Another difficult night with the national broadcaster didn’t seem to take the shine off his second night with the senior national team. Noel King arrived into his post-match press conference beaming with pride at having overseen an Irish victory.
For the sense of occasion, he said, Germany remained a highlight but “I’m very pleased with the result tonight and very pleased with the performance . . . it’s a huge burden off me. You’d always feel disappointed if it had been two defeats.”
King had taken umbrage a few minutes earlier with the tone of some of the questioning in a television interview but insisted that “you’re the ones asking about it so maybe it’s important to you but it’s not important to me”.
What was, he said, was the fact that Ireland had “tried to play very good football and tried to create chances. The Germans scored three goals and were over the moon about it. We scored three and somebody seemed to be suggesting that we should have had more”.
James McCarthy was upbeat about things, suggesting that the team had finished "on a high" but clearly not everyone was so happy with the way things had gone on the night.
Had tweeted
Earlier, both Shane Long and James McClean had tweeted what could really be taken as complaints regarding their treatment at the interim manager's hands, with Long's "Cowboy!! Nuff said"; around teatime, generally taken to have been a reaction to the King's team selection.
“Look, I have addressed the group. Who would be happy spending 10 days and not playing. It’s horrendous. Think of the four players who did well in Germany but have been left out here but not one of them sulked and not one of them didn’t perform in whatever way they were asked to tonight.”
He might need to come back to us on that one by which point he might see where Robbie Keane was coming from with his manager’s job description on Monday evening.
As for the stick from the media, he can at least console himself with the fact that it’s a universal thing. Kazakhstan coach Miroslav Beranek was preparing to depart when he was asked if was considering his position. He didn’t need to, seemed to be his message in reply. “This is the last match of my contract,” he said.
