Pre-Season 2022/23

Thought I should start a thread for this pre-season, which has shockingly started already and there have already been Irish interest - as mentioned in his own thread, Georgie Kelly scored for Rotherham. Also:

New cap CJ Hamilton was on target as Blackpool beat Southport 2-0: https://www.blackpoolfc.co.uk/news/2...0-blackpool-2/

Luke McNally played 34 minutes of the first half for Burnley against Rochdale, Kevin Long played the full half, while Dara Costelloe was part of an U23 side that lined out for the second half: https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/...y-1-0-rocdhale

Former Cork City youngster Ricardo Dinanga got 45 minutes in Coventry City's 3-1 win over Leamington: https://www.ccfc.co.uk/news/2022/jul...1-3-sky-blues/

Darragh Lenihan started his first game at Middlesbrough against Bishop Auckland. Calum Kavanagh featured for the second half and came close to scoring on several occasions: https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/five-star...with-a-victory

With injuries affecting the contingent at Norwich, Tony Springett was the lone Irish representative in a 4-0 defeat of Dereham: https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/c...eason-friendly

Sean Maguire only lasted seven minutes of Preston's game with Bamber Bridge before going off injured. Greg Cunningham played the full first half: https://www.pnefc.net/news/2022/july...ton-north-end/

A trio of Irish players featured for QPR in their 2-0 win over Uxbridge - Jimmy Dunne for the first half, Conor Masterson and Olamide Shodipo for the second: https://www.qpr.co.uk/fixtures/first...ge/?tab=report

The season is starting early in England because of the world cup in November

Seems Ryan Cassidy is in trial at Swindon & scored yesterday in their friendly.

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Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

Seems Ryan Cassidy is in trial at Swindon & scored yesterday in their friendly.

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Looked very poor at Bohs this season.

Liam Kerrigan included in Como's squad for preseason training: https://comofootball.com/en/first-da...amp-in-bormio/

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Below are the squad members who left for the retreat: Tommaso Arrigoni, Racine Ba, Alessandro Bellemo, Davide Bertoncini, Alex Blanco, Pierre Bolchini, Edoardo Bovolon, Andrea Cagnano, Enrico Celeghin, Alberto Cerri, Moutir Chajia, Filippo Delli Carri, Elia Di Giuliomaria, Alessandro Gabrielloni, Massimiliano Gatto, Ettore Gliozzi, Alessio Iovine, Elvis Kabashi, Liam Kerrigan, Matteo Piombino, Filippo Scaglia, Matteo Solini, Marco Tremolada, Gabriele Verga and Luca Zanotti.

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Suggestions from John Fallon in the examiner that they're scouting Adam O'Reilly as well: https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinio...-40911443.html

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That will see him keep the gaze on Ireland, with Adam O'Reilly the latest target. The Cork youngster worked under Bircham[ex-Waterford manager Marc Bircham is on the coaching staff at Como] at Waterford and his latest loan from Preston North End, to St Patrick's Athletic, is up for renewal in three weeks. Don't rule out an Italian job entering the equation.

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Jonny Kenny scored 2 for Celtic and Rocco Vata scored 1 in a win against an Austrian minnow. Bosun Lawal and James McCarthy both started, Lawal at centre half.

All goals on Celtic's youtube channel

It's a pity they seen to be trying to develop Lawal as a centre back and not a central midfielder. Plenty of good young Irish centre backs knocking around already obviously.

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

It's a pity they seen to be trying to develop Lawal as a centre back and not a central midfielder. Plenty of good young Irish centre backs knocking around already obviously.

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I think he played in midfield for the Celtic B team last season, I have a vague memory of that anyway, so it may have just been a case of getting everyone minutes yesterday and get him on the pitch anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Razors left peg

I think he played in midfield for the Celtic B team last season, I have a vague memory of that anyway, so it may have just been a case of getting everyone minutes yesterday and get him on the pitch anywhere.

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Pretty sure he played mostly at CB and it's where he played with the U19s. Though Crawford played him midfield last summer but since his move to Celtic he's played CB at his own age group with us.

Unless they feel he's better suited to playing CB than CM it would be nice if he played CM at international level with us. We're stacked for CBs but lacking in holding midfielders, especially ones that are physical midfield players rather than ball playing midfielders.

Think he was primarily a CM for Watford and a CB for Celtic. Internationally he played centre mid for the 17s, centre back for the 19s and got a few minutes in midfield for the 21s.

Lawal is very much a wait and see type case. Declan Rice was a centre-mid for us all the way through, but he broke through initially at West Ham at centre-half. Generally, if you're good enough to play in centre-midfield, that's where you'll end up...

1st and foremost lets hope he can get some 1st team football soon and see where he goes from there.

A few games tonight:

As noted in his own thread, Calum Kavanagh scored twice for Middlebrough against York:https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/match-rep...-city-2-boro-3

Conor Coventry played the full game for West Ham in their pre-season opener against Servette, Armstrong Okoflex for the last half-hour:https://www.whufc.com/news/west-ham-...eason-servette

No sign of our Norwich boys again for their second friendly game. Hopefully we will see them soon…

No Moran, Ferguson or Connolly for the first or second half teams for Brighton today as well…

Shane Flynn got 45 for Leicester V Notts County today. Think he lost a chunk of last season to the obligatory worst possible timing for an injury which afflicts many of our emerging players, having made match day panels in the EL the season before.

Time to fire up the tea leaves, as the Premier League pre-season gets going:

The next One to Watch? Tommi O'Reilly played the second half for Villa against Walsall andset up the third goal: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/spo...lsall-24445347

Jake O'Brien and Tayo Adaramola both played the second half for Crystal Palace in their 5-4 win over Millwall, who had Danny McNamara in their second-half line-up. O'Brien scored Palace's third, while Adaramola was involved in the build-up for the fourth: https://www.cpfc.co.uk/news/pre-seas...rt/2022-07-09/

And In the Championship:

Maybe we shouldn't write off James Collins just yet -he opened the scoring for Cardiff against Cambridge - Joel Bagan also scored: https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...mbridge-united

Robbie Brady played the first 45 for Preston against Tranmere: https://www.pnefc.net/news/2022/july...mere-rovers-1/

All three Irish lads at QPR (Dunne, Masterson and Shodipo) played the second half against Crawley, with Shodipo getting an assist on the third goal (unfortunately they conceded three in the last 30 minutes, which doesn't bode well for the defenders: https://www.qpr.co.uk/fixtures/first...pr/?tab=report

Kian Leavy can now say he's played against Benfica, coming off the bench for Reading in their defeat to the Portuguese giants: https://www.readingfc.co.uk/news/202...ng-vs-benfica/

If you were down at The Cross this evening, you would have seen Gavin Kilkenny get thirty minutes against City: https://twitter.com/stokecity/status...C8vYn-7fMqAAAA

And of course Michael Obafemi scored, opening Swansea's account against Forest Green, with Ryan Manning also playing the first half: https://www.swanseacity.com/news/swa...t-green-rovers

O'Shea, Molumby and Robinson all featured in West Brom's defeat at Stevenage: https://www.wba.co.uk/news/stevenage-2-0-albion

I think O'Reilly isn't eligible, despite having his nationality as Republic of Ireland on his profile on Villa's website.
He was called into an U19 training camp - https://www.fai.ie/ireland/news/u19-...-training-camp - but that's the only time he was involved with the national side. There's a few posts on YBIG saying he's not eligible

I think there was a post on the (now defunct) Republic of Ireland Player Tracker Twitter page saying that he wanted to play for us so the FAI brought him in for a training camp, but when they looked into his eligibility he didn't actually qualify to play for Ireland. Something similar happened with Gardner-Hickman from West Brom also.

Kelleher doesn’t make Liverpool’s preseason tour squad, no reason given. Of the other players who didn’t travel, they are about half half moving vs injured…