I liked Babb. I used to think Bjorneby left him more exposed on the left than scales was on the right side of the 3 CBs. But I also get the sense there was a touch of the spice boy lifestyle about him too. Great USA 94 though.
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I liked Babb. I used to think Bjorneby left him more exposed on the left than scales was on the right side of the 3 CBs. But I also get the sense there was a touch of the spice boy lifestyle about him too. Great USA 94 though.
My father in law in Portugal loved Babb. The whole family are big Sporting Lisbon fans and Babb was on the last league winning team before they won 2 seasons ago.
I was thinking after seeing this and a couple of other posts whether we should re-name this thread and the two similar ones that deal with goalkeepers and forwards from "Embarrassment of riches" to "New Golden Generation?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
NO ~ ~ Heard more than enough of that about the English Golden Generation and how that turned Out ! !Quote:
Originally Posted by samhaydenjr
Maybe "slightly less **** than the last generation" or something like that...
Quote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Wow, that's some serious cynicism, which surely is no longer justified by reality. First, though, the "awful" last generation did get us to the last 16 of the European Championships and a World Cup Playoff. But even given that, there really is cause for optimism, grounded in reality, that the group of players coming through will be significantly better. And we can assess the situation from a number of perspectives.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
- Looking at recent goals, Parrott's winner against Lithuania and Obafemi's worldie were statement goals comparable to Robbie Keane's second against Malta in '98.
- Looking at personnel, we have three high quality goalkeepers in their early 20s, two of whom will quite possibly play more PL games this season alone than Darren Randolph did in his entire career; in defence, Nathan Collins looks like he could challenge Paul McGrath to be our best centre-half ever, with Omobamidele and O'Shea also likely to be better than Duffy and Egan; up front it is looking more and more likely that at least three of the quartet of Parrott, Obafemi, Idah and Connolly will deliver on their early promise, with a number of other breakthroughs possible over the next season; Our midfield is a little thinner currently but if even a couple from Smallbone/Coventry/Moran/Kilkenny/Hodge/Noss/Finn break through next season then it will start to look really decent
- And in terms of youth coming through, our U21s have just reach a qualifying playoff for the first time ever, in spite of nine players being moved up to the senior squad. Pre-pandemic our U17s appeared in three Finals tournaments in a row (one as hosts) and were on target to make it four when COVID hit.
What's a "statement goal"?
Were David Kelly's goals v Israel in 1987 "statement goals"?
Or Keith O'Neill's goal v Bolivia in 96?
So good they had to make a statement to the Guards after the match ! !Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It was pretty clear to me what he meant.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Ok - but was it not pretty clear what I meant in reply too?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
A statement goal doesn't have to predict a golden generation or a great international career.
Or if that is the view being taken, I think it's got more than a tinge of Sam's usual slightly excessive optimism.
Eirambler's post is much more reasoned I think
On Saturday, 28th September, there wasQuote:
Originally Posted by dr_peepee
John O'Shea(Charlton V Man Utd)
Gary Breen(Chelsea V West Ham)
Gary Doherty(Spurs V Middlesbough)
Phil Babb and Steve Staunton(Sunderland V Aston Villa)
Kenny Cunningham, Jeff Kenna, and Andy O'Brien(Birmingham V Newcastle)
All except Doherty started, he came on for Ziege. Not sure if Kenna was centre half or not.
Do we overproduce centre-backs (and underproduced forwards) compared to other countries or does it just feel that way?
I quite like Sam's optimism and at this point in time I think it's a bit churlish to reply with examples of Kelly & O'Neill. David Kelly made a fine contribution to the national team in my opinion anyway and was never heralded as a next big thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I'm not sure if we necessarily under-produce forwards in relative terms. I think producing goalscorers is an issue for a lot of small countries in recent years.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I think we have underproduced good midfielders in the last 20 years compared to other countries though. We haven't had a really good box to box centre mid since Keane, Holland and Kinsella all finished up around the same time. Most other countries seem to have loads of decent midfielders whereas we struggle a bit there.
We definitely over-produce centre backs though. I'm not sure why, we're not a country of overly tall people, we're fairly average sized. Is it because we seem to have favoured a less technical style of football down the years? Or maybe a GAA/rugby related thing where our players also play these sports at a young age and become more physical, less technical players? Maybe, but then many of the Irish centre backs coming through now are technically proficient footballers.
Incidentally, we seem to be at odds with most of Europe in terms of the players we produce, going by this piece from Miguel Delaney. He suggests that most players coming through now at academies are midfielders and full backs, whereas we seem to be producing keepers, centre backs and even a few strikers.
https://m.independent.ie/sport/socce...-41762789.html
Maybe this will help us to be successful in the next 10 to 15 years, we will be stronger in areas of the field where other similar sized nations are weak?
I think the GAA and rugby suggested influence could have some bearing. In both games, well positioned and disciplined defence would feel like having a greater bearing than in football. Not that it isn't important in football but if you're touch tight on a man in gaelic and don't let him by you or get space then you're doing your job. Football is the type of game where you can do your job but get mugged by a moment of ingenuity. It might have something to do with the ball being at the feet, in comparison to it being at the hand in football and rugby.
I think a statement goal is one that's a bit special, one that announces a young striker arrival as a particular talent. I can't remember any of Kelly's hat-trick being particularly outstanding and I just had a look at O'Neill's brace and, while they were decent (high-leaping header from a corner and beating the defence to a through ball before finishing tidily), they were still pretty conventional. Likewise with Robbie Keane's first goal against Malta, which was just a poacher's finish from a corner. But his second... that was something I had never seen from an Irish forward before - winning possession from one defender, nutmegging another and curling a finish into the far corner, all in one move. When I saw that live, I understood what the hype was about. When I saw Obafemi line up his strike, I felt something special was about to happen and when it flew into the net I got the same feeling as I did all those years ago with Robbie. I didn't get to see the Parrott strike against Lithuania live but it looked terrific also - controlling a bouncing ball, running across the edge of the box before unleashing a low-flying bullet to the corner.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
OK, I think we are closer in our analysis than we initially thought and, yes, there is a concern about the lack of top players in their mid-to-late 20s in the squad to support... essentially we're going to have a complete squad overhaul over the next 1-2 cycles but I think we are well on track for that to happen - we have three active goalkeepers who we can now be confident will be international class (four if you add Max O'Leary); we have three centre-halves who we can be similarly confident about, with another half-dozen already playing at Championship/League One level; up front, as I've said, Idah, Parrott and Obafemi all look ready and if Connolly can get his act together, he could also be added to the list, with a number of others who have a good chance of breaking through next season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
And possibly the most important indicator that we may be looking at a new G.G. is that around ten players in our recent senior squads still qualify for the U21s and, even without them, the U21s have had their best qualifying campaign ever.
i've always thought that the standard of pitches at schoolboy level has hindered the technical development, that you would more associate with midfield / strikers, of our players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Olé Olé
to the credit of many clubs the standard of pitches is getting much better but on some of the pitches i played on growing up it was very difficult to play any sort of decent football given the poor surface.
reminds me of Mark Kelly... who was heralded as the next big thing. Had me awful giddy as a 10-11 year old.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
I dont really disagree but Croatia and Uruguay are the two countries similar to us that immediately come to mind where they seem to have goal-scoring excellence as part of their genetic make up!Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
ah Jaysis, I've now had to agree with PineappleStu! Adding Max O'Leary to the "confident will be international class" would be highly optimistic :)
(Actually I know nothing about him really)
See you're spotting the trend now Stutts - all our players are great. Go us!
Never seen O'Leary play, but he's 25 and has had a couple of seasons as a backup Championship keeper. I'm sure he can play and he's a nice option to have, but I agree I don't think he's done anything to get effusive over.
I still prefer Sam's glass-half-full view on things to the high percentage permanent pessimism or extreme nitpicking that's more common here. Max O'Leary might be stretching it but I think there's good reason to think or realistically hope we'll see a good, exciting, talented young team emerge soon enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It's more a glass-overflowing view to be honest.
But you're entitled to your opinion of course. Just maybe keep in mind that others (not just me) are equally entitled to the opposite opinion.
Yes, it looks like improvements are coming down the line (not hard after our worst qualifying campaign in half a century). But not every forward has 45-60 international goals in them because they score one great goal, not every keeper is international standard because they get a call-up, and so on and so on.
A bit of balance is nice
I can't quite remember who said it, but somebody on TV was asked about whether they had a glass half-full or half-empty and he quoted his father as saying "it depends whether you're drinking or pouring" and I have taken that outlook ever since - right now I do feel we're at a glass half-full situation when it comes to talent coming throughQuote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
True, but the essence of debate is to put forward evidence to back up and defend our point of view. And yes, when it comes to predicting young players' prospects, there is some crystal balling going on because we don't know who will make it as stars and who will fall by the wayside. In defence of my optimistic point of view, I'm going to refer back to a similar debate we had in April of last year when I put forward a broad list of 70 young players with potential to be Championship players at least by the end of this year and then pared that down to a group of 23 that I felt was confident would become international standard - this is that second list:Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Goalkeepers
Caoimhín Kelleher; Gavin Bazunu; Max O'Leary
Defenders
Mark McGuinness; Dara O'Shea; Andrew Omobamidele; Nathan Collins; Ryan Manning;
Midfielders
Jayson Molumby; Joe Hodge; Will Smallbone; Will Ferry; Conor Coventry; Jason Knight; John Joe Patrick Finn;
Forwards
Aaron Connolly; Evan Ferguson; Mipo Odubeko; Troy Parrott; Adam Idah; Anthony Scully; Michael Obafemi;
Replace O'Leary with Travers, Add Ebosele, Bagan and Adaramola as wing-backs/fullbacks, add Cullen, Ogbene and either Kilkenny or Noß in midfield instead of Hodge, Ferry and Finn and take out one of Ferguson, Odubeko or Scully and you have a squad you could start in the qualifiers in March
The Premier League has changed out of all recognition even over the last 10-15 years, let alone from what it started as three decades ago.
To what extent is the current lack of Irish participation in the PL down to our inability to produce players of a high quality, and to what extent is it a consequence of the standard of that league having improved to the degree that we, as a football nation, have simply been left behind by it?
Obviously both factors contribute to the outcome, but I believe the latter point to be much the more dominant reason.
The PL has been flooded with a tsunami of foreign capital, often from highly questionable sources (all absolutely fine, of course, so long as it's not Russian), to the point where medium-sized clubs like Man City and Newcastle are now two of the wealthiest in world football. It's completely crazy and something, as someone who grew up enamoured with the English game, I find unseemly and extremely alienating.
How much all of this damages the fortunes of the Ireland team is open to interpretation, but Roddy Collins suggests in the article linked below that it doesn't matter all that much, that blaming a lack of PL players is an 'excuse', that the Championship is of a high enough standard in itself, and that Mick McCarthy and Kevin Moran, for two, would not be up to playing in England's top tier today.
https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274
Excellent analysis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trequartista20
I think the answer is a little from column A and a little from column B. But I'd lean more towards a drop off in standard of players we have produced after the 1992 group as being the main reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trequartista20
The league is more international than it has ever been, so I don't think we'll ever get back to the days of 30+ Irish players a season, which was a common enough occurrence until about 10 years ago. But all the same we are going through an incredibly weak period right now due to having produced so few good quality players born between 1993 and 1997. That's five years worth of players that would be aged 24 to 29 now, so it should include a good chunk of our senior squad.
Here's every Irish player I can find born in 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97 that has played in the EPL (apologies if I've missed anyone):
Callum Robinson 1995 48 apps
Will Keane 1993 7 apps
Anthony Forde 1993 6 apps
Reece Grego-Cox 1996 4 apps
Kevin Toner 1996 4 apps
Samir Carruthers 1993 3 apps
Josh Cullen 1996 3 apps
Jimmy Dunne 1997 3 apps
...and that's it.
Eight players, only one has even made double digit appearances and, if we're being honest, he's only there because he didn't make the grade with England. None of the eight are currently with Premier League clubs and realistically five of them will never play another game in the league.
Even worse, only three of those players came through the Irish system, none are from Dublin (where realistically we rely heavily on players from to fill our team) and none of the Irish developed three have won even a single senior cap.
That ultimately is our problem right there - a lost generation or half generation of players that is hurting our senior team right now. It's not those lads fault but something went badly wrong with those groups, whether it was just bad luck or something else I don't know.
The positive view is that the group of players born 1998 to 2002 already have twice the EPL appearances as the 93-97 group, despite being about five years younger than them on average. So clearly our players can still have an impact on the league. Many of that group are Irish born/developed also. But the failure to produce almost any high quality domestic players from Ireland over that five year period is going to impact us for a few years yet.
I think the issue was that as the PL and English system as a whole, got stronger and more competitive for players to get a look in our over reliance on that system to produce players left us with the gap we see.
We were still producing the same amount of talent on this island but we were allowing them to follow the same pathway as previous generations. They'd go to the same clubs but those clubs now had the pick of players all around the world so that pathway involved a lot more risk of attrition. So our lads went over and for the most part never made the grade. That's pretty damaging to a kid. I'd love to see a list of the talent who should be 26-29 now that shows where they went and what happened to them. It could tell a completely different story.
The generation we are seeing come through now might have been a bit savvier about which clubs they picked and more prepared for the setbacks?
It's also funny that centre backs seem to keep coming through. It's a position on the field unlike most others in that height or general physical superiority goes a long, long way. We might just be seeing centre halves come through because the ones that are were just physically better than their competition on the way up through the ranks. Collins is the prime example. I'm not saying he's just a physical specimen as he can play ball too - but it would have given him an advantage.
https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274
Yeah good piece and spot on about Moran and McCarthy but equally so wrong about Ronnie Whelan. Did this guy ever see him play at his pomp. He'd walk into the current Liverpool midfield ahead of Henderson or Keita. It's a pity that injuries had already taken their toll by the time we started qualifying for tournaments, but at his best, he was the complete midfield player.
True dat = = Quality midfielder in his day.Quote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
Great article about Whelan's importance to Liverpool hereQuote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/0...l-star-of-all/