Eamon Dunphy says Martin O’Neill no longer a good manager

Pundit claims manager does not know how to get best from players

Eamon Dunphy was critical of Martin O’Neill for once again failing to start Wes Hoolahan. Photograph: Alan Betson.
Eamon Dunphy was critical of Martin O’Neill for once again failing to start Wes Hoolahan. Photograph: Alan Betson.

Eamon Dunphy has said Martin O'Neill is no longer a good manager and makes too many mistakes.

Speaking after Ireland's devastating 5-1 defeat to Denmark on Tuesday, Dunphy dissected the manager's performance, outlining a number of errors he believed he made on the night.

"Martin O'Neill was a very good manager," he told 2fm's Game On programme. "The question is, is he still a good manager? The evidence is that he isn't."

He said O’Neill had demonstrated with his tactics that he did not understand how to get the best out of his players.

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He questioned his substitutions and said he was “making too many errors”.

"By all accounts, they don't do much work on the training ground. That is not the way, for example, Michael O'Neill would have coached the Northern Ireland team," Dunphy said.

"The one thing that has kept us in the ball game is the character and spirit of the players, going away to places like Vienna, Cardiff and Belgrade and getting results through sheer resilience and courage.

“But we never really perform at home because we don’t have the ball. We’re not good at picking the lock and we just play this long-ball stuff.”

He was also critical of the manager for once again failing to start Wes Hoolahan.

“He’s been left out wilfully and stupidly all through the campaign and that tells you something about Martin O’Neill’s football values,” he said.

“If we had had him on the pitch when we were 1-0 up, we wouldn’t have lost control of the game as easily as we did because we would have had the ball more.”

Mark Hilliard

Mark Hilliard

Mark Hilliard is a reporter with The Irish Times