Niall Quinn has put the boot into Giovanni Trapattoni’s negative tactical approach and says he would be furious if he was part of the current set-up.
By Declan Whooley
The former international striker, who one may have thought might thrive in the route one approach that Trap seems to encourage, has said that the negative approach has resulted in the concession of points, most notably last time out against Austria when Paul Green was introduced to see the game out.
“If I was a centre-forward playing in that team I would be furious with the manager for not going on and winning that game and giving me the chance to score a couple of goals for my country,” he told the Irish Independent.
“Any Irish team worth its salt would have gone on from that and scored a third goal and given us all a great night at the stadium. But to retreat as we did into a negative style that the team has ingrained in it under Trapattoni was tough to watch,” he added.
David Alaba was the obvious dangerman for Austria
Speaking at the launch of Dublin Bus’ Community Spirit Awards at the Mansion House yesterday, the former Sunderland chairman and Sky Sports pundit believes that such a tactical blunder would never have happened under Jack Charlton or Mick McCarthy’s watch.
“In my time, whether it was Jack (Charlton) or Mick (McCarthy), they would have spotted Alaba was the dangerman, but he put Paul Green on the right wing, moved Walters up front and took Shane Long’s energy and legs off.”
He is hardly the first person to question the tactical approach, and while he stopped short of suggesting a change in manager, his opinion of our head honcho is pretty clear.
And there we were thinking Quinny was just too nice to get furious!
