During Martin O'Neill's reign as Republic of Ireland manager, there have been the highs of qualifying for Euro 2016, reaching the knockout stages, and also beating then-world champions Germany at the Aviva.
But there have been lows like the most recent competitive match when Denmark thrashed the Boys in Green 5-1 in Dublin to end our 2018 World Cup qualification dreams brutally at the playoff stage.
With O'Neill now looking towards the UEFA Nations League games against two of our most recent rivals Wales and the Danes, as well as qualification for Euro 2020, the Ireland manager sat down for an hour long interview with Joe Molloy at FAI HQ in which he answered some of the criticisms and had his say on the perceptions about his management that have come his way over the last five years.
You can listen to the full interview on the podcast player:
For example, one criticism aimed in his direction is the fact he announces his teams right an hour before kick-off rather than at an earlier point and there has been scrutiny about the amount of detail worked on during training sessions."Well, I've always done that for a start and I did that the night we played in the UEFA Cup final for Celtic against Porto who went on to win the Champions League the following year," he said.
"There are two things that are very important and it's really simple. Brian Clough was a great, great manager, fine. Alex Ferguson, one of the great managers of all-time.
The full interview:
"Alex Ferguson was there at training all the time, he didn't interfere, at different stages - I know he was dealing with world class players but he hadn't world class players available to him the moment he walked into Manchester United.
"And he had time to build up but you're talking at club level now for a start. It's really important. First off, you have to do your job but before you do your job, you have to know your job.
"If you could ask any player that has played with me at club level, ask even players that I fell out with, there'd be one or two. I think they knew what their job was and it was a matter of doing it.
"So if you're talking about somebody not knowing the side, there's a fairly decent chance that at least eight of the players will know that they're going to be playing for a start.
"There's a fairly decent chance that eight of the players will know their position. There's a fairly decent chance that eight of the players will know what is expected of them and one or two players who might not know, I might have told them the night before that they're playing in the game anyway."
You can watch the full interview on YouTube or listen back on the podcast player. O'Neill also talks GAA, music, bucket lists as well as more on his management of Ireland.
