Mick McCarthy: Winning outweighs good football for me

Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy has said that he plans to win over playing good football ahead of Ireland's first Euro 2020 qualifier with Gibraltar on Saturday.

McCarthy will return to the Irish dugout for the first time since 2002 for what will be his second stint as Irish manager with the former Ispwich Town boss the last man to successfully guide Ireland to the World Cup finals. His 2002 squad was brimming with talent and while the current iteration may be somewhat short by comparison McCarthy still hopes to play an exciting brand of football.

"I want to play football," McCarthy told RTÉ Sport, "I do." "I don’t want to harp back to the past, but yeah, we played well and we won games, but I have to be honest, winning outweighs that for me" "But I’m pragmatic as well. I’ve got eight games to get us qualified for a major competition. I think it’s important that we get results. I haven’t been sacked yet when I’ve been winning games and top of the league, no matter how we have been playing. "Generally, when you are successful, you are playing well. I don’t want to harp back to the past, but yeah, we played well and we won games, but I have to be honest, winning outweighs that for me. "As a nation, wherever we have been, where we have won a game, it generally gets the crowd going. But I want to play good football as well."

Ireland right-back Matt Doherty played for McCarthy during his spell as Wolves manager and the Dubliner insists that the new Irish boss is a good man manager above all else.

"He and TC (Terry Connor) do a lot of coaching on the pitch, and already you can see in the training, we know exactly what he wants us to do," he said. "We haven’t done huge shape sessions, but even the little things, he might stop (the training session) and give us little pointers here or there. "The next few days we’ll probably get more of an idea of what he wants. But the main thing I would say is that he’s just a great man-manager."