Steven Reid: Restoring faith of public will be hardest task of all for next manager

THE first thing any manager must do when taking over the Ireland job in the coming months is to restore Lansdowne Road to its former glories.

I can understand why fans didn't make their way to Dublin 4 last night for a dead rubber against unfashionable opponents, but playing in a modern stadium that is less than half full has a knock-on effect on the players.

Games at the Aviva Stadium look like they are played at a different intensity to the ones I remember. While we want our teams to get the ball down and play, to an extent, we also want them to bring a Premier League-style effort to the table, to get among the opposition and get the fans into the stadium and off their feet.

Lansdowne needs to be turned into a fortress again. Before it was redeveloped, it wasn't the greatest of stadiums, but in a way I preferred it the way it was. Teams didn't like going there and more often than not it was a sell-out with a good atmosphere and it always worked in our favour.

It may have been old-fashioned, but it had charm, an atmosphere. New stadiums can lose that soul. Teams are getting a lift, but teams used to wonder what was going on. It was an old stadium, but teams going there now enjoy the luxury.

While Giovanni Trapattoni's era was mostly a success and we were hard to beat, it was mostly built on performances away from home. The new man must try and restore the faith of the public. Of course, last night's final Group C fixture meant little, even if Ireland moved closer to achieving the status of second seeds for the European Championships qualifiers, which would be welcome news.

With no new manager, Noel King made a few changes and I was interested to see how the Everton pair of Darron Gibson and James McCarthy did in midfield in front of their club manager Roberto Martinez. They're both comfortable on ball and will be heavily involved in a strong Everton team under Martinez, something Ireland have been lacking for years, players for top Premier League sides.

The sight of the Derry native going off on a stretcher looked grim and I just hope he the damage is not as serious as it looked. If a new boss takes over before November, he'd have wanted to pair the duo together, but now that looks unlikely to happen.

In front of those two, Andy Reid showed what he could have been doing for Ireland over the past few years while in exile, with his delivery from dead balls and ability to produce a bit of magic from nothing a real addition.

But, whoever is appointed will be looking to build for next campaign and a tournament that is almost three years away. Andy will be 34 in the summer of 2016 and it is difficult to play in the position he does at the highest level at that stage of your career.

It depends whether the manager wants to go for youth. All of our decent deliveries have come from him, while our first two goals before the own goal came from Robbie Keane and John O'Shea – who got some help from Richard Dunne.

We have dabbled with introducing new players during this campaign, but it is still the senior players who we rely on to produce the goods. I'm not sure the quality is as good among the new guys.

Last night's display reflected the occasion, but while the system looked progressive, the lack of out-and-out wingers meant that the defenders and midfielders had few places to go when they got the ball. When you win the ball deep, you need pace and dynamism to get forward.

Noel King was accommodating players in positions that they're not used to playing. Both wide men are natural strikers and I would like a winger in that position who can deliver the ball, it is always best to have two wide men who can carry ball and get it into the box.

That changed straight away when Aiden McGeady came off the bench and opened the game up, he travelled with the ball and made an impact. Anthony Stokes did OK in parts, Kevin Doyle didn't get much of the ball. The Spartak Moscow winger showed it is important to accommodate a bit of pace and creativity and his cameo led directly to third goal.

It was a flat, subdued game, but the lads did what they had to do and the seedings look like they will work out. It was almost a fitting end to a campaign that started off negatively, showed signs of life and faded. At least we've finished with a win.

For King, this last 10 weeks was a case of getting a safe pair of hands to oversee things and he has done a decent enough job.

His press conferences have been refreshingly honest, he brought back players who had been exiled during the previous regime and it is good to see them back.