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Martin O'Neill Had A Cutting Dig At Matt Doherty After Saturday's Game

Martin O'Neill Had A Cutting Dig At Matt Doherty After Saturday's Game
Colman Stanley
By Colman Stanley
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After the Republic of Ireland's 2-1 loss to Scotland on Saturday, Martin O'Neill threw a rather harsh dig the way of Matt Doherty, as the panel discussed the Spurs player's rusty performance.

Doherty was largely at fault for Scotland's first goal, with his poor movement allowing Ryan Christie to easily breeze past him before sending in a pin-point cross for Jack Hendry to head home.

O'Neill's comments also suggested that he may have some lasting animosity towards Matt Doherty, after he had been critical of O'Neill's training methods while he was Republic of Ireland manager.

Speaking after the game on Premier Sports, Richard Dunne described Doherty as looking 'leggy' in the second half, and felt that he had to move his feet a little bit quicker for Scotland's first goal.

Former Scottish defender, Alan Hutton, was in agreement with Dunne but also made the point that Matt Doherty is rusty due to a lack of game-time.

It was then that the often pass-remarkable Martin O'Neill offered up his opinion on Doherty's mistake:

That's what matters when you can't defend.

Matt Doherty And Martin O'Neill Beef?

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READ HERE: Matt Doherty Reveals His Lowest Moment During Difficult Spurs Spell

We reported previously on the comments of Matt Doherty discussing O'Neill's defence training, which he described as 'old-school' and often leaving players unsure of their role come game day.

"Well compared to the set-up I had at Wolves, you could class it as old-school," said Doherty. "There was obviously, we had Portuguese people in charge. There was a lot of coaching, stuff like that.

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"When you played with Ireland, you didn't really have that much coaching. It was more go and play a little five-a-side game or an eleven side game and then that would be it. So you could lead all the way up to the game, maybe the day before a game and you would do a few set-pieces here and there and then you would go into a game and you were thinking to yourself 'what shape we are going to play.'

"You'd have a few players thinking, 'aw, I think we are going to play this shape' or you might have someone else thinking 'I think it might be this one.' You can't really have that, especially at international football, people not really sure on what their role is the next day."

SEE ALSO: Former Ireland Coach Turns Down Championship Job To Stay With Belgium

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