone there. And as a result, in the absence of Jeff Hendrick, Robbie was shunted into the middle. He did well there when Ireland beat Italy 1-0 in Euro 2016. Why wouldn’t he do the same again?

There were other options. Push Jonathan Walters upfront alongside Shane Long and let Robbie or James McClean cut in from the right wing. Or put Robbie on the left and allow James McClean a free-er role as an auxiliary striker. But the right call, in the end, would probably have been to leave Ward on the bench, play Robbie Brady as the No.3 and use the talents of Wes Hoolahan in the play-maker role.

We will, of course, never know how that might have panned out. What we can say, however, is that the Irish performance against Georgia was an unmitigated disaster. Fine, the Georgian players are technically accomplished. But the Irish can play passing football too when they play for their clubs.

After 23 games during the 2016-2017 season, Glen Whelan was in seventh place in the Premiership stats, having completed 1,117 passes – an average of 50 per game. His pass completion rate was 84%. In other words, he can do it, as long as he knows that this is what is wanted from him – and from the players around him.

At Bournemouth, Harry Arter has a pass completion rate so far this year of 86%. This is his game too. He was ninth overall in passes attempted in the 2016-2017 season, and sixth in passes completed, with a rate of 88.1%.

So why were both of them so deeply unimpressive in the game against Georgia. How come Ireland ended up with a shocking 25% of possession. Why did we keep giving the ball away?

JOINED-UP PLAYING

There is only one possible answer. It is that neither they, nor indeed the team in general, seem to have any idea what the manager Martin O’Neill wants from them. After we went a goal up in Tblisi, Darren Randolph punted long balls forward in a classic Route One exercise of which Jack Charlton or Giovanni Trapattoni would have been proud. Except that it got Ireland nowhere. The Georgians soaked up the aerial bombardment, got the ball down and played rings around the Irish.

We defended well for the most part, desperately at times. There were blocks and clearances a go-go. But so devoid were the Irish players of any sense of confidence or cohesion that the ball was repeatedly hoofed anywhere into the distance, in what seemed too often like blind panic.

In that climate, it desperately needed someone to step in and get a hold of the ball. To put their foot on it and start picking out passes. It didn’t happen. James McClean ploughed a lonely, energetic furrow wide on the left. And upfront, Shane Long took a terrible hammering but kept coming back for more, chasing lost causes and giving everything he had for the cause.

They were the only two players to come away from the game with any worthwhile credit. Sure, Shane Duffy did well to get the early goal. And he made some good, clearing headers. But his distribution was bad. A couple of times Cyrus Christie played the ball back to him and he hoofed it long – straight into touch.

And the same kind of thing was happening all around him, more or less. There was a complete absence of joined-up playing. It was as if they all had their tongues cut out, and they were being forced to talk without them.

It is all very well for Martin O’Neill to blame the players for the shambles, as he seemed to. The excuse that we just didn’t play well enough is a self-serving statement of the obvious. The question has to be: why? And the answer is that the manager must take his share of the blame.

He is the man who selects the team. He elected to have Robbie Brady, who looked completely at sea in the middle, ahead of Wes Hoolahan. He decided to take a risk on Jonathan Walters, though he didn’t look fully fit and got little change from the Georgian defence. And in all likelihood, he instructed Darren Randolph to get the ball forward into the Georgian box as quickly and as often as possible.

If he didn't, Randolph should be dropped for the game against Serbia. But, of course, the goalkeeper is perfectly happy to pass the ball out of defence. It is the coach who dictates. Darren almost certainly did what Darren was told.

The problem with that approach is that it just doesn’t work with a lone striker and with the midfield sitting too deep. It also means that the players don’t have the opportunity to settle on the ball and to string a few passes together and build confidence. The Georgians pressed up on the Irish defence. The Irish back four panicked. They gave it straight back to the Georgians, who passed their way back and across and forward – and were unlucky not to have scored twice before they got the equalising goal.

LIBERATE THE PLAYERS

After the game, Martin O’Neill tried to find some comfort in the fact that Ireland created four chances, which James McClean (twice), Shane Long and Aiden McGeady failed to convert. But that only indicates that Georgia were there for the taking if we had approached the game in a less brutalistic style.

If we had kept the ball and forced Georgia onto the back foot, how many chances might we have created? And how much less knackered would the players have been when the chances fell to them? How many goals might we have scored, if there was a bit of real guile in evidence, of the kind that Wes Hoolahan might have brought to the party?

There is an underlying suggestion that Wes isn’t good enough defensively and that you need more physical players in the middle. But he played in some of the greatest Irish performances of the O’Neill era – notably in the 1-0 win over Germany in Dublin; the 1-0 win against Italy in Euro 2016; and in the 1-0 win (do we spot a pattern here?) over Austria. Oh, and he scored the opening goal in the draw with Sweden, in Euro 2016, too.

The fact is that you need muscle in the middle far less if you keep the ball and start to stretch the opposition defence. Make them do the running around, and chasing shadows. But against Georgia, that’s precisely what Ireland were doing for 67 of the 90 minutes. It really is quite pathetic against such a lowly-ranked side – and there is no getting away from it.

So let’s be clear about it: the team has been forged in the image of the manager. He can bemoan after as many games as he likes that they give the ball away as cheaply as they do. But really, that is a symptom of a deeper malaise. He wants them to put a premium on getting the ball forward. He is happy to play for scraps, in the opposition half – and preferably in their box.

In many ways, Northern Ireland are not that different. They know that they are going to have to defend in depth a lot of the time. But there is one marked difference. Compared to Ireland, they look organised. Under Michael O'Neill, the players seem to know what they are supposed to do. They play like a team, albeit one of limited talents. But by being organised, resolute and focused – and by making the most of the talents that are available – they grind out results.

On balance we have better players. But they play like a team, while we behave like footballing rabble. Or we certainly did in Tblisi, and it isn’t the first time, not by a long shot.

Well, as the song says, the moment of truth is great at hand. And from a spectator’s point of view what follows is equally true: one more nightmare we can't stand.

The onus is on Martin O’Neill to pick the right eleven men: he didn’t do that for the Georgia game and we suffered horribly as a result. The onus is also on him to liberate the players, to give them instructions to play the ball out of defence and to make the Serbians do a bit of chasing.

And, while football isn’t an exact science, he also has to be absolutely clear about what he wants. How far does he want Ireland to push up? How far in front of the back four does he want the central midfielders typically to operate. If they retreat too quickly and too often, that is his responsibility. And if it is happening, then he has to make changes, to turn the tide. If we give the kind of latitude to Serbia that we afforded to Georgia, they will murder us.

GROUND TO AIR MISSILES

The bad news is that Wes Hoolahan is now a doubt. But assuming that he is fit, we should line out as follows:

Randolph; Christie, Duffy, Clark, Brady; Walters, Whelan, Arter, Hoolahan, McClean; Long.

You could argue for John O’Shea to start at the back, to organize and settle things, but he has played so little football that it might be too big a risk. You could start Aiden McGeady on the right side of midfield and leave out Jonathan Walters if there is any question about the latter’s fitness. But if Walters is genuinely good to go, he should start. And I think Long’s work-rate and his pace are a bigger asset than McGeady’s trickery.

Some of those are close calls, and on the making of them the result of the match will hinge. But the most important thing that the players must be told is that the priority is to get on the ball and to keep it. By all means, mix things up: there is nothing wrong with the right long ball, hit forward at the right moment. But they have to get their heads up and make passes rather than trying to rival Kim Jong-un in launching ground to air missiles.

There is, of course, a possibility that we will ride our luck and bludgeon our way through – as we almost did in the end against Georgia. But it would have stuck horribly in the craw to have played so dismally – and won.

Let us play with intelligence as well as passion. Let us win because we deserve to. It is wrong to say that we don’t have the players. Neither – if that is true at all – do Northern Ireland and look what they have achieved. Neither did Iceland in Euro 2016, and they were among the stars of the tournament.

So let's stop behaving as if the ball is the enemy. The real enemy is in our hearts and our minds. But that too can be defeated.