Irish Players signed by non-UK managers - A Report

**Colbert Report** · 15/01/2017, 3:11 PM

Didn't Finnan go to Levante? Babb went to Portugal too

**nigel-harps1954** · 15/01/2017, 3:19 PM

There's a long list of LOI players who have went to Australia/America and many other far away places. Eamon Zayed to Iran, Shane McFaul to Finland, Roy O'Donovan to Indonesia.

You could go on for days trying to exhaust this list.

**SkStu** · 15/01/2017, 3:20 PM

And Ian Harte.

But I think the rules are "signed by foreign manager for PL teams since 93" only.

Pointless thread.

**TheOneWhoKnocks** · 15/01/2017, 3:35 PM

I don't think it's that pointless.

We are in the middle of a transition.

We are transitioning from an Intl team that can source a squad made up predominantly of Premier League players to an Intl team that can source a squad made up of predominantly Championship players.

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on the Intl team.

Is it fair to say that?

Delaney, O'Shea and Given are close to retirement. Whelan and Walters are in their mid-thirties. Ireland, Ward and S. Long are in their thirties.

What does that leave you?

Meyler, Lenihan, Randolph, Arter, Wilson, Hendrick, K. Long, McClean, Coleman, McCarthy and Gibson.

Four of them are non factors.

That leaves Meyler, Randolph, Arter, Hendrick, McClean, McCarthy and Coleman; out of these players, Randolph (29), Arter (27), Hendrick (25) and Coleman (28) are guaranteed first team players.

It's getting to the stage where McCarthy is linked with Championship teams. Even a superb Euros showing wasn't enough to get Brady a PL move; it only got Hendrick a move to a promoted team with a budget on the lower end of the scale.

I'm coming at this glass half empty, but you can't deny that in the space of ten years the situation has changed from 3 or 4 Irish players at Top 4 teams to 0 Irish players at Top 6 teams.

I wish there was a greater spread of Irish players across the continent, but I suppose the Championship is, arguably, the 6th best league in the world so it's not all doom and gloom.

**SkStu** · 15/01/2017, 3:55 PM

But foreign managers signing or not signing Irish players is not worth talking about. That's the pointless part as it is almost completely irrelevant to the post you've just made.

If we want to talk about contingency planning, the time for that was 10-15 years ago as some of us tried to do. FWIW I think it will be fine to have a team and squad of predominantly Championship players to maintain where we are currently - occasional qualification for tournaments that is now set to be easier than ever before with the expansion of the Euros and the pending expansion of the WC.

If we want to progress beyond those ambitions then the only contingency plan that makes sense is the development and prioritisation of our domestic league. We need to control our footballing destiny. A few on here have been saying this for at least 10 years now.

Debating why foreign managers don't like signing Irish players is a false flag and not worth our energy.

(by the way I honestly wasn't having a go at you by saying it was pointless - just in general)

**tetsujin1979** · 15/01/2017, 4:22 PM

I would accept a report on all Irish transfers during the premier league era, with an appendix highlighting the transfers by non-UK managers. Seeing as TOWK will have to go through all transfers anyway, this would seem to be more acceptable to the judging panel

**Stuttgart88** · 15/01/2017, 5:12 PM

I'm reasonably optimistic about the near to medium term batch of players. I'm not fussed that we haven't got top 4 players.

If you want to look into the reasons why non-UK managers don't buy many Irish players I think it's worth looking into who their agents are, and which clubs / managers tend to use which agents.

**zero** · 15/01/2017, 7:28 PM

Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

I'm reasonably optimistic about the near to medium term batch of players. I'm not fussed that we haven't got top 4 players.

If you want to look into the reasons why non-UK managers don't buy many Irish players I think it's worth looking into who their agents are, and which clubs / managers tend to use which agents.

i'd go along with this - realistically we're going to have a smattering of PL players, a fair few from the championship and one or two others. the same is true of scotland and northern ireland. wales have a couple of more players playing top flight but are they really better than us, bale aside? scratch that, even including bale? well we are going to find out in the next few months...

should brady get a move to the premier league and if newcastle and brighton both go up and swansea go down we start to even out. then we have the likes of horgan and manning coming through aswell.

my main concern is that we are light up front. germane to the topic and not sure if mentioned, but benitez did sign murphy...

**tetsujin1979** · 15/01/2017, 10:56 PM

Given the expansion of the study, I'm open to retitling the thread

**gastric** · 16/01/2017, 2:14 AM

Could we have a report too on black haired players who have been signed by blonde haired managers and how many were signed by former English internationals? This has to be the most ridiculous thread in a long time, but if it keeps TOWK busy, so be it.

**tetsujin1979** · 16/01/2017, 8:10 AM

I don't think it's pointless, but I think TOWK is approaching it in the wrong way - trying to prove bias by non-UK managers against Irish players.
The only way to do that would be to compare the number of Irish players signed by foreign managers to players of every nationality signed by non-UK managers. Of course, then you could probably use that data to prove bias against any nationality

**DeLorean** · 16/01/2017, 8:26 AM

I think Joe in Post #15 covered that pretty well. It's completely pointless in terms of anything being proven or unproven, but maybe the full results would be of slight interest all the same. I'd be most interested in how we compare to Scottish players as that's the closest we'll get to 'like for like' I think.

**paul_oshea** · 16/01/2017, 9:35 AM

If this can lead into something bigger i am happy to do something up that can be easily maintained.

**Stuttgart88** · 16/01/2017, 9:47 AM

Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

I don't think it's pointless, but I think TOWK is approaching it in the wrong way - trying to prove bias by non-UK managers against Irish players.
The only way to do that would be to compare the number of Irish players signed by foreign managers to players of every nationality signed by non-UK managers. Of course, then you could probably use that data to prove bias against any nationality

There are only 2 nationalities: Irish and Foreign.

**tetsujin1979** · 16/01/2017, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

If this can lead into something bigger i am happy to do something up that can be easily maintained.

just add it all to a wikipedia page

**Stuttgart88** · 16/01/2017, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by zero

i'd go along with this - realistically we're going to have a smattering of PL players, a fair few from the championship and one or two others. the same is true of scotland and northern ireland. wales have a couple of more players playing top flight but are they really better than us, bale aside? scratch that, even including bale? well we are going to find out in the next few months...

should brady get a move to the premier league and if newcastle and brighton both go up and swansea go down we start to even out. then we have the likes of horgan and manning coming through aswell.

my main concern is that we are light up front. germane to the topic and not sure if mentioned, but benitez did sign murphy...

Dan McDonnell on the Class of 92

http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-35369931.html

**TheOneWhoKnocks** · 16/01/2017, 2:04 PM

Benitez did sign Murphy and Clark after Newcastle were relegated, but he wouldn't have signed them if they stayed up.

Murphy was signed at the end of the window after they failed to sign their preferred targets.

He's been signed as someone who can score goals at Championship level - the perception being that he can't do it at a higher level.

I think there's a preconceived notion of Irish players as grafters, that they can't be anything else.

Hourihane can play at a higher level than the dross he has been linked with.

Brady too.

**tetsujin1979** · 16/01/2017, 2:19 PM

Please do not waste your time examining hypotheticals, the commissioned study is not to cover players that might not have been signed if X had/had not occurred.

**SkStu** · 16/01/2017, 2:24 PM

Of course, its the taxpayer who'll end up footing the bill for this farce of a report anyway (The TWOK Report). And then there'll be a tribunal (The Tets Tribunal). And at the end of the day, nothing will change. Sad!