Back to the drawing board: Is a 3-5-2 formation the answer for Martin O'Neill?

AFTER a week when we heard Damien Delaney talk about Irish football needing an identity, a scan of England's Premier League team-sheets suggested what it really needs is a miracle.

Out of twenty Premier League teams, only fourteen Irishmen were deemed good, or fit, enough to play last weekend and if this statistic wasn't alarming enough, it gets worse. One of the fourteen is Delaney, who has called time on his international career, possibly the first case of someone retiring before they were afforded the chance of breaking through.

Of the rest, Jack Grealish still hasn't made up his mind about whether he wants to stick or twist, Stephen Ireland, a Stoke City substitute, remains in self-imposed exile, leaving Martin O'Neill with 11 Premier League players who have made it abundantly clear that they want to be part of his future.

None of them, by the way, are on the books of last season's top six while four, including Delaney, are in their thirties and two of those on the periphery – Jon Walters and Shay Given – are also on the wrong side of thirty. Given, by the way, will be 40 next birthday.

Yet if the future looks glum, then bear in mind that the scenery at the moment isn't particularly picturesque either. Eight years have passed since an Irish side won a competitive international against a team ranked in the world's top 40; 14 years have elapsed since they defeated a real, genuine world powerhouse.

Given, Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Richard Dunne and Kevin Kilbane all featured that day and between the five of them, they practically carried Irish football through the following decade.

Now three of them are gone and Given and Keane will soon join them. No one from the current Under 21 set-up looks ready to step up and scouts have practically given up on travelling to the League of Ireland to find uncut diamonds to polish.

An identity crisis? It certainly sounds like one but Kenny Cunningham, the former Irish captain, remains to be convinced.

"The debate about us not producing players – that has always been ongoing," said Cunningham, "and I don't buy into it. The day we get an Ireland team on the pitch, and get the maximum out of those players on a regular basis, once we do that and then we discover we are not good enough, then that is the time to have the discussion about a lack of talent and what we have to do to resolve this.

"For now, it is a different story. I genuinely think there is more to come. That has been the biggest frustration for me to see Ireland teams being continually talked down by different people has just been so frustrating. These players are better than they have been portrayed.

“We just need to tap into it to get the very best out of them. Now if we can do that, and we still come up short, then we have the discussion about the pool of talent that isn't there. I think it is there. But the hardest thing is getting the best out of them."

So, in a nutshell, Cunningham's argument is that O'Neill and his assistant, Roy Keane, have yet to deliver.

"I think there is more (to come)," Cunningham said. "I don't think we have seen the best out of that squad in this campaign. It has been a strange one. I saw a solid display against Georgia. I will discount the Gibraltar game because it was such a straightforward win.

“I saw a point against Germany but I was disappointed in the manner of the performance that night in terms of our ball retention. Our passing, I thought was poor. In terms of endeavour, having our backs to the wall, our energy levels, I thought they were great.

"But in terms of the football we had to produce, in terms of the attacking threat on the night, I thought it was poor. Yes, we got the late goal, we threw the kitchen sink for the final few minutes, got a point and everyone thought it was great. But performance wise, I was disappointed.

“And of course we lost to Scotland but thought it was a good performance. We showed flickers against Poland and actually, the Scotland game at home, was probably the best I have seen them play in this campaign.

“I thought there were good aspects in that performance. So if you are asking me, 'do I think we have produced our best under Martin and Roy?' The answer is no. Now that is not me having a go at Martin and Roy. It is easy for me to sit on the sidelines and preach from the pulpit but I do think there is more to come out of this group."

Yet the facts remain that, at most, only one Irishman will get Champions League football this year and that Robbie Brady and James McClean were the only ones bought by a Premier League club during the summer.

"I still think it is a bad barometer," says Cunningham. "If we have only ‘x’ number of players in the Premier League that should not affect the quality of the performance we should be producing at international level.

“I look at the individual quality of the players available to us and to a certain extent I disregard what particular level they are playing at. Would I prefer they are playing at the highest level, the Premier League, La Liga, getting a taste of the Champions League, well the answer is 'yes, of course'. But we should still be doing better."

To do so, Cunningham favours a tactical rethink on O'Neill's part – a return to the 3-5-2 system he used so effectively at Leicester, and also, for a considerable period of time, at Celtic.

"The manager at international level plays a part," said Cunningham. "Martin hasn't got the players for a particularly long period of time before each game but he has them for a five/six day window and can sit them down in front of the video, or else on the training ground, and look at previous games and talk through certain scenarios, give them his experience and see how he can improve their game.

"I think that was the hope when Martin came into the job that a man of his experience would be imparting this type of knowledge. So apart from his man-management techniques, his ability to use psychological tools to improve players, we were hoping that when you bring in men of Martin and Roy's stature that their managerial qualities would be translated in terms of performances.

"Can you see Seamus Coleman as a top quality wing back? Absolutely. Can you envisage Robbie Brady being used on the other flank? Yes. So can we have a conversation where we play 3-5-2? If we have, then we can keep three in midfield and play two up front. Have we got two strikers who can play together up front and hurt the opposition? I think we have.

"Shane Long and another can easily play together, high up the pitch, and prove to be physically imposing. So that is all interesting. That is a footballing challenge."

Most immediately, O'Neill's challenge is to collect six points from Ireland's next two games, against Gibraltar and Georgia and hope Scotland or Poland slip up in their forthcoming fixtures.

Further down the road, a return to this debate is inevitable even if Cunningham is bored with it. Ireland's fans have a lot more to be bored about – the team's performances for a start. Will they get better? A switch to 3-5-2 may help. A change at the top, in terms of the administrators running the game, would help a lot more.