FOR ALL THE talk about Hemir Hallgrímsson describing his squad as a little bit too nice and, in his own words, needing to find a bastard, it took until the third day of training for someone to ask if the new Republic of Ireland manager might be a bit of a bastard himself.
“I haven’t seen him get angry yet,” Will Smallbone said.
Sitting beside the midfielder as preparations for the Nations League opener with England ramp up was assistant head coach John O’Shea, someone Smallbone worked with at the U21s and also at club level with Stoke City.
“He (Hallgrímsson) is a cool character, how he goes about things and how he wants to impress his personality on the team as well. But you can tell that there is a steeliness behind it and how he wants to get his ideas across.
“His messages are very clear and you can see the intensity in his voice when he’s on training pitch. If a player is not doing the role, he soon lets them know. You don’t qualify for major tournaments and be successful with teams by not having a steeliness about you.”
If Hallgrímsson can replicate his success with Iceland – reaching Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup – than nastiness will be a trait never to leave Irish football.
There have been three pitch sessions and more than that number again in terms of team meetings and video analysis with the squad as Ireland ready themselves for the start of a new era.
“Our mentality side is very important,” Smallbone says. “That we go into the game with belief that we’ll be in the game for long periods of the game, and that we’ll always have an opportunity and a chance to get something from the game.
“He’s tried to keep it as simple as possible over the short time we’ve had together. We’ve all come from club sides where we’re playing different formations, different styles. And to get everyone on the same line, in the same direction, has been the most important thing.”
The message and the mantra coming from those meetings has, to paraphrase an oft-quoted Bill Clinton political advisor: it’s clean sheets, stupid.
It is the bedrock of the management team’s thinking.
“Being in the game and making sure you’re present in the whole game is important because moments against the top players can change things,” Smallbone says. “In each game, we’ve had opportunities until the last minute. From the players’ side, it’s full belief that we’ll have moments to hurt them and there’s a great opportunity at home.”
On the training pitch, the work being done is methodical and repetitive, basics like nailing down distances between defence and midfield, and those in forward positions, so that everyone knows where they should be on the pitch. And where those closest to them should be too.
Messages about taking responsibility and showing initiative are also prevalent.
Ireland do not want to be stretched and allow England space to exploit with runners into the final third, or between the lines into midfield that allows them get turned close to the 18-yard box.
“Giving yourself every chance you can to be in the game, and then having that desire to go an punish teams,” O’Shea said.
“Having that desire to go and show your attacking threats as often as you can, to get crosses in the box, putting teams under pressure, to have that whole combination together, of being a ruthless, efficient, compact unit.
“Being tight and forcing teams back, being on the front foot at home, every chance you get to keep teams locked in in their half. Make it uncomfortable for them, but also know then, at the right time, if you’ve been trying different options, that you’re giving the players the ammunition to mix it up if they need to.
“Playing short, playing long, whatever the opposition. Because you always have to remember that if a team is being very aggressive against you, and wants to be aggressive, you don’t want to play into that as well.
“You have to mix it up as well, if a team is sitting off you, you have to obviously advance that yourselves and be a bit more on the front foot, in possession. There’s lot of ways to win games.”
By any means possible is the name of the game on Saturday.
England are the beaten European Championship finalists and ranked fourth in the current Fifa standings.
Second on that list is France, who outclassed Ireland in Paris this time last year during the those Euro 2024 qualifiers but who required a sensational Mike Maignan save from Nathan Collins to prevent a 1-1 draw in Dublin at the very start of that campaign.
How different Ireland’s momentum may have been under Stephen Kenny had the goalkeeper’s wrist not been lined with steel?
As it transpired, a painful 2-1 defeat away to Greece a few months later ultimately sealed his fate as manager.
Also in Ireland’s most recent qualifying group were the Netherlands, who England defeated in the semi-finals in Germany, and a team now ranked seventh in the world.
Ireland took an early lead against the Dutch in Dublin last September but were unable to see it out.
One of O’Shea’s games during his interim period in charge was against Belgium – sandwiched between Brazil and the Netherlands in those rankings – and a credible 0-0 could have been even better had Evan Ferguson not missed a penalty kick.
He is looking sharp in training and available for selection despite not playing for Brighton since April due to an ankle injury.
“The most important thing from the players’ aspect, is to know they were really present in those games and had an impact, and they had chances and moments to have very different results. I think you put a blend of all of those elements together,” O’Shea said.
“I think that’s the most important thing, when I was a player, to know you have a real chance in the game. That’s the most important thing, and you’d always feel that playing against anyone at home that you have a chance.
“As a professional you’re at this level because you have been competitive. How ferocious an environment it is to be successful and reach a level of Premier League football or to reach international standards.
“You know that you have to be competitive and have that standard. You have to have that winning mentality.”
