It was somewhat jarring to see Matt Doherty come out on 2fm's Game On yesterday and speak about Martin O'Neill's departure from the Irish setup.
The Wolves full back had previously courted controversy with O'Neill while the Derry man was in charge of Ireland, claiming that he didn't get a chance with the national side because 'his face didn't fit'.
In the aftermath of O'Neill's resignation the 26-year-old again voiced his opinion about the former Celtic manager on the radio, and it's hard to see his words as anything other than a dig at O'Neill's training methods:
Well compared to the set-up I had at Wolves, you could class it as old-school. There was obviously, we had Portuguese people in charge. There was a lot of coaching, stuff like that.
Everyone thinks there wasn’t a gameplan every time, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes there was, sometimes it was less clear.
When you played with Ireland, you didn't really have that much coaching. It was more go and play a little five-a-side game or an eleven side game and then that would be it. So you could lead all the way up to the game, maybe the day before a game and you would do a few set-pieces here and there and then you would go into a game and you were thinking to yourself 'what shape we are going to play.'
You'd have a few players thinking, 'aw, I think we are going to play this shape' or you might have someone else thinking 'I think it might be this one.' You can't really have that, especially at international football, people not really sure on what their role is the next day.
According to The Times O'Neill is 'furious' with Doherty's thinly veiled criticism, and also write that the 66-year-old has contacted the player in order to seek an explanation for his comments as well as refute them.
As the fallout from O'Neill's reign continues you wonder if other players will put their head above the parapet, and further elucidate what the set up was like under O'Neill.
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