Northern Ireland must keep eye on the ball

I don’t know about other Northern Ireland supporters, but I for one can feel the nerves jangling for Saturday’s crunch European Qualifier with Denmark. Not easing this apprehension is a tendency in the media and amongst some fans to look ahead towards the game against Spain in Gran Canaria next Wednesday.

Northern Ireland must not underestimate the task facing them on Saturday. Denmark are favourites to win the match at Windsor Park and the slightest complacency, the least inattention to these first opponents and the trip to Spain will become an irrelevance.

I’m disappointed to hear Nigel Worthington drawn in to speculations about the outcome of the group. His job is to keep his players myopically focused on the immediate hurdle ahead of them.

Worthington is missing 3 crucial players for Saturday’s game. Kyle Lafferty, who produced his best performance in the emerald green in the last game against Sweden, serves a suspension after being given an unjust yellow card in that match. Damien Johnson will miss out again due to injury and George McCartney is unavailable with damaged ligaments.

I am far from a fan of McCartney after his self-exclusion from Lawrie Sanchez’s squads and bearing in mind his idiosyncratic line in excuses for absence prior to that. The West Ham fullback did however offer a useful outlet in the Sweden game providing purposeful overlaps beyond Chris Brunt on the left flank.

Either Tony Capaldi, or preferably Johnny Evans, will deputise at left-back but it is unlikely that either will offer the penetration and crosses forthcoming from McCartney in the previous game. The responsibility to provide width will therefore fall mainly on Chris Brunt’s shoulders. This is truly the match for a talented young player to produce what he is capable of.

Brunt has a cultured left foot, but two often he is lacklustre with his crosses and fails to beat the first man. On Saturday evening that is simply not good enough. The time has come for Brunt to fulfil his potential and show himself a crucial member of the Northern Ireland midfield.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Shia Revival

The Iranian author, Vali Nasr, has written an interesting book called The Shia Revival: How conflicts within Islam will shape the future .  Its argument is exceptionally pertinent at a time when European governments are edging toward arming Sunni extremists in Syria. Nasr portrays Shiism as the more liberal, palatable strand of Islam and a religion for underdogs.  He makes his point persuasively, although putting a progressive gloss on the regime in Iran and Hezbollah does undermine his thesis. A lot of the material is focussed on Iraq, where there is a Shia majority, which was suppressed during the presidency of Saddam Hussein.  The leading cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, is depicted as a moderating influence, who opposed retaliation as Sunni extremism threatened to cause sectarian civil war. The book’s opening chapter provides an erudite and fascinating history of factions within Islam.  The split dates back to the origins of the faith and a dispute over the prophet Mohammed’
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro
Read more