Last week, Eamon Dunphy took the rather drastic step of calling for Martin O'Neill's sacking as a result of a comment he made about Wes Hoolahan. That was before O'Neill took the Norwich man off when Ireland were looking for the goal to save our qualifying campaign.
Unsurprisingly, Dunphy has softened his opinion in the intervening period. Speaking on Game On last night, the RTÉ pundit was once again scathing in his criticism of the Ireland manager. The vast majority of that criticism stemmed from the fact that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have put themselves in a position to qualify for France 2016 when, in the same timeframe, Ireland have stalled under O'Neill.
I don’t think this management team is up for it. The only evidence I have is his grumpiness around the media, the body language whenever we see him.
It's clear Dunphy feels O'Neill's heart isn't in the job. However, he then went on to state his belief that Ireland can in fact still qualify and even defeat Germany to do so.
I do believe that Ireland can beat Germany at the Aviva Stadium. And yes I do believe that we can go to Poland and get a result to give us four points from those two games. I’m sorry, I believe it because it’s eminently doable.
I saw Germany play USA in Cologne last week and the Americans were short a number of players. Germany were short of some players but I think they are having the mother and father of all hangovers after the World Cup.
They may be having the mother and father of all hangovers but we wouldn't advise putting the house on that prediction.
