During a situation where half their squad were ruled out due to covid or covid breaches as far as I remember (was it after the ill fated trip to Dubai?)Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Those Bolton games are an anomaly. The club was in freefall and he was playing because they couldn't afford senior pros, not because he was a Championship ready player. Shane O'Connor played a decent clutch of games in the Championship too for Ipswich and spent the bulk of his career in the second tier in Ireland. There is, of course, plenty of rubbish floating around the English lower leagues but it's generally a better clash of rubbish than it's lower league Scottish variant. It's arguable how much worse it is than the rest of the SPL to be honest yet there's no sign that Hibs or Dundee United or Motherwell or even Dundee had a sniff of interest in him. Ditto for the Scottish Championship. Connell shouldn't be written off yet, absolutely, but it's a massive concern that he went back to Queens Park for a second season (albeit a division higher) and that he's not at least plying his trade in the Scottish second tier. I still think next season is going to be hugely important to him.
A good friend of mine is a Bolton Wanderers fanatic and is on all the message boards etc. He - and the majority of fans - were gutted to see Connell depart when he did and were raving about his appearances and his potential. Say what you like about Bolton the club being in freefall at the time - they were - but they still had a full squad of championship-level players that he was competing against for a place (Oztumer, Williams, O'Neil, Wilson). He grabbed his spot and did really well. To the extent that a) Irish fans were desperate for him to be called up and b) McCarthy saw enough to call him up. He was by no means the finished article moving north but I think Celtic have done his potential a massive disservice - as they have done to plenty others.
Yes, the Oko-flex Celtic appearances were when they were down 13 or 14 players after the Dubai debacle. Even then he was only getting on as a sub.
I have to say I've pretty much given up on Connell. Three years wasted now at Celtic and Queen's Park at a crucial stage of his development. A long road back from there for him.
You need to objectively look at all the youth getting a chance at Celtic and not be focused on this narrow cohort of Irish players in O'Connor, Connell and Afolabi. We'll know in the fullness of time but they don't appear to thus far. Okoflex was much closer to getting first team exposure but this incident plus his attitude held him back. The Irish prospects to watch at Celtic are Bosun Lawal and Rocco Vata.
Interesting that you’ve isolated the last 7 words of my post which is really a minor sidenote to the main thrust of my post - that Connell went to Scotland a hot prospect with Championship experience, an international call up and a large amount of credit in the bank. Bottom line, Celtic was a really bad move for him and he arguably wasn’t given the chance that his appearances with Bolton had seemingly merited.
In any event, despite the throwaway nature of my parting comment, I’m not sure what your counterpoint actually is. Don’t look at Celtic in relation to those three players that didn’t make it, look at this other guy who also didn’t make it and these two who might make it but haven’t? “they don’t appear to”… what?
I don’t really buy it. If we take, currently eligible for u21 football as our cutoff for a young player, from their current first team squad, we have:
Murray - 2 appearances
Welsh - 22 appearances
O’Riley - 11 appearances (bought in Jan 22)
Dembele - 1 appearance
Abada - 46 appearances (bought in July 21)
Dawson - 1 appearance
Moffat - 3 appearances
Doak - 2 appearances
(Appearances this season)
So if you remove the 2 ready made first teamers who never spent time in the academy, you’re basically just left with Welsh - who has been given any significant game time and he’s played 9 of 30 league games this season and the rest were in other competitions, so it’s not like he’s been able to fully establish himself.
I don’t really think that’s an abundance of young players coming through or anything like that. I’d suspect if you compared that to premier league sides, Celtic would be well below average
Previous season was pretty much the same
Welsh 21
Montgomery 2
Ralston 1
Dembele 5
Okoflex 2
Henderson 3
Harper 1
Frimpong 30 (ready made first teamer)
Frimpong wasn't ready made first tester. He was bought from man city same day as o connor and o connor and had only been in youth and 23s football like oconnor
he wasnt given a chance because one can safely assume he wasnt good enough. people are going way over the top with those handful of appearances he made for a penniless bolton.
Why limit it by age when you'd evaluate the success of an academy over a long period of time? In terms of academy products playing regularly you've got Forrest, McGregor, Ralston (who just broke in at 22/23) and Johnston. Kris Ajer was bought by Brentford in the summer and Leeds signed Leo Hjelde at 17 as he was about to break through. Kieran Tierney is another recent high profile graduate. Dembele would have probably featured more but he has been injured all season.
This summer Celtic signed Osaze Urhoghide, 21 years old last July, had made 16 Champ appearances for Sheff Wed last season and Liam Shaw, 21 years old, 19 Champ appearances last season for Sheff Wed. They could both be described as hot prospects and you can find instances of Sheff Wed fans raving about them on the internet if you look around. Ostensibly they look like steals, young players holding down a Championship level first team place and it is afterall a better league than the Scottish Premiership. Urhoghide has zero technique and poor positioning, he's just a bit strong fast athlete and he's now been loaned out to Belgium. Shaw looks slightly better but also looks nowhere near good enough to make an impact and he's been loaned out to Motherwell. It looks like bad scouting and bad signings. This seems to be the case with Afolabi, O'Connor and Connell. Shortly after arriving it's clear they're not actually good enough to make an impact. Sometimes you have a late bloomer like Anthony Ralston and Liam Miller but more often than not the path they're on leads to not much more than L1/L2 in England.
He was probably played because Bolton would have had to pay appearance fees to other players.
Why are Celtic sabotaging young players ? ? Of course that makes no sense what so ever = = Occam's Razor would explain this as follows = = The simplest solution is that the players are Not good enough.
They don't appear "to have what it takes", apologies for the incomplete sentence.
JD2793 probably summarised the thrust of my point better than myself "he wasnt given a chance because one can safely assume he wasnt good enough. people are going way over the top with those handful of appearances he made for a penniless bolton". If you take a single cohort at an underage club team or underage international team, most in that team don't make it at that club level or most don't go on to become a regular in the international team. Just because Connell made 10 appearances for a Bolton in disarray and their fans thought he did well under the circumstances it doesn't mean he has to make it. If he has the requisite ability to play regularly at English Championship level then he will surface there. Elatedscum above described Jeremie Frimpong as a "ready made first teamer". He had in fact been signed at 18 years old without having made a single first team appearance in his career but had no problem going into the first team because he was quality and now he's flourishing at Bayer Leverkusen. He joined Celtic the same season as Luca Connell.
Agreed. Nobody has a right to make it and players at every level will usually be required to “re-prove” themselves to some extent. This definitely applies to Connell going to Celtic. I did say they seemingly did his potential a disservice, and those qualifications were intentional. He was very high potential and someone I think we’d have all thought - at the time of the move - would have got more chances with the first team.
My original post was to offer some balance to the posts that were trying to rewrite his time at Bolton that he wasn’t really that good and that he caught a lucky break v having the ability. It’s not true. The evidence is there if you look back at Bolton fans, Irish fans, his 12 Championship appearances in half a season and the fact that he was earning positive (sometimes rave) reviews for them - not to mention the Irish senior call up. None of that should be disputed in trying to explain away his failure to make it - so far - at Celtic.
I think Celtic was a bad move to a badly set up football structure for a youngster with potential. There will always be a handful of exceptions to such a generalized statement. All that said, I’m happy to withdraw the last 7 words of my original post and let the remainder of it stand on its own merits.
He played in 10 league games (the other 2 were FA Cup), Bolton drew the first and lost the other 9. The whole team scored 3 goals in those 10 league games. The team won 3 league games in that same time frame and he played 0 minutes in these games. He did okay in that time but the farcical nature of the club has to be taken into account in weighing up those games. The Bolton fans can be forgiven for clutching at any faint cause for optimism given the mess they were in.
He's still young and, as I've said above, I wouldn't rush to write him off but he has a LOT to do and playing in the Scottish third tier isn't encouraging.
On an aside what players have played for Ireland after spells in 3rd/4th tier in Scotland? Tommy Coyne or Bernie Slaven maybe?
Even if that is true, and i think it is a massive and unfair assumption that Bolton fans couldnt reasonably evaluate a player in those circumstances, what excuse do you want to put forward for McCarthy's evaluation of him and the loud calls from irish fans and fan media that he was worthy of a call up on the back of those 12 appearances?
https://www.otbsports.com/soccer/can...connell-862507
Curtis Fleming was full of praise when Kilbane was interviewing him after his call into the Ireland training camp. Fleming would have seen him up close when they played Bolton.
McCarthy wanted a look at him because he was playing, briefly, in the Championship. Irish fans and media are always ready to believe that any footballer with a whisper of potential and Irish eligibility is a hero ready to blossom. And whatever McCarthy, you and I and the boys on Bolton.web's forum thought at the time everything since then suggests maybe he wasn't terrific after all. As far as making excuses go it reads to me as you making excuses for the last three or so seasons of his club career on the grounds that he played for Bolton 10 times and got 1 point in the league when he was 17. You've plenty of questions here Stu. Any chance of a few answers?
1) Do you think it reflects even a little on Connell that his Championship stint went 0-1-9? Especially given how much better they performed without him in the team in the same time frame? Or do you have an excuse to put on the table for this one? The other players? The circus of a club? He was part of all that surely?
2) If he was as nailed on a prospect as you seem to suggest why did he sign for Celtic? Rather than another Championship club? Or even a Premier League club? In your opinion, obviously we're all speculating here?
3) If he was thriving in the English Championship why couldn't he get anywhere near the Celtic squad for a competitive game of any description?
4) Why didn't McCarthy cap him? Again, in your opinion, my guess is that it's because he wasn't good enough. And, to be fair to him, why should he have been at that age and point in his career?
5) Why has no team in the Scottish second tier, let alone the SPL, touched him on loan? Ditto for the English 3rd of 4th tier.
He played less games in the Championship than Shane O'Connor did with Ipswich. He's potentially as likely going to have a career of that standard as ever play in a league as competitive as the English second tier again. I hope I'm completely wrong but I don't think that my believing he's at an absolutely critical juncture in his career is an outrageous take.
I'm not sure that Bolton's results in the games that Connell played in are hardly relevant, especially as one of your arguments thus far has been the club were in effective free fall when he got his opportunity. The fact that he impressed fans and others whilst his team were struggling is to his credit. He's also played well when picked for the Under 21's, and is seemingly impressing albeit at a very low level at Queens Park. The fact is we don't know how he would perform if given a first team opportunity, because he hasn't been given one, except in a pre-season game where again he seems to have impressed fans. It's perfectly possible that he's not as good as his early promise implied, but it's equally possible that his development has been stunted by the way he's been treated at Celtic. There are very few nailed-on prospects but it sounds a bit like revisionism to suggest that Connell's promise was all hype and wishful thinking.
Not really, from January 2019 (when Connell made his debut) to the end of the season, Bolton went 3-1-17 in the league. So 0-1-9 with him, and 3-0-8 without him. Not that much better.
He was injured and had to pull out off the squad he was called into
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2019...20-qualifiers/
Last edited by tetsujin1979; 12/03/2022 at 11:59 PM.
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