Difficult job for new Northern Ireland manager as Worthington era draws to an end.
This blog and Nigel Worthington’s spell as manager of
Northern Ireland are about the same age.
My first post, way back in May 2007, dealt with the IFA’s search for a
replacement for Lawrie Sanchez, who had just taken up an English Premier League
job at Fulham.
It’s fair to say that after Worthington took charge, I was
quickly a sceptic. As early as 7 June2007, I voiced disillusionment with his tendency to ‘talk down’ players and two
months later I asked, for the first (but not for the last) time, ‘is Nigel worthy?’.
Now Worthington has announced his intention to leave the
post after his current contract elapses on 31st December. We’ve come full circle and the IFA has to
start the search for his successor.
Back in that opening blogpost I expressed the hope that Jim
Magilton would end up in the Northern Ireland hot-seat. More than four years later and this time the
West Belfast man is the bookmakers’ favourite to take over from Worthington.
If Magilton does get the job he will have a formidable task
ahead.
Back in 2007 Sanchez left the Northern Ireland set-up comparatively
healthy, but it doesn’t look nearly so robust in 2011. The playing staff are low in confidence, each
match sees a series of high profile cry-offs and the FAI’s poaching
strategy is beginning to seriously affect the pool of players which a new
manager will have at his disposal.
Worthington is gone and there’s no point labouring the
point, but he has to take a share of the blame for the depressing state of Northern
Ireland football.
The belittling comments about his own players started as
soon as he took the job and continued throughout his reign.
He scarcely made any attempt to ensure that squad members
turned up for international duty rather than crying off injured at the behest
of their clubs; let’s face it, if he had, he wouldn’t have had a shred of
credibility.
Nigel himself was the worst offender when he was manager of
Norwich City. He persistently withdrew
Phil Mulryne and Paul McVeigh from Northern Ireland squads, until Lawrie Sanchez
was forced to invoke the 5 day rule, which prevents players playing for their
clubs until 5 days after an international match for which they’ve declared
injured.
Far from showing contrition, Worthington vehemently defended
his conduct, even after he’d become an international manager.
How could his complaints be taken seriously
when other club bosses did exactly the same thing?
On the poaching issue he was confused and hypocritical. He didn’t seem to understand FIFA’s
eligibility criteria and he often resorted to contradictory arguments about players
playing for the country in which they were born.
That’s before we get to the slow, tedious style of play
which he inculcated. He couldn't seem to grasp that, because 'Northern Ireland aren't Barcelona', as he once witheringly observed, that we have to disrupt teams, play at a high tempo, get the ball forward directly, rather than attempting to play passing football.
In fairness his legacy isn’t all bad. The new manager will inherit a healthy youth
set-up and a scouting network which should help to identify future
stars.
And future stars are sorely needed because at the moment the
squad looks rather threadbare.
There's a nucleus of ageing players, some of whom are retiring, while others fail to get game-time at their clubs. There's a small handful of players in their prime, some of whom withdraw from squads on a regular basis. And there is a larger pool of unproven young players, many of whom are now actively being courted by the Republic of Ireland.
Good luck Jim, or whoever else the IFA decides to put faith in. You're going to need it.
Comments