Stephen Kelly

[tetsujin1979]

...agreed terms with Birmingham today according to the official site:
http://www.blues.premiumtv.co.uk/page/News/NewsDetail/0,,10412~843414,00.html

[irishfan86]

Good move for him I feel.

[Fergie's Son]

I feel it's the beginning of the end of his international career. To date, he just hasn't looked good enough.

[youngirish]

He should have made such a move years ago. At almost 23 I believe that if he was really any use he should already be playing in the Premiership regularly. If Birmingham bounce straight back to the Premiership, however, he could get one more chance at the top before he gets too old to be much use to Ireland.

I'm surprised his U21 teammate Willo Flood hasn't followed him into the lower leagues yet. He also hasn't looked good enough after a promising start a couple of years ago.

Hopefully Joey O'Brien and Ireland can progress better next season. I think O'Brien has enough as a player to establish himself as a permanent fixture in the Bolton team (preferrably in midfield though for Ireland's sake). Not too sure yet about Ireland.

[drinkfeckarse]

Regular football will do him the world of good and I don't believe it's too late for him to become an important player for us. What I've seen of him so far suggests that he's not up to it but some players are late developers and at 23 he's still got time IMO. Just because you're not a top leage regular at that age doesn't mean you chance is gone.

[tetsujin1979]

It's generally agreed that defenders tend to hit their peak later than midfielders and strikers, Kelly has a good 8 years of improvement left before he hits that, so I reckon what he does need now is regular first team games. When he did get a run in the side the season before last, he was playing consistently well, and scored a few times in the run in to the end of the season. What I'm more concerned with is the amount of highly-rated Irish talent at top clubs who have to leave for first team football.

(slightly off topic) It was pointed out recently that the amount of foreign players in England is causing a detrimental effect to the number of top English players at the top clubs, and this is having a knock-on effect at youth level where there is a much higher percentage of players in the various squads from lowqer league teams.

[CraftyToePoke]

(slightly off topic) It was pointed out recently that the amount of foreign players in England is causing a detrimental effect to the number of top English players at the top clubs, and this is having a knock-on effect at youth level where there is a much higher percentage of players in the various squads from lowqer league teams.

look at Kavanagh as an example of that, he was forced to drop down just because his club had pennies to blow on exotically named imports as he was coming through, and as we can now see, he is comfortably good enough to play uptop, but what good did it do him? and how many more like him.

i once heard Niall Quinn speaking about Paul Thirlwell from during his time as s'land, when the marketing dept at the club wanted a more ''marketable'' player/commodity than Thirlwell, so Reyna came in, despite, in Quinns opinion, Thirlwell being just as good but not given the same oppertunity.

[Stuttgart88]

Is it realistic to expect Kelly, Bruce & Painter making up 3 of Birmingham's back 4 this season?

Is Maik Taylor staying put? If not, Colin Doyle could get a spot in nets. First team football at that level would be great for him at this stage of his career.