How to fix the Republic of Ireland

… their national football team, that is. I have an over-inflated sense of self-worth but even I’m not arrogant enough to claim I have the answers when it comes to the sociopolitical issues of other nations.

Watching the Republic of Ireland under the venerable guidance of Mick McCarthy has been a bit of a slog, to the shock of absolutely no-one. In last night’s game with Denmark, things in the group were poised in such a way that anything other than an Irish win would result in Denmark automatically qualifying. With 3 points a necessity, McCarthy’s side stumbled to a draw that they salvaged thanks only to a late Matt Doherty equaliser and thus claimed 3rd place in the group and a slot in the play-offs.

While this is certainly disappointing, it’s also mildly frustrating. Relatively speaking, this is quite a talented group of players compared to some of the dross that turned out under Trappattoni and O’Neill. They’re certainly capable of more than their performances in qualifying have indicated and there’s a fairly obvious way to improve these performances that’s staring us in the face.

International football is different to and less sophisticated than club football because of the scarcity of games; only meeting 4 or 5 times a year makes it difficult for coaches to build complex tactical frameworks for players to operate in, especially when the squad they’re working with is often in flux.

It seems to me that there are two ways to circumvent the problems associated with this limited coaching time:

1. play your best players in their best position — try to avoid asking your most talented players to perform roles they don’t usually perform on a weekly basis with their club. Don’t shoehorn players in, basically.
2. try to exploit pre-existing player relationships — if you have multiple players playing together for the same club side, try to replicate that structure and those partnerships in your tactical system. Their familiarity and higher level of mutual understanding and communication are a useful shortcut to achieving tactical fluency.

These ideas are pretty basic but are nonetheless useful. With that in mind, I think the easiest way to make the Republic of Ireland good is to copy Sheffield United.

The merits of individuals will always be up for debate, but I don’t think there are many who would disagree that the best (or at least most effective) Irish players over the last 12 months or so have been Enda Stevens and Matt Doherty.

Stevens was an integral part of the Sheffield United side that gained promotion from the Championship last year and he’s taken to Premier League football like a duck to water, grabbing two assists in his twelve appearances so far.

Doherty’s shared a similar trajectory: key player in a promotion campaign followed by an impressive debut season at the top level of English football. The Wolves player was an ever-present last year and picked up 4 goals and 7 assists in a side that weren’t particularly expansive. His goal-scoring prowess was on display against Denmark with his equaliser yesterday (worth nothing an assist provided by none other than Enda Stevens):

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Although he scored this goal from a more standard right-back position, look at how much ground Doherty has to make up after playing the initial cross from deep. Stationing him higher up the pitch would make much more sense, especially given Ireland’s lack of goal threat throughout the rest of the team.

At a more basic level, both Stevens and Doherty play as wing-backs for their club sides, so picking a system that allows them to play that way for the national side seems a no-brainer.

That leaves either 3–4–3 or 3–5–2 as the most viable shapes to play and given the smattering of Sheffield United players throughout the rest of the Irish squad, mimicking Chris Wilder’s 3–5–2 appears to be the best way to go.

Without O’Connell and Basham, it would be an imperfect imitation as Ireland don’t have the personnel at CB to overload the wide areas in the same way that Blades do. But they do have John Egan, who is used to being the anchor point in a 3-man defence and is familiar with the movement of Enda Stevens to the left of him. Richard Keogh’s career threatening injury is a bit of a shame for Ireland (and him, obviously) because this style and shape would suit him, but Ireland can field the reliable Shane Duffy alongside Egan and then experiment with the third player: Ciaran Clark has plenty of experience playing in a three with Newcastle and is left-footed, but Ireland may want to look at slightly longer term options like either of the Blackburn pair Derrick Williams and Darragh Lenihan, or even turn to Stoke’s Nathan Collins if they want to blood the 18-year old alongside more experienced heads.

Part of the issue of building a side with wing-backs around Doherty and Stevens is that it doesn’t leave room in the starting XI for squad mainstays Seamus Coleman and James McClean. Coleman has unfortunately not quite been the same player since his horrendous leg break against Wales and he’s lost his starting place for Everton recently as age is starting to catch up with him slightly. McClean, meanwhile, continually gets picked, despite his limitations, by his various club and country managers. They always seem to turn to him so he clearly demonstrates some leadership qualities and workrate that make him an appealing player to have around. These two could cover LWB and RWB quite comfortably. It’s just a question of whether they’re comfortable playing second fiddle or whether McCarthy would need to go full Joachim Löw and purge his senior players from the squad entirely to pave the way for the future.

Central midfield is probably Ireland’s weakest area of the pitch. With the options currently at their disposal, they could create a rough simulacrum of the Sheffield United midfield structure: Conor Hourihane playing the Oliver Norwood role of distributing the ball from slightly deeper; Jeff Hendrick playing the John Lundstram role of breaking forward into the box to support the strikeforce from deep; and Alan Browne playing the John Fleck role of knitting things together in possession and flitting around putting out fires out of it.

It’s an imperfect clone though. As good as Hourihane is technically, I’m not sure he’s got the range of passing to fire those drilled cross-field passes to switch play in the same manner as Norwood does, which is vital to the way Blades dominate the wide areas. There’s also a real lack of depth in these roles. Ireland are one injury away from relying on ageing options like Glenn Whelan and Harry Arter or Josh Cullen, who is relatively untested despite being 23.

Up top, Ireland could just transplant the partnership of David McGoldrick and Callum Robinson straight from Yorkshire. Sheffield United started the season with these two as a pair, although they have arguably been more effective since Lys Mousset broke into the team in place of Robinson.

McGoldrick’s desire to drop deep to link play enables his teams to start with another striker who is more interested in going the opposite way, either a poacher type like Billy Sharp or someone to stretch play by running in behind like Mousset. Ireland have a range of different options to play this role who would all interpret it slightly differently: Sean Maguire of Preston, Michael Obafemi of Southampton, Aaron Connolly of Brighton. There’s also Troy Parrott to incorporate into the side. I don’t know enough about his game to know where he’d fit in this, but the brief glimpses I’ve seen suggest that he’s not blessed with searing pace, so he could be groomed into being McGoldrick’s long-term successor.

Obviously this would end up being a pale imitation of Sheffield United as they wouldn’t have the benefit of Chris Wilder’s excellent coaching to drill the positional rotations and team structure, but adopting a 3–5–2 like this would give Ireland a solid shape to build from and more of a threat going forward by maximising the influence of Enda Stevens and Matt Doherty.