Much has been made of Nigel Worthington’s decision to axe the country’s leading goalscorer, with the former Fulham, Sunderland and now Doncaster Rovers player, David Healy, posting an impressive 35 goals in 84 senior appearances for the Irish. And it’s hardly surprising as while Healy may well be without an international goal in over two years, as well as entering into the twilight of his playing career, without Healy’s goalscoring record Worthington is left with a squad boasting no more than two goals at international level.
Credit where it’s due, Worthington has at least plucked up the courage to experiment a little with the very best youth products the country has to offer, although by best we mean hand-pick those with NI connections, relations-wise, from the lower leagues of the English pyramid or back home in Ireland. Basically, Worthington has selected a squad containing players which were previously on the fringe of the starting XI and those either untried, untested or simply unproven. Some aren’t even willing to play for NI on a permanent basis, with Adam Barton heeding the call of the former Norwich City manager only because it meant playing in a friendly for the Irish wouldn’t make him ineligible to play for England one day, and the Liverpool target insists he only has eyes for one country, and it isn’t Northern Ireland. Scraping the barrel comes to mind.
To be fair, Nigel Worthington’s task ahead of Wednesday’s clash with African’s Morocco hasn’t been helped by the masses withdrawing their services, with the majority through injury but a number simply do not see the point and just aren’t as committed to the cause as a manager would like, which is in stark contrast to David Healy who was devastated to hear he wouldn’t be needed on Wednesday night.
So Nigel is relying on the exuberance of youth getting him through Wednesday night, hoping those youngsters will seize the opportunity presented to them to lay down a marker ahead of a testing yet exciting EURO 2012 campaign. But will it prove a step too soon for some? After all, this isn’t say an England where a youngster like Jack Wilshere is thrown into the Lion’s den at 18 but alongside an abundance of experience. That certainly isn’t the case with the the expected Northern Ireland starting XI on Wednesday, with experienced pro’s few and far between and so while Worthington may boast an energetic, fearless group of players to take on the Moroccans, should his side fall behind then we would doubt the strength of character within the core of the Irish set up.
Fortunately for the Irish, Morocco aren’t that good. Inaptly nicknamed ‘The Lions of Atlas’, Morocco have certainly lost their roar in recent year, as their failure to even qualify for the 2010 African Cup of Nations showed. Nevertheless, 2010 has been an encouraging year in terms of international friendlies, with the ‘Lions’ winning all three of their matches against fellow Africans, although neither were against household names, but it’s still a heap better than Ireland’s record of four straight defeats in four international friendlies in 2010, failing to even score a single goal.
It isn’t as though Morocco manager Eric Gerets, a former manager of PSV, Wolfsburg and Galatasaray, doesn’t have a few talented individuals to call on. In defence, we couldn’t recognise a single player, but in the final third Gerets has a number who can really have an impact in Ireland. At 28, captain Houssine Kharja packs a punch with his experienced gained from playing over 50 matches for his country in the centre of midfield, their most capped player in the squad to face NI, while fans of Liverpool and QPR should be familiar with Adel Taarabt and Nabil EL Zhar, respectively, two players with exciting qualities, very technical and skilful when in possession. However, it is the forward trio of Mounir El Hamdaoui, currently of Ajax but scorer of 2 international goals in just 5 appearances, journeyman Youssouf Hadji, scorer of 16 goals in 52 caps and a player which resides in France and plays in the top-flight with AS Nancy, and, of course, the pinnacle of the entire bunch, Arsenal’s newest hit Marouane Chamakh. The latter, though, hasn’t scored for his country in nearly 20 months but will surely never have a more glorious opportunity to end a barren scoring vein of form at international level than against a Northern Ireland side lacking in first-team personnel.
Nigel Worthington can at least fall back on his side’s decent start to EURO qualifying, although we prefer to view their form in Group as ‘indifferent’ rather than impressive. A 1-0 win away in Slovenia was a stunning result, although a little fortuitous in that the hosts batter Ireland throughout most of the game. A 0-0 draw with the 2006 World Champions Italy was arguably an even better result, but then they let themselves down with a lethargic effort out in the Faroe Islands, where only a late Kyle Lafferty effort spare NI’s blushes from what would have been a dire result. It was still a poor outcome nonetheless and a huge setback in their quest to qualify for the tournament itself in a little under two years time. And so we cannot help but think that if a full-strength NI team could only conjure a 1-1 draw with minnows the Faroe Islands, surely their youngsters, those clearly not yet ready to make the step up else they would have been involved way before now, after studying Worthington’s general philosophy of ‘if they’re good enough, no matter who they are, where they originate from or what age, sign them up’.
The Moroccans, although we haven’t seen an awful lot of them in recent years, aren’t much good themselves but they won’t need to be in order to squeeze a result out of this fixture. This encounter is basically homework material for NI boss Nigel Worthington, whereas for Morocco their pride and reputation is at stake in a match they should be winning under the circumstances, despite playing away from home.
I don’t see there being too many goals what with NI managing just two in three EURO 2012 qualifiers with pretty much their full strength team, while Morocco’s forwards, despite Chamakh looking a class apart, because of his Arsenal roots, haven’t been a prolific force in front of goal for a long time. Subsequently, Under 2.5 Goals is only available at the slim odds of 1.62 with Ladbrokes.
Pointers
- Morocco are unbeaten in 2010 in International Friendlies: 2-1 Equatorial Guinea (H), 0-0 Central African Republic (H), 1-0 Tanzania (A).
- The big names have all been called up for Morocco for Wednesday’s clash, aided by the fact it’s in Europe and not back in Africa: Nabil El Zhar, Adel Taarabt, Youssouf Hadji, Mounir El Hamdaoui & Marouane Chamakh.
- Northern Ireland have lost all four of their International Friendlies this year: 1-0 Albania (A), 2-0 Turkey (America), 1-0 Chile (A), 2-0 Montenegro (A).
- However, NI are unbeaten so far in their bid to qualify for the 2012 European Championships in Poland & Ukraine: Played 3, Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 0 – Beat Slovenia 1-0 (A), Drawn with Italy 0-0 (H), Drawn with Faroe Islands 1-1 (A).
- NI manager Nigel Worthington is without a whole host of key players which includes the following; Warren Feeney, Gareth McAuley, Chris Baird, Corry Evans, Sammy Clingan, Grant McCann, Stephen Craigan, Steven Davis, Kyle Lafferty, George McCartney & Maik Taylor.
Matt’s Selections:
Morocco to WIN – 3.05 Unibet
Morocco Draw No Bet – 2.20 SkyBet
Marouane Chamakh First Goalscorer – 7.50 Bet365
Match Odds:
Northern Ireland – 2.60 bWin
Draw – 3.30 SkyBet
Morocco – 3.05 Unibet
