{"id":80762,"date":"2025-09-23T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T10:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80762\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T10:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T10:18:10","slug":"the-irony-is-that-keith-andrews-uses-the-long-throw-which-is-not-that-inventive-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80762\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The irony is that Keith Andrews uses the long throw, which is not that inventive\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a>\u2019s memories of a Friday afternoon in June 2019 have risen up with fresh clarity. This month Nuno Esp\u00edrito Santo was sacked as the manager of Nottingham Forest<\/a> by the club\u2019s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, in a scenario that echoed O\u2019Neill\u2019s fate six years previously.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill had meant so much to Forest fans after his key role as a player in the club\u2019s greatest period in their history, winning the league and then successive European Cups under Brian Clough in 1979 and 1980. But the 73-year-old is too intelligent to overplay the comparison to Nuno. O\u2019Neill\u2019s final managerial post, at Forest, lasted 19 games, while Nuno achieved huge progress in his 21 months in charge. Forest were serious contenders for Champions League<\/a> qualification until the final weeks of last season.<\/p>\n

Nuno was still cut loose by Marinakis with the same ruthless edge the Greek owner showed in dismissing O\u2019Neill when he was preparing Forest for a new season in the Championship. \u201cWe won the last three games I was in charge,\u201d O\u2019Neill says. \u201cI\u2019d come into the job in January after I met Marinakis in London. We agreed that we\u2019d work over a 17-month period and he said: \u2018Don\u2019t worry about [chasing an unlikely] promotion now. Next season we will really make the charge.\u2019 I thought that was absolutely fine and I didn\u2019t want any longer, because if I couldn\u2019t get them promoted that would be it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having finished his truncated first campaign with three consecutive wins, did O\u2019Neill feel his job was endangered? \u201cAbsolutely not. I\u2019d spent a few days with Marinakis in Athens some weeks earlier and he seemed in good spirits. Perhaps in the one week I did of preseason I could detect a little change from the director of football [Kyriakos Dourekas] and the chief executive [Ioannis Vrentzos]. But I did not think that after my first week of pre season a new manager, Sabri Lamouchi, would be announced 24 minutes after I had been dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his new book, which documents how football has changed during the 50 years he spent as a player and manager, O\u2019Neill wrote the preface with a fierce eloquence as he described his sacking. He was having lunch with his backroom staff when Dourekas ordered him brusquely to an impromptu meeting in the directors\u2019 suite \u2013 where O\u2019Neill had often been lambasted by Clough.<\/p>\n

\"MartinMartin O’Neill in May 2019 during his term as Nottingham Forest manager. Photograph: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images <\/p>\n

It was obvious something ominous loomed, but O\u2019Neill coolly informed Dourekas he would join him after his lunch. The meeting lasted less than a minute, but the real shock followed soon after when O\u2019Neill broke the news to his assistant coaches Steve Guppy and Seamus McDonagh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are genuinely taken aback,\u201d O\u2019Neill writes, \u201cdespite seeing [Dourekas\u2019s] sour face 10 minutes earlier. We sit down, take some tea and ruminate. Suddenly, Seamus\u2019s phone rings. It\u2019s his daughter Amy, telling him that Nottingham Forest have appointed a new manager and a full complement of coaching staff. We haven\u2019t even left the building. Twenty-four minutes have elapsed since I left the directors\u2019 suite. I completely understand that\u2019s the business of football, but 24 minutes may well be a record from sacking one manager to the appointment of another.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill smiles when I remind him of his dig in the book where he pointed that, earlier in his career, Dourekas had apparently been a swimming instructor: \u201cThat was my little cynical point.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had never worked under a director of football before and O\u2019Neill is dubious. \u201cThe role is supposed to be a conduit between the manager and the chairman but I think it can lead to a vacuum of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuno was not helped by the arrival of Edu as the head of football. \u201cI don\u2019t know what that relationship was,\u201d O\u2019Neill says, \u201cbut seemingly that was part of Nuno\u2019s annoyance.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book it almost reads as if O\u2019Neill would prefer the now ubiquitous sporting director to disappear. But surely the demands on the modern manager are so onerous that the load should be shared, particularly in the transfer market? \u201cYou\u2019re dead right. But somewhere along the way the manager\u2019s still got to have a proper look at a [prospective] new player. Not taking snippets from an agent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of his own fleeting experience as Forest\u2019s manager, he says: \u201cWhen myself and Roy Keane were there, the chief executive and director of football would be hanging around the dressingroom. You think: \u2018Hold on a minute. Let us do our jobs.\u2019 In my more aggressive days, I would have told them: \u2018Don\u2019t be here.\u2019 I was hoping to make some of those changes in the summertime because I was surprised on one occasion when I was told that the chief executive actually spoke to the players one day. He was telling them that they\u2019ve got to get a move on. I definitely wouldn\u2019t have allowed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MartinMartin O’Neill and assistant manager Roy Keane during Nottingham Forest’s Championship fixture against Sheffield United in April 2019. Photograph: James Williamson – AMA\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill admits: \u201cIn fairness, without Marinakis\u2019s money Forest would still probably be in the [Championship]. They have a very fine side, and he has been able to bring in good players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was he surprised by Marinakis\u2019s appointment of Ange Postecoglou as Nuno\u2019s successor? \u201cI think they know each other, and both being Greek helps, so probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill and Postecoglou were highly successful managers of Celtic, but will the Australian adapt his risky attacking strategy to fit Nuno\u2019s counter-attacking squad? \u201cI think there will be a change of style, but managers, and I include myself in this, have got to learn. If something you\u2019re tried before is not really happening you\u2019d be foolish not to make some changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

How would Clough have dealt with the interference of club executives? \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t have stood for it,\u201d O\u2019Neill says. \u201cLife has changed, and Brian Clough would have had to make some adjustments, but he definitely wouldn\u2019t have allowed Marinakis to walk all over him.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill argues that man-management, more than tactical tweaking, remains the essential ingredient defining the best coaches. He is sceptical of the reliance on data and modern tactical trends, which he suggests make some teams more willing to take risks in their own penalty area than the opponents\u2019 box.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the grip data analytics exerts over football he is scathing of discussion around expected goals. For O\u2019Neill this metric \u201cis total nonsense\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to remember what the game is about: winning football matches, and that means scoring goals, not recording the expectation of them. \u2018Expected goals\u2019 have only come about in the last few years. It\u2019s a clueless development. Some people just use these words to try to sound clever.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when the conversation turns to Brighton and Brentford, two clubs who have used data analysis so effectively, he is affable and fair. Keith Andrews, Brentford\u2019s new head coach, used to be a vitriolic critic of O\u2019Neill\u2019s management of the Republic of Ireland<\/a> and accused him of being excessively wedded to set-piece strategies. O\u2019Neill points out wryly that Andrews\u2019s unexpected appointment at Brentford stemmed from his work as the club\u2019s set-piece coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeith is not my favourite person because he was very critical of me in Ireland. The irony is that Brentford are using the long throw, which is not all that inventive because it\u2019s been around for years. But take my irritants aside. He\u2019s a young fellow coming in [to management] and it\u2019s a great challenge because he\u2019s taking over from a person whose character pervaded the football club.<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas Frank was excellent and so it\u2019s a strange and interesting dilemma for [Andrews]. Do you want to change things straight away? Do you want to show your personality immediately? Or do you take your time, because the players do know you? But knowing you as a set-piece coach and then knowing you as a manager is a wee bit different. If you overcome those things, then you should be on the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrentfordBrentford manager Keith Andrews. Photograph: Alex Burstow\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

An hour in O\u2019Neill\u2019s engaging company spans contrasting eras and he captures the enduring drama and compelling characters that mean football can never be fully sanitised. It is also timely to remember that he was often mentioned as a potential replacement for Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and was in contention to become England manager when he lost out to Steve McClaren in 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy interviewing technique might not have been the greatest and maybe I didn\u2019t have a power play,\u201d he says, joking. \u201cBut deep down I probably thought I hadn\u2019t really done enough to merit being England manager at that stage. The England manager\u2019s job is up there alongside managing Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas Tuchel\u2019s now in and the only thing he can do is to win the World Cup. He has got to win it because everything else would be relative failure. That didn\u2019t worry me at the time because England then wouldn\u2019t have been considered as extraordinary \u2013 apart from the fact they had some really good players. If given the job, I would absolutely have taken it.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill is the chair of the League Managers Association \u2013 is he concerned about the dearth of British managers? \u201cAbsolutely. The Premier League now is so big it has seemingly untold wealth coming in. I hate to use the word \u2018foreign\u2019, but you\u2019re talking about foreign investment, foreign owners, foreign agents. So the younger British manager is often managing a team in the third division. He\u2019s getting 12 or 14 games to prove himself, and if he doesn\u2019t do it in that time, he\u2019s in the wilderness, even before he gets started. The British manager is all but disappearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

We soon return to the way that language around football has changed. \u201cIt\u2019s essentially still a simple game,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all want to complicate it. There are newfound words for this game. People talk about the high press and the low block. But, as players, we sat round [Clough\u2019s assistant] Peter Taylor one day and asked him what made a really good football side. He said: \u2018I get good players and get them hustling.\u2019 Hustling is essentially the equivalent of [Pep] Guardiola getting the ball back. Remember [Guardiola] had this invention, only so many seconds could pass before you get the ball back. That\u2019s exactly what Peter did.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a form of pressing? \u201cExactly. Hustling is doing the dirty part of the game. Quickly getting back possession of the ball so you can play.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill can no longer play the game and he will not manage a team again. But he still talks with real fervour about football and, when he calls a few days after this interview, it is just before he settles down to watch a Champions League match as a fan. He remains a pundit but, in the constant whirl of football and his blunt dismissal from his final job at Forest, has his love of the game lessened at all? \u201cIt honestly hasn\u2019t. I\u2019m fearful of becoming sceptical. I still love it.\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n

The Changing Game: The Past, Present and Future of Football by Martin O\u2019Neill is published by Headline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few weeks Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s memories of a Friday afternoon in June 2019 have risen up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,7236,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-80762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nottingham-forest","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}