Paisley signs:Another Central Defender

Longford set to sign Paisley - report

Irish under-21 international Stephen Paisley could be about to join Premier Division side Longford Town, according to reports this morning.

Paisley, who captained Ireland to fourth place in the European under-19 Championship finals in Norway last summer, was released by Manchester City this summer.

The young Dubliner, who turned 20 earlier this week, made his under-21 international debut against Georgia back in March, but was left out of Don Givens’s squad for three matches in June, against Georgia, Albania and Germany.

Paisley has been training with Longford for the best part of three weeks in a bid to prove his fitness to manager Alan Matthews.

If he is kept on at Flancare Park, he would expect to challenge for the role alongside captain Barry Ferguson, which is currently being manned by Brian McGovern, who is due to stay at the club on a loan deal from St Patrick’s Athletic for the remainder of the season.

Paisley is not the only Irish youngster to have failed to make the grade at Manchester City: under-19 goalkeeper Brian Murphy was also released by Kevin Keegan, but he has managed to gain a contract at Third Division Swansea, while Paisley’s central defensive partner at last summer’s European finals, Paddy McCarthy, left Maine Road to join Boston United earlier this year.



www.eleven-a-side.com 31/7/03

Why would he replace brian mc, hes a much better player and defender than barry. what is matthews playing at, we finally got our 4 defenders playing well together and then he signs a new defender.

can paisley be put into the middle of the park ??? if so maybe he would be a good signing, or maybe this is the media seeing a player training with a club and putting 2 + 2 together and getting an answer that does not look like this 4 !!!

I've had to re-register under this name as my other account was deactivated..Anyhow, Paisley is a left back or left sided midfielder and a damn good one supposedly. A very big man and hard as nails apparently..Town were waiting in him getting a letter from Man City giving him the all clear on the medical front which they needed for insurance purposes. The letter arrived and he played for The Town in a friendly against St. James' Gate on Tuesday. Town won 3-2 with goals from Vinny 2 (one a penno) and Foley.

good so our defense is class now. avery and paisley fighting for the left murph and dillon for the right and mcgovern and barry aswell as silke and foley as cover.dillo can all across so all we need to do now is re-instate digger as number one and then thew next problem is central midfield