John Giles has reiterated his criticism of Martin O'Neill's tactics and selection decisions in the Euro 2016 qualifier draw against world champions Germany.
John O'Shea's injury time goal helped the Boys in Green get a famous draw in Gelsenkirchen. John was critical of the performance in his TV analysis of the game that night. Tonight on Off The Ball he spoke about his criticisms and felt any question marks over team selection and tactics were deserved.
"Our obligation - and I think Liam [Brady] and Eamon [Dunphy] feel the same - is an obligation to the viewers. We've no obligation to Martin O'Neill or the FAI or Roy Keane. So we have to say it as we see it. We could have gone down the popular route of a great result and everything is fine and we probably would have got more stick for being dishonest and quite rightly so," said John.
He felt that O'Neill played the likes of Jon Walters, Robbie Keane and Aiden McGeady out of position or tasked with unfamiliar roles until the final stages when positive changes were made.
He feels that the best way to hold off Germany would be to make better use of the ball and cited Scotland's attacking approach in their 2 - 1 defeat in Cologne as a good benchmark for those type of games.
"The best way to defend is to have possession of the ball. No manager can plan to play for 50 or 60 minutes, keeping the score down and then turning it on for 15 minutes. It's easy to rewrite the history of that particular game because we scored in the last minute but they could have been four ahead by the time the changes were made."
John also picked his team for next month's trip to Scotland and also said that he "doesn't think that Glenn Whelan wins the ball very" or "uses the ball very well".
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