The Fiver | Swapping a future under O’Neill and Keane for inflatable unicorns

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For a manager who has been accused of dawdling in the past merely because he talks as if Brian Clough were on the brink of clinching another Big Cup, Martin O’Neill has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Back in March 1890, before even O’Neill’s formative years, a chancer called John Reynolds scored O’Ireland’s only goal in a 9-1 defeat by England before defecting to play for England on the convenient grounds that he was born in Blackburn. Now there is a real possibility of Declan Rice becoming only the second man to play senior football for both O’Ireland and England, for whom he qualifies because he was born in London and Eric Dier is plod.

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