One feature of Martin O'Neill's reign with the Republic of Ireland has been the bloating of squads: enormous provisional squads are named for international breaks that are subsequently trimmed down when the business of playing games comes around.
For example, the most recent 37-man squad actually featured 38 players, although a pretty deep squad was needed for a couple of transatlantic flights and two friendlies in four days.
Such a luxury does not appear to be available to Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill. After their successful Euro 2016, they have performed admirably in World Cup qualifying: Germany seem to be running away with things on 15 points, but O'Neill's side currently own second-place, with ten points. They lie two points clear of Czech Republic, and three clear of Saturday's opponents Azerbaijan.
O'Neill is doing a magnificent job relative to the scarcity of resources he has available, and he was asked to address that fact of his employment by the media ahead of the critical game in Baku.
While doing so, he took a slight dig at Martin O'Neill:
We are ranked 28th in the world, two behind the Republic of Ireland.
Martin O’Neill named a 35-man squad the other week. If I named a 35-man squad, Martin would still be in it.
A big remit of our under-17 and under-19 coaching appointments was recruitment.
We must find more players.
Well played.
[Guardian]
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