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Gary Waddock (61) has left his post as Asst Manager to Cambridge Utd boss Mark Bonner, after three years (Cambridge Utd website, today). Waddock's playing career included 531 senior club appearances and 21 Ireland caps; he was born in northwest London, but on St Patrick's Day, so I assume his allegiance was never in question.
Danny Grant let go by Huddersfield Town after spending the season on loan at Harrogate (I think)
Sean O'Brien (21, CF/Attacking Midfield) seems to be England/Ireland eligible. Once of Millwall, he was signed in Sept 2022 by Forest Green Rovers, but played only a total of 230 mins in League 1/EFL Trophy games for them, plus 96 mins while on loan in the National League North. Following FGR's relegation, O'Brien has been released.
Oh that's interesting; I'd wondered about that.
If you aggregate them, our representation in the top two divisions has dropped significantly over time, and it's only in the last three years that there's any sort of shoots in the second tier. So probably fair to say we've fewer professional players to pick from than ever before (excluding the LoI, one of the points of which of course is to give our players a professional outlet)?
I think what those charts show very well is that the first part of our recovery is complete, with Championship players and goals back to the level they were consistently at from 2009 to 2019. This is good news.
The next step is to start to see a recovery in numbers in the Premier League, where I think we have now reached the absolute baseline before things start to pick up again. A few stats that I think are correct from the season just passed:
- Lowest number of EPL players/appearances ever
- Lowest number of EPL goals/goalscorers ever
- zero established EPL players under 30
- The first time ever a full round of games took place without a single Irish starter (a few caveats to that one as Coleman and Ferguson were both out injured, Bazunu had just been dropped having played most games to that point and Collins did come on as a sub in that round of games).
I think we'll start to see a gradual upturn in terms of the Premier League numbers from next season. Ferguson, Cullen and Egan should all be regulars, possibly Collins too. Doherty may well come back to the league at a mid to lower ranked team and be a regular starter there, Coleman will likely be a squad player at Everton and hopefully there will be a few more as well, there are a good few other possibles at this point. I don't think we'll ever see the numbers we saw 20 or 30 years ago, because the nature of the league has changed and a lot of Irish players that would have been solid bottom half of the table pros 15 or 20 years ago are Championship players now because of the extra money in the Premier League for international signings. But within a few years I think we'll be back to having 10 to 12 players appearances in the league most weeks, which is probably as much as we can expect for a country our size.
Article in the Yorkshire Post, with an Irish emphasis, especially on graduates Seán McLoughlin and Conor McCarthy:
Why Hull City's Sean McLoughlin and Barnsley FC's Conor McCarthy have a lot more in common than their birthplace of Cork | Yorkshire Post
Ease back into work after the long weekend with episode 56 of the podcast. We're discussing the squad announced by Stephen Kenny to face Greece and Gibralatar, and reviewing the U17 campaign at the European Championships in Hungary
acast: https://shows.acast.com/irish-footba...w-a-bad-result
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcas...=1000615708937
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR...AAAAHQAAAAAQCg
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1cm...ca2c1f82224fc9
If we add in the 463 minutes clocked up by Ebosele and Abankwah as "Premier-League Equivalent", does that bring us over the 10,000? Also, it would give us 15 players making appearances in Big Five Leagues, which would at least match 2018/19 (Conor Noss's Bundesliga appearances in 2021/22 would bring that season to 16)Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Unfortunately no, it'd be around 9700 minutes. If you include Doherty in La Liga, it's 16 players in the big five leagues.Quote:
Originally Posted by samhaydenjr
I'm joined by Mark Kennedy of Hawkeye Sidekick and Philip Flanagan of The Bottomless Pit of Football to discuss the highs and lows for Irish players during the 2022/23 season. In the past 12 months, we've seen record lows for players numbers in the Premier League, players emerged across European leagues, and one player was the highest highlight
acast
iTunes
Google Podcasts
Spotify
(note this episode was recorded before the two qualifiers against Greece and Gibraltar)
Myself, Mark Kennedy of Hawkeye Sidekick, and Philip Flanagan of The Bottomless Pit of Football are joined by James Carew of pogmogoal to discuss the loss in Greece and victory against Gibraltar. After the discussion in our previous episode on what a draw would mean for our qualification hopes, not to mind Stephen Kenny's time in charge of the national side, what does the result in Athens mean for the manager, and did the response against Gibraltar change anything?
We discuss the final 23 players, as well as those who missed out, after Vera Pauw had to make the most difficult decisions of her career when selecting the squad for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup - the countdown to Australia is almost complete!
And what statement is going to come back and haunt our guest??
acast
iTunes
Google Podcasts
Spotify
I'm not on Twitter but have been unable to view shared tweets via other platforms for days now, which was always fine before. Maybe that's part of this sorry mess also. Meta are launching Threads I hear which looks a lot like Twitter & does the things Twitter used to, going to be interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
A shame to see it go Tets. Was the best page on Twitter and especially liked the updates post international windows with players stats for the games played.
Kenny's Kids is alright but that Tracker Page has went to the dogs since Tim stopped doing it.
not being able to see embedded tweets is part of the recent changes. Elon says it's a "temporary" measure, but we'll see.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke
The launch of Threads is being held back in the EU due to privacy concerns: https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...sonal-data-use
Thanks, I really appreciate that. I'll still posts the stats on twitter, but everything else is done.Quote:
Originally Posted by JR89
RepTracker was sold to the guys who run BlogIrish a while ago, the guy who created it has nothing to do with it anymore
Seems to run about 15 twitter accounts, each one just reposting the other and "looking for followers please" repeatedly. Sad what's become of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
We have enough for a Fantasy Premier League team again. I think we had enough at the start of the season last year but it dropped off as the season progressed.
https://i.ibb.co/kG2n5ht/Image-004.png
Some more additions may get added as the season progresses:
Azaz
Greenwood
Furlong
Moran
Adaramola
Phillips
Cannon
Parrott
Fraser
and some may get removed
Arter
Hendrick
Rea etc