Appearing on RTE's Late, Late Show last night, O'Neill said: "I don’t any more. The criticism at the time... Keith had not, with respect, played at the top level in the game, that’s fine and he’s still entitled to his opinion. But he was saying that we relied on set pieces, then [said] when you put a couple of forwards on that’s not the right way to do it. This was a man who hadn’t really done it.
"Then he got his opportunity alongside Stephen Kenny and it didn’t work out, even though he kept saying that the team was being prepared by elitists, that they had ‘elite preparation’ and then they go and lose to Luxembourg."
He added: "If you are talking the talk you have to walk the walk. That was the whole point. This whole thing about set-pieces, now Brentford throw it longer than Rory Delap but it doesn’t matter. He is starting now into a difficult business. “He’s not short of self-confidence, if he had a tenth of the ability that his confidence suggested he had, he’d be alongside Guardiola."