St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright believes Northern Ireland have a great chance of winning today’s Euro 2016 battle of Britain with Wales, and postponing his goalkeeper’s return from France for another few days.
The Saints players will return for pre-season training on Monday morning but Alan Mannus won’t be joining them for a while.
And Wright, a former international keeper himself, hopes the Northern Ireland Euros story may have a bit more left in it yet.
“They’ve got a real opportunity to progress further,” he said. “They’ll think they’ve got a decent chance of beating Wales.
“They won’t be happy with getting this far. They always go into games believing they’re going to win these days.
“They will hopefully get a bit more possession which will allow them to show a different side to their game.
“I think it’s too close to call. It’s a 50/50 game. We’ve got every chance.”
Wright added: “It’s been superb so far.
“After the first game it’s gone as well as we could have hoped.
“I’m delighted for Michael (O’Neill) and the squad, and I’m delighted for Alan.
“I’ve been in touch by text message. He’s enjoying it. Who wouldn’t.
“He’ll benefit from the experience.
“And the longer he stays the more money that will go into the kitty. I’m sure the chairman will be pleased with that.”
Mannus hasn’t had any game-time, but the man who has kept him out of the starting line-up, Hamilton’s Michael McGovern, has been one of the best keepers at the Euros.
“Michael has done extremely well,” Wright said.
“He’s been composed and made saves at important times. His performance against Germany was outstanding.
“You could put the number of important saves up at seven or eight. His performance has given them the opportunity to go through to the next round.
“I worked with him at under-21 level about 10 years ago – he’s waited a long time to have a stage like this to perform on and he’s certainly stepped up to the mark.
“What Alan has done for four seasons at St Johnstone has been outstanding. He’s had consistently high level performances for that time.
“Northern Ireland are blessed to have three top class goalkeepers, with Roy Carroll as well.”
Seeing the rest of the home nations get to France and now progress to the knock-out stages hasn’t been easy for Scottish football fans but the slate will soon be wiped clean for another campaign.
“Scotland will have to re-group and go for the World Cup qualifiers,” Wright said.
“I suppose it shows just how hard a group Scotland were in. We always knew that. It was the toughest group of the lot.
“I’m sure there are things they will look back on and think they could have done better but The Republic of Ireland produced two great results against Germany, which was the difference.”
