‘Keith is not my favourite person because he was very critical of me in Ireland’ - Martin O’Neill reopens debate on Brentford boss

O’Neill has made repeated remarks about Andrews, his feelings stemming from what he saw as unfair criticism of O’Neill by Andrews when he was a Sky Sports pundit during O’Neill’s tenure as Republic of Ireland manager. He has previously said that Andrews was “a particularly vitriolic critic of mine at the time”.

O’Neill had also said “he was dealing at the bottom end of it when I was winning the European Cup” of Andrews, who was born in 1980, the year O’Neill won his second European Cup with Nottingham Forest.

“Keith is not my favourite person because he was very critical of me in Ireland," O’Neill told the Guardian, speaking to promote his new book The Changing Game: The Past, Present and Future of Football.

“The irony is that Brentford are using the long throw, which is not all that inventive because it’s been around for years. But take my irritants aside. He’s a young fellow coming in [to management] and it’s a great challenge because he’s taking over from a person whose character pervaded the football club.

“Thomas Frank was excellent and so it’s a strange and interesting dilemma for [Andrews]. Do you want to change things straight away? Do you want to show your personality immediately? Or do you take your time, because the players do know you?

"But knowing you as a set-piece coach and then knowing you as a manager is a wee bit different. If you overcome those things, then you should be on the right path.”

Derry native O’Neill also bemoaned the lack of “British” managers in England’s top flight.

"The Premier League now is so big it has seemingly untold wealth coming in. I hate to use the word ‘foreign’, but you’re talking about foreign investment, foreign owners, foreign agents.

"So the younger British manager is often managing a team in the third division. He’s getting 12 or 14 games to prove himself, and if he doesn’t do it in that time, he’s in the wilderness, even before he gets started. The British manager is all but disappearing,” he added.

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