Rumours about Martin O'Neill's contract have been abound for the last number of months. The Republic of Ireland manager had claimed that a new extension was dependent on European Championship qualification - and after that was secured, it was expected that O'Neill would be handsomely rewarded. But now with a number of club managerial vacancies opening up, and O'Neill's name has been linked to a few of them.
But no contract extension was forthcoming, and O'Neill yesterday admitted that his future with the team might now be dependent on his performance at the summer's games. It seems as though O'Neill is wary of following in Giovanni Trapattoni's footsteps in seeing his popularity plummet post tournament after signing an extension pre-competition.
Do I feel as if we have earned the right to at least talk about extending here? Absolutely. John feels the same, which is great. Sometimes things will fall into place if you do well. I want to do well.
If we were to do well in the competition, to go out there and really, really compete, then, of course, you are of a great mind. But if you go out and don’t compete – and I’m expecting to compete – you start questioning everything again.
O'Neill was of a mind to check expectations, and is wary of fans getting ahead of themselves and looking at what teams we can pick points up from in case the blame falls on him:
You are judged on the next couple of matches coming up. I don’t want to be sitting here with a great sense of contentment around me that I’ve done something and then find that I’m flummoxed. You want to be right for it and that’s the way I’ve treated these things in all of my time.
The former Nottingham Forest player referred to his playing days to when he played in a European Cup final with his contract due to expire as evidence that these things don't bother him like they would anyone else.
The Northern Irishman seemed to hint that he would prefer to stay - but seems to want to prove himself all over again, despite going through some rough patches during Euro qualifying.
It’s interesting that there was a period of time where, particularly after Scotland here in June of last year, if I had mentioned contracts to you, you would have been turning around and saying, ‘What are you talking about?’ Thankfully it has turned around at the minute but I’m just too long in this game to know that you can’t make strong assumptions without the competition being finished. And I think that’s a point.
We'll have to wait and see if he's still in charge in August.
