IF THERE is one thing we have learned from Keith Andrews’ appointment as Brentford’s head coach, it is that Martin O’Neill still likes to nurse a grudge.
But if the Dubliner contemplates the journey he has undertaken to get to where he is now, then someone settling scores seven years on should not unduly trouble him.
It was three decades ago this summer when Séamus Crowe, Alan Dixon and Stephen Hackett signed for Wolves.
They were three of five Irish youngsters who had left these shores in search of footballing fame and fortune. Robbie Keane and Andrews completed the group.
With the playing careers the duo had, that quintet has already defied the odds.
In a broader sample, nowhere near 40 per cent of an academy intake at what was then a second-tier club would go on to play top-flight football and at a major international tournament.
With two of them now in high-profile management jobs, they have reaffirmed their status as outliers.
But, given this is Andrews’ first role as head coach, there is no shortage of people queuing up to question its wisdom.
If they are mainly the opinions of a disinterested observer, in O’Neill’s case, his assessment of Andrews appeared to revolve around criticism when roles were reversed as manager and pundit.
O’Neill said: “He has been their set-piece coach. The irony is when I was manager of Ireland he was a particularly vitriolic critic of mine.
“He was really dead against me trying to use set-pieces to try to win games.”
There is, of course, no irony in someone criticising a team’s over-reliance on set-pieces and the apparent absence of a game-plan in open play, and achieving tangible results to make a team more efficient at both defensive and offensive dead-ball situations.
Andrews joined Brentford a year ago. According to whoscored.com, excluding penalties, the team had conceded nine goals from set-pieces in 2023-24.
Andrews helped get that down to two, three fewer than the next best, Manchester City.
His impact at the other end was also impressive, with their goal haul increasing from ten to 13.
For all the talk about top-level matches being decided on fine margins, they are significant gains.
There is, of course, a world of difference between organising a team to be effective at corners and free-kicks and overseeing the whole operation as he now will.
O’Neill made a valid observation when he said: “He is stepping into an unknown. It’s all well when you can be the friend of players.
“You can have the set-pieces and you can be the coach sitting in the room. It’s a different ball game when you’re making big decisions.”
PATIENCE PAID OFF
But it was accompanied by the customary reference to O’Neill’s own playing career.
He said: “It’s not as easy to be sitting in a chair criticising someone who in all honesty had a much better career than he had.
“He was dealing at the bottom end of it when I was winning the European Cup.”
Are people really still at that? Surely there are enough examples of successful coaches who did not have illustrious playing careers to make that jibe redundant.
It is true that Andrews’ career was a slow-burner.
But, ultimately, it was a story of perseverance being rewarded which is the exact sort of quality any coach would want in their team.
Andrews did not make his Wolves debut until 2½ years after his compatriot Keane. And Keane had already left by then in the first of his six multi-million pound moves.
There were 4½ years between his first and second Premier League appearances.
His first Ireland cap also came more than a decade after Keane’s but both were starters at Euro 2012.
Ahead of that tournament, he reflected: “I thought about jacking it in on more than one occasion.
“I fell out of love with the game. I wasn’t interested. I was injured a lot in my early 20s and my lifestyle wasn’t as good as it should have been.
“You get depressed, you’re not around friends and family as much and you get a bit lonely.
“It was a vicious circle. You’d get injured and then, out of boredom, go for a drink, which would make your injury last longer.
“You’d get back from injury, you mightn’t get chosen to play and I wouldn’t react in such a good way.
“In the last couple of years I didn’t play much. Thankfully I moved on. I had to drop down a level and it worked out well.”
MODERN APPROACH
In being appointed as the head coach of Brentford, he has — for now — leapfrogged his former fellow trainee, who has led Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ferencvaros to league titles, by landing a job in the self-proclaimed best league in the world.
His experience is limited to stints assisting Stephen Kenny at Under-21 and senior international level, Chris Wilder at Sheffield United and Thomas Frank at Brentford.
As an analyst, he did not pull any punches and those who have worked with or studied alongside him paint a picture of a diligent person keen to educate himself and become a better coach.
And that, in fact, may be the nub of the problem with both O’Neill and his former assistant and fellow Brian Clough acolyte Roy Keane.
And that is because it seems they have felt, for a long time, they have nothing left to learn.
They cannot — or do not — accept that football has changed from when Old Big ’Ead could unearth rough diamonds for a bargain, allow good players to figure things out for themselves and it would add up to a winning formula.
KEANE’S GRIPE
Keane famously said of Andrews in 2020: “I’ve heard a lot of bulls***ters over the last ten years, and Keith Andrews is up there with the best of them.”
In fairness, Andrews had doled out plenty of criticism in the dying embers of O’Neill’s time with Ireland.
Among other things, he said: “The first three quarters of this reign has to be seen as a successful period.
“The areas where it falls down . . . ten years ago that type of management may well have worked and we have a lot of players who’ve retired in the last year to two who would have been used to that.
“But players now need different requirements. So if Martin is that kind of man-management and quirky manager we’re used to seeing on TV and interviews, that’s fine.
“But then your backroom staff have to complement that and if that’s not the case it’s going to fall down — especially when players are getting the level of detail they are now at club level. It doesn’t happen with this Ireland team.”
That was, clearly, a none-too-subtle dig at Keane who was never going to take it lying down.
And Andrews’ point might have carried more weight had, in his time working alongside Kenny, Ireland been able to obtain better results than they did.
Now, he gets a fresh chance to prove himself as the main man.
And — while O’Neill might not be able to let go of the past — most in Irish football will be interested to see what the first permanent Irish boss in the Premier League since Chris Hughton can deliver in the present and the future.
