If we take it that this is the end of Connor Ronan's Premier League career, and I'd say it probably is, he must have had one of the shortest of any Irish player. I think he came on in the 90th minute in the one game he played and got that minute plus whatever injury time was added on, and that was it for him.
Conor Coventry came on in the 92nd or 93rd minute for his one PL appearance so will have to get himself one more game at least to better Ronan.
Always think US moves are a bit ****. It’s out of sight, out of mind. I feel it’s far easier to transition from the championship or from a decent European league to a higher level than it is from the US.
Like for example, if Cullen had signed for Atlanta instead of Anderlecht - he’d probably still be there now.
We never seem to call up players playing stateside - Derrick Williams was in and out of the squad when Kenny arrived and then he went to LA and was done.
US clubs are often pretty adversarial when it comes to international duty - which doesn’t help
Yes, was looking it up there. Jayson Molumby came on in the 96th minute for his only Premier League appearance, so he currently must have the shortest Premier League career of any Irish player. I wonder if he even touched the ball. Although in Molumby's case, and to a lesser extent Coventry's, I'd have some hope that they'll add to their total down the line. This is it for Ronan I think and I don't know if he'll ever win an Ireland cap now either.
Well that's just down to **** management if they feel being based that far away from England is too far to track a player. Not like he's down in the Amazon rainforest playing. Executive VP and General Manger at Colorado Rapids is Irish and even worked for the FAI at one stage so should be easy to get onto him for anything they'd need to evaluate Ronan if he's performing well.
Williams was an average CB or LB when needed that played with Blackburn. Might have something to do with having better CBs to choose from that he wasn't selected to make up numbers anymore or feature in squads for friendlies.
I'd say US clubs are no more adversarial to international duty than UK clubs.
Hey, he paid his fees and the LoI club benefitted. That's all that matters!
(Unless he was an occasional banger actually, which he may have been. It's a while ago now...)
You've got to factor in the travel distance as well, Colorado is seven time zones away and I'm not aware that there are any direct flights from Denver to Dublin. With the seemingly ever narrowing international windows leaving little time for long haul travel it's always going to be easier to call up a player from the Championship or even League 1 if it comes to it rather than someone from the MLS, unless they're playing so well that it's just impossible to ignore them.
It's okay to say that Kenny made an error you know? As Diggs pointed out, Kenny brought Ronan into it.
Hodge being far younger and getting some game time in the premier league along with the danger of England coming in to have a word was the choice to make. One of Kenny's many poor decisions.
Australia realistically have no choice though. They do it because they have to. We do have a choice, we can choose the lad who's an hour away on Ryanair. Obviously it can be done, but once you factor in the travel time and the jet lag recovery etc it's going to need to be a fairly special player that gets called in from the MLS, especially from one of the Mountain and Pacific time zone teams (e.g. Robbie Keane back in the day).
Kevin Doyle too of course - but an established international again.
I think if Ronan doesn't get called up if he moves to the MLS though, it's mostly because he's not good enough unfortunately
If Ronan is playing regularly and well, I wouldn't have any real qualms about giving him an opportunity. We are, after all, crying out for some midfield creativity.
Lots of European teams regularly pick MLS-based players, so I don't see distance being any great issue.
Indeed, wasn't Kevin Doyle called up a number of times during the 18 months he was at Colorado? In a typical display of FAI incompetence, I think his final Ireland call-up came after he'd already announced his retirement as a player due to a head injury! Caleb Folan was called up while at Colorado as well.
As far as the standard of the league goes, it's obviously variable in terms of quality of player, but there are some very good players playing MLS. And if the likes of Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Wales, Hungary etc are happy to regularly draft US-based players into their squads, I don't know why we'd consider ourselves above such a consideration, especially given our current lowly status under Kenny.
I believe I'm right in saying that after the Big Five European Leagues, MLS was the league with the most representation at the recent World Cup.
I know and I have done so. Plenty of times. As I said, i just happen to think this one was borderline. Neither player, at the time, could have been said to be so far ahead of the other that Kenny made the wrong *choice* between the two players (even though it wasn't actually an "either Hodge or Ronan" decision). At the time, if i recall correctly, i called out the fact that Hodge was in competition with one set of players; Ronan in competition with a different set of players. Its just not a great example of Kenny making a mistake. There's plenty of other examples out there though.
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