Irish Abroad 2014/2015

**tetsujin1979** · 08/04/2015, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

Man City's Tom Holland is on trial at Sunderland, and played for their u18's today against Liverpool: http://www.safc.com/news/reserves-an...n-by-liverpool

on trial at Swansea now. Played for their U21s against Leeds recently: http://www.comeonyouswans.com/news/s...olland_2015_03

**Bungle** · 09/04/2015, 10:29 PM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...gue-clubs.html

Good to see. He's obviously got a lot of talent.

**tetsujin1979** · 09/04/2015, 10:42 PM

As with all Daily Mail articles, its validity is directly proportional to the amount of text in it, without pictures and leading bullet points.

**Ol� Ol�** · 10/04/2015, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

As with all Daily Mail articles, its validity is directly proportional to the amount of text in it, without pictures and leading bullet points.

Informative, though, in that I wasn't aware he was captaining their under-21 team frequently at that age and his contract is up in the summer.

**liamoo11** · 17/04/2015, 9:34 PM

Originally Posted by Ol� Ol�

Informative, though, in that I wasn't aware he was captaining their under-21 team frequently at that age and his contract is up in the summer.

kelleher the 17s keeper signed for liverpool his brother is he celtic centre half in the 19s i think

**tetsujin1979** · 18/04/2015, 11:56 AM

Corey Whelan made his U21 debut for Liverpool during the week. He lined out with Alex O'Hanlon and Daniel Cleary, against Spurs, with Kenny McEvoy in their side. Liverpool won 3-1.
Liverpool review: http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/late...-in-spurs-rout
Spurs review: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news...report-170415/

**samhaydenjr** · 19/04/2015, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

Corey Whelan made his U21 debut for Liverpool during the week. He lined out with Alex O'Hanlon and Daniel Cleary, against Spurs, with Kenny McEvoy in their side. Liverpool won 3-1.
Liverpool review: http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/late...-in-spurs-rout
Spurs review: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news...report-170415/

That's really positive news, particularly with him only being 17. With three players in the Liverpool U-21 team and highly-rated Conor Masterson in the U-18s, along with a number of other well-regarded players in their late teens and early twenties and either breaking into their respective teams or on the verge of doing so (Grealish, Grego-Cox, Byrne, other Byrne, Browne, Williams, Hoban, Baba, Poame, Lawlor, McEvoy, Kavanagh, Duffy, Murray, Lenihan with a bunch of others we haven't even talked about) is there reason to start getting a little excited about the next few years? Will a good number of this group make it and strengthen the National Team significantly or is it still too early to speculate?

**CraftyToePoke** · 19/04/2015, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by samhaydenjr

That's really positive news, particularly with him only being 17. With three players in the Liverpool U-21 team and highly-rated Conor Masterson in the U-18s, along with a number of other well-regarded players in their late teens and early twenties and either breaking into their respective teams or on the verge of doing so (Grealish, Grego-Cox, Byrne, other Byrne, Browne, Williams, Hoban, Baba, Poame, Lawlor, McEvoy, Kavanagh, Duffy, Murray, Lenihan with a bunch of others we haven't even talked about) is there reason to start getting a little excited about the next few years? Will a good number of this group make it and strengthen the National Team significantly or is it still too early to speculate?

Its lovely to see but too early to raise hopes on most of those lads just yet. The list glows with potential, you are correct, but there is still a journey to say 6/8 of these being established first team regulars in top tier clubs, or tier two at that, a journey so many potential stars don't complete.

**samhaydenjr** · 19/04/2015, 3:24 AM

Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

Its lovely to see but too early to raise hopes on most of those lads just yet. The list glows with potential, you are correct, but there is still a journey to say 6/8 of these being established first team regulars in top tier clubs, or tier two at that, a journey so many potential stars don't complete.

I know what you're saying and of course you have good reason to be cautious - most players who go through academies don't go on to become big stars - there just aren't enough places to accommodate those coming through - so for every potential Robbie Brady there's a potential Richie Partridge or Sean Thornton or Conor Clifford. And 18 months ago the list of players I mentioned would definitely have fallen under the "too early too say" category when trying to judge their potential to have significant top two division careers. But over the past year or so the following players have really got their careers going: Jack Grealish had an excellent few months at Notts County, then started getting regular Premier League substitute appearances before getting a couple of starts recently; Reece Grego-Cox has come off the bench for some (admittedly short) premier League action for QPR; Alan Browne immediately broke into the Preston team and may be playing Championship football next season; Derrick Williams is now firmly established at the League One Champions and will go into next year's Championship with two seasons' experience under his belt; Tommie Hoban has cemented his place at The Championship table-toppers and may be playing Premier League football next season; Sean Kavanagh is a regular in the second tier, as is Shane Duffy and, to a certain extent, Sean Murray. So quite a few are already delivering on their potential to a fair degree, at least, while the others I mentioned are still making decent progress through their respective academies. And of course there are dozens of other Irish youngsters at academies in England and probably a clutch of young League of Ireland players who could turn out to be good enough to play at or near the highest level over the next few years. So while it's true that we shouldn't get over-excited about Irish youngsters getting places in big English clubs' youth systems, I think there's beginning to be definite cause for optimism for the future of the National Team.

**CraftyToePoke** · 19/04/2015, 4:21 AM

My comment was aimed more at Byrne, Byrne, Lawlor, Baba, Poame, McEvoy & Leinihan and their equals you see. But if this current qualifying campaign were to implode in the next game or two, then several of those others you mentioned should be given the experience to be gained in the remaining fixtures, certainly.

**paul_oshea** · 19/04/2015, 10:22 AM

interesting read at 17 making is u21 debut
http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2015/...-reds-under-2/

**liamoo11** · 19/04/2015, 2:04 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

interesting read at 17 making is u21 debut
http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2015/...-reds-under-2/

I wonder if he is still on board for us as he has not played since the 17s qualifiers last season with no 18s or 19s appearances this year despite playing for the pool in the euro under 19 league. Maybe he just victim of Paul doolin like cleary o hanlon and jack Byrne this year

**liamoo11** · 19/04/2015, 2:07 PM

Originally Posted by samhaydenjr

That's really positive news, particularly with him only being 17. With three players in the Liverpool U-21 team and highly-rated Conor Masterson in the U-18s, along with a number of other well-regarded players in their late teens and early twenties and either breaking into their respective teams or on the verge of doing so (Grealish, Grego-Cox, Byrne, other Byrne, Browne, Williams, Hoban, Baba, Poame, Lawlor, McEvoy, Kavanagh, Duffy, Murray, Lenihan with a bunch of others we haven't even talked about) is there reason to start getting a little excited about the next few years? Will a good number of this group make it and strengthen the National Team significantly or is it still too early to speculate?

Is poame at Sunderland. Has he made big impact this year? Sam Byrne has had poor year at Everton maybe due to injury hope he got more than one year deal last summer

**samhaydenjr** · 21/04/2015, 2:34 AM

Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

My comment was aimed more at Byrne, Byrne, Lawlor, Baba, Poame, McEvoy & Leinihan and their equals you see. But if this current qualifying campaign were to implode in the next game or two, then several of those others you mentioned should be given the experience to be gained in the remaining fixtures, certainly.

Sure, I understand. But even with these players, there's every chance a few of them will succeed - Jack Byrne has had a very good season at Man City, Noe Baba was highly sought after before joining Fulham, as was Conor Masterson before Liverpool offered him a seven-figure deal at the age of 13. Alex O'Hanlon's career is progressing nicely as is Daniel Cleary's. Kenneth McEvoy made a good start at Peterborough before injury affected his loan, Ian Lawlor has already been called up to the senior international squad (yes, yes, I know - Terry Dixon and Conor Clifford - but still...) - so a lot of potential for the next couple of qualifying campaigns.

**Charlie Darwin** · 21/04/2015, 2:45 AM

I think we'll be lucky if one of them makes it as a long-term international. We have very promising crops all the time but making it to the next level is always the hardest part. The evidence of the past decade or so is that the players who make it are the less heralded.