Nov 14,2024
Heimir Hallgrimsson is hoping that Matt Doherty will do his talking on the pitch after the Wolves man received a late call-up for this week's doubleheader against Finland and England.
Doherty played in Hallgrimsson’s first match in charge against England in September and was a second-half substitute in the Greece defeat three days later, however, he was controversially left out of the October squad.
Once again, the former Bohemians man was overlooked for the November internationals, however, injury issues led to the manager making the call to bring Doherty back in from the cold.
Thankfully for Hallgrimsson it was not a frosty encounter between the two as Doherty arrived into the Dublin camp this week, but rather an amicable arrival due to the nature of the experienced defender.
"He is a nice guy, it has been quite pleasant," said Hallgrimsson, speaking at the pre-match press conference on the eve of the Finland game at the Aviva Stadium.
"Just to answer on Matt," he said. "We always said we did not want to have both Matt and Séamus at the same time, to think a little bit for the future, so missing Séamus and Shane Duffy too, two really experienced players, no doubt in my mind that Matt was the replacement there."
"Obviously, I am not going to tell you who we were thinking about starting," Hallgrimsson said earlier in the conference, therefore any questions regarding whether Doherty would feature or not would have proved futile.
However, there would be an assumption that the defender will certainly see some minutes throughout either or both of the games, and Doherty will certainly be out to prove a point, having previously expressed his disappointment about being left out.
"I hope everyone, not only him, will show that on the pitch, 'I deserve to be here’. That is where players should be doing their talking," said Hallgrimsson, when asked whether he had expected Doherty to have arrived with anger, in line with the concept that the manager wants b******* in the team.
Regarding the fitness of those players who are eligible for the two games, there are concerns over the fitness of both Dara O’Shea and Festy Ebosele, and the manager will get a better understanding of both scenarios after training.
"Today is the only training when everyone can be fully committed," said the manager, lamenting the lack of time he has to prepare properly with the players due to the Sunday schedule at club level.
"We will see after the session today. Dara has been struggling with some back issues, Festy as well was taken off with an injury, they are both training today but we will see how fit they are.
"If they can do 90 minutes or not we will see after the training session today. That's the bad thing about this kind of camp: we had eight players playing on Sunday. Yesterday was MD+2, that is normally their rest day.
"Today is the only training session we can do something physical, so we will test them to see how they are."
As for the overall health of the squad, the manager believes that they are making progress, and expects them to build on the October window where Ireland beat Finland 2-1 in Helsinki.
"I would feel so, I am a little biased," he added, when asked if he felt progress was being made.
"We have been drilling a lot of the basics. The details don't matter if the basics are not done well. We are trying to say the same thing to the players in attack and defence. That's how we build the progress step by step."
"It was a really positive gathering" - Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson said he was unaware of any negative public reaction to record goalscorer and appearance-maker Robbie Keane presenting caps to Festy Ebosele, Troy Parrott and Sammie Szmodics this week pic.twitter.com/d3AHDMDqtv
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) November 13, 2024
Record goalscorer Robbie Keane's presence in camp this week provoked some criticism, given his spell as Maccabi Tel Aviv manager, but Hallgrimsson was unaware of any reaction to the move and described the former striker's presence as a "positive".
"This was a cap presentation, and is something from the federation. It's not me who decides on that one. It was really a positive one, this gathering, both for the players and I think a former player presenting the caps is a good gesture," said the head coach.
And looking ahead to the game, where Ireland know that a positive result will ensure that they avoid automatic relegation to League C and will compete in a two-legged March play-off to maintain their second-tier status.
"I think the Finland game is the more important of these two, given that we are fighting for third place," said Hallgrimsson, when asked was he looking to try new things in the upcoming games.
"It is a mix. Like I said before, this camp is probably our last chance to try out things. But still, we want to play good and keep our consistency and build on our last camp.
"Take a little step. Nothing happens quick. We need to build on what we do well. But we also want to try out players we haven't seen so at least we know about them when it comes to the more important games next year."
And as a result, he believes that there is a lot more pressure on Finland coming into the game, knowing that they have to reverse the Helsinki scoreline to remain in contention for a third-place finish.
"Finland come to Dublin and they need to win," said Hallgrimsson. "That’s their priority.
"It gives us an advantage. They would probably, at one point or another, need to take more risks so we need to be clever in that sense. It doesn’t bring more pressure to us than the Finns."
