The irritating Stephen Hunt, the even more irritating El Tel and a year in the bog.

January 1st, 2008 | by: Eugene | Comments(4)

Dia dhuit to one and all once again, unfortunately I feel that I must start on a sad note this time around, in the aftermath of the death of Motherwell captain Phil O’Donnell on Boxing Day. I can’t talk about Phil O’Donnell as a player, I can’t talk about Phil O’Donnell as a person, but I can offer my condolences, as I’m sure we all can, in a situation such as this. I’ll leave it to the people who knew Phil O’Donnell to eulogise, but I extend my sympathies to fans of Motherwell who may be reading this. In the aftermath of Antonio Puerta’s death earlier in 2007, along with other tragic incidents involving footballers worldwide throughout the year, it is unfortunately another sad note on which the year ended. Here’s to hoping 2008 is not darkened by the same horrible stories.

Onto business, however, and I feel as if I need to get something off my chest, as this has been irritating me over the last few weeks. Stephen Hunt has emerged as an integral part of the Reading side in the Premiership who have more than enough quality within their squad to avoid relegation this season (Off the top of my head, I can think of five sides within the division who are significantly worse than the Royals), even though Kevin Doyle’s shooting boots have gone AWOL this year. Hunt is admittedly having a decent season for the club, and deserves recognition at least for his performances thus far, but why the sudden clamour and appraisal of a player whose ability can be best described as average? The BBC reported earlier in the week that Reading director Nick Hammond has ruled out a January sale of Hunt to Sunderland, with figures ranging from £2.5 million to £5 million, depending on who you believe. Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I was in Nick Hammond’s position, and I was being offered anything upwards of £3 million for Stephen Hunt, I’m taking the money and running. Hunt is a one-track player with minute levels of skill, who can take a decent penalty. It baffles me every week how he manages to run such distances with the ball, when his approach is so basic, he doesn’t do anything special with the ball, he doesn’t bamboozle and befuddle in the way that Cristiano Ronaldo, Aaron Lennon or Martin Petrov may do from the wing, and if he was being properly tracked by the full-back, chances are he wouldn;t have so many opportunities as he is being afforded at the moment.
It sounds awful paradoxical, given the examples that I’ve just presented, but Stephen Hunt is not a good player, heaven knows he’s not a £5 million player, and his performances for country thus far have been ‘highlighted’ by putting us out of our collective misery on a pretty bad night in Prague by sliding in rashly and getting himself sent off, ending any pretensions about making it to Euro 2008. Anything between £3-5 million, combined with John Madjeski’s Auto Trader fortune will buy Reading a considerably more able winger, while I fully expect Damien Duff to reassume his position on the left flank for the Irish if he ends his pertinent run of injuries, hell, perhaps even Andy Keogh or Alan O’Brien may present a more dangerous threat for some top-class full-backs on the big stage, because let’s face it, up against a world-class right-back, Stephen Hunt is causing no threat of any type. I hope that it won’t be too long before people actually begin to appreciate how limited a footballer Hunt is, especially the next national coach.

Which brings me nicely onto my next topic, the never-ending tale of who the next Ireland manager will be. I gave this brief mention last week, attempting it would seem in vain, to entice Fabio Capello into ditching his £4.5 million a year salary (after tax, thank you) with England and hopping over the Irish Sea to take the job at Abbotstown and return us to past glories. Realistically, it’s probably just a case of when Terry Venables is going to turn Bulgaria down and be sitting down in a press conference in Dublin, wondering how much money he can pilfer out of another backward footballing organisation, before cutting his losses and running. Granted, Venables was successful at the start of his career, from QPR, to the La Liga title with Barcelona, probably culminating with England’s semi-final finish at Euro ‘96. But from there it goes downhill, in a hurry.
He almost bankrupted both Portsmouth and Crystal Palace, with ultimately disastrous tenures with Australia and Leeds United ending in his dismissal mixed in, the nadir probably coming with the defeat to Croatia at Wembley and his sacking by the FA as Steve McLaren’s number two, his reputation in England damaged severely by the experience. Venables and his system was successful 15 to 20 years ago, with a plethora of good players surrounding him at clubs with such magnitude as Barcelona and Tottenham. Combine a somewhat limited squad with an archaic approach which will be exposed by the good and the not-so good, and we will be made to look even more stupid than on some of the darker nights in European qualifying. The only thing that Terry Venables is trading on now is past glories, and you cannot tell me that he is the answer to a side who is in dire need of some new approaches, a side who is in need of a fresh start and an injection of impetus if we are to make it to South Africa in 2010.
I always backed the idea of Paul Jewell for the job, but he plumped for relegation and Championship mediocrity with Derby instead, so perhaps the best idea on a short-term basis may have been the ‘fixer’ qualities of an experienced international coach like Phillipe Troussier, who always stated his ambitions for the role (Until he took up the post at FC Ryukyu), but it’s not a popular option, and certainly not one that would be considered by the ‘Dream Team’ of consultants employed by the FAI to find the next manager. Really it’s now down to discussing terms with Venables, unless David O’Leary pops up out of nowhere to state his desire for the position, but don’t hold your breath. He’s angling for a Premiership job which he won’t get, and the liklihood is that Delaney and the rest of the board would baulk at his probable yearly wage demands.
I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that the perpetual delay in deciding the next manager is really just a frustrating formality, and when Venables is seen grinning from ear to ear, shaking Delaney’s hand between now and February, no-one should be surprised. However, it’s a bad indication of the state of Irish football if we feel that a managerial dinosaur with a questionable track record on and off the field is the best option to lead a team who could go one way or another in the next four years or so.

Finally, I feel that a brief retrospective on our year is probably in place for this blog, but it will be brief for a reason, mostly because 2007 was not a year to remember for the Irish, certainly not South of the border. The key games in qualifying highlighted how far we have fallen back in recent times, showing an alarming incapability against a Czech Republic side in September, before putting in a better performance at home to Germany, but still not doing enough, with the final nail in the coffin for Euro 2008, and Steve Staunton’s reign, coming with a draw at home to Cyprus which should have been a defeat. The highlights of the year? Taking four points off Wales is always nice, because it reminds me that no matter what, there is always one team from the region that is worse than us, while a home win against Slovakia three days later gave us false hope for the run-in of our campaign. The lowlight? The San Marino game, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It was simply embarassing beyond all belief, and it really sent home a message to a lot of people of our standing in the world game. It’s never nice to see a legend such as Steve Staunton be unceremoniously dumped in the manner that he was, but in truth, I suppose the FAI had no other real alternative, now that I reflect on the matter a little more. 2008 needs to be a year of stability for the country, and we must, must get off to a good start in World Cup qualifying, whoever we are pitted against. Stability means a promising managerial appointment (unlikely), a few good friendly results to build up momentum (We’re playing Brazil soon, for heaven’s sake) and that all essential positive start to qualifying (Not Cyprus away, not Cyprus away…). If we get that, I’m quietly hopeful, if we don’t get that, we’ll be worse than Wales, and that’s not on.
Credit to Drogheda United for taking their chance in the league this season and winning their first ever title, a richly deserved prize, here’s to a successful campaign in the Champions’ League in July and August, while credit must also, grudgingly, go to Northern Ireland for their bid to make Euro 2008. The fact that they only narrowly missed out in a group containing Spain, Sweden and Demark is to be admired, but I’m stopping there, before I grind my teeth down to the gums. Here’s to hoping we see the development of some new young blood, the return to form of some old stars and the dawn of a new era for Irish football in 2008, otherwise you people will be getting plenty more cynical, sarcastic blog posts off me.

I think that’s enough for me for another week though, normal service should resume with the blog from this week onwards. I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a belated Happy Christmas and New Year, I hope you enjoyed your celebrations. For now though, I shall leave it at that. Have a good week everybody. Again, if you have any feedback, leave a comment, and I’ll answer your questions as best as possible

Slainte Chugat.

Eugene