Liam Brady believes there won’t be too many surprises in the Republic of Ireland team that lines out against Sweden in their Euro 2016 opener today, although the goalkeeper jersey remains up for grabs.
Ireland kick off their European Championship campaign at 5pm in Stade de France in Paris this evening, with manager Martin O’Neill not due to name his starting XI until close to kick-off.
"It’ll be interesting if Martin adopts a certain tactic, like putting a midfielder man-for-man marking him (Zlatan Ibrahimovic)"
And while RTÉ Sport analyst Brady is unsure of who will start in goal, he believes the team will feature Jonathan Walters, despite him not being 100% match fit.
Brady also thinks the centre-back pairing of Richard Keogh and John O’Shea will remain in place, despite Roy Keane saying Shane Duffy has a chance to start following his man-of-the-match display in the friendly win over Switzerland.
“If you talk about Walters, he’s such an important player for us that if he is fit – he’s obviously not going to be match fit - but if he is fit you’d want to play him and see how long you can get out of him,” Brady told RTÉ Sport.
“Young Duffy... I’m not too sure whether Roy was flying a kite when he talked him up. I think Keogh and O’Shea have done nothing wrong, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they start to be honest.”
However, when it came to the man between the posts, Brady believes all three have a chance to claim the coveted starting spot.
Kieren Westwood, Darren Randolph and Shay Given all have hopes for the number one jersey and Brady said: “I wouldn’t know who is going to start in goal.
“Westwood is the form goalkeeper, Randolph hasn’t played much for his club side but yet he’s done well for us, and Given has all the experience. So we’ll have to wait.
“But you know the players who are going be playing. We’ve got (Seamus) Coleman and (Robbie) Brady probably at full-back – they’re two really good full-backs. And Shane Long is one of the in-form strikers in Europe at the moment.
“We have a team that can beat Sweden but we have to play to our utmost capacity.”
Regarding the threat posed by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Brady believes Ireland can ‘keep him quiet’, pointing out his inconsistency during PSG’s Champions League campaign.
Although he’s not sure exactly how Martin O’Neill will approach his threat.
The former Ireland, Juventus and Arsenal midfielder said: “I watched him closely in the Champions League this year and he was great against Chelsea when PSG knocked them out. But against Man City he didn’t do too much, particularly in Manchester.
“So we can keep him quiet.
“It’ll be interesting if Martin adopts a certain tactic, like putting a midfielder man-for-man marking him, because he is inclined to drop deep into that kind of area where the centre backs don’t like to come into.
“If we can keep him quiet there’s nothing between the teams and it’ll depend on who plays at their capacity on the night. But he is their talisman, he’ll talk the talk, but he has done it.”
Brady is optimistic heading into the game, “I don’t think we’ll lose and there’s every possibility we could win.”
