Reportedly heading to League 2 Tranmere Rovers on loan this season.
Better than the Scottish Championship anyway.
he is the best irish youngster. he should play for a grass footie team. luton bournemouth. etc
Hes too good for that tbh. His agent is awful. I really hope he has a proper agent and not his dad/brother or uncle
He is an Irish international and also a very good player. He should be loaned out to west brom( no I'm not drunk) they have a shortage of full backs and he could play every cup game and who knows. If he wants football everyweek which is probably smarter as I write....the championship must have a club that need a young player like him
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/plgt...a/berater/5488
Seems he has the same agency looking after him as molumby TAA and Parrott. That said he probably has one of the junior agents
Or someone busy with a big player looking after him. Either way he could do with a change
I wonder if it is for half a season or a full season. Half a season would make some sense because he could move up a rung or two for the second half, assuming he shows his worth.
Year long loan apparently.
It's not ideal, League 1 would have been better, but I feared he'd end up in the Scottish Championship again. He's not a known name in Scotland at all, so difficult to get an SPL team to take a punt on him as they know nothing about him.
Tranmere should be strong in League 2 and be pushing for promotion. If he's playing regularly in a winning attacking team and continuing with the Ireland under 21s at the same time it might work out OK for him.
Okay. It's actually not that bad. He only turned 20 a couple of weeks ago. A good season at League Two level under the belt of a 21 year old wouldn't be the end of the world, especially for someone with his talent. Danny McNamara, for example, is 22 in December so he was older than O'Connor is now when he started his loan at Newport County. Given how good O'Connor has been for Ireland I think we are just all expecting him to be at a higher grade.
Given the talk here about him being loaned to a lower Scottish side I think we have to be pleased enough with this, especially with the worries about potentially rotting with Celtic reserves/underage teams. It’s all about getting matches and if he does well with Rovers maybe he’ll be in a better position to compete for a first team spot with Celtic next season.
If he was good enough for the championship or league 1, at the moment, he would have gone there. Meaningless Irish friendly aside and good U21 performances (It is still underage level) he's obviously not at the level that some on here think he is. Blaming his agent? Come on! Wasn't he on the bench for Patrick last year?!
As said above it is good he will get senior experience at league 2 - assuming he will get his place in the side that is. Still young so no need to panic yet but lets be realistic at where's he at.
Tranmere were very unlucky to be relegated from league 1 - it was done on a points per game basis. I think they missed out by 0.04 points or something. They had won 3 in a row before the league was suspended.
You'd think they'll be challenging for promotion.
Perhaps worth noting Enda Stevens dropped down to league 2 with Portsmouth (admittedly a bigger club) and rose to the top.
So did Hourihane of our present squad and he might have been a bit older when he ended up there even. Its not the news we wanted re O'Connor especially as he has a cap but its a chance to show he doesn't belong down there and a chance to play first team games at least and build from there.
yeah, it was a friendly and against poor opposition but an international game no less. I thought he was the 2nd best player on the pitch behind Cullen
Tranmere looks a decent move for him. My worry for him is that he's not particularly fast, or particularly physical, or particularly big, or particularly skillful. He's a really steady allrounder and technically good, but I'd worry he doesn't have the standout single quality or two that can push a player to the next level. If the loan is a huge success it should see him either in the Celtic first team in a year or earning a move to a Championship side which would see him well placed at 22 years old. A lot of out players don't seem to really flourish until they hit 26/27.
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Source not overly credible on Tranmere link. Also, now linked to Luton via another random Twitter report. Nothing official yet. Let’s see how it plays out
And just as I post that, Tranmere officially announce Lee has signed on season long loan. Hoped for better, but still not bad, best of luck Lee! https://www.tranmererovers.co.uk/new...anmere-rovers/
Nor was Dennis Irwin or any other international right back of Ireland. Carr, Kenna, Curtis Fleming, Stephen Kelly, Morris, K.Foley etc. Oshea played right back or left back, he had long legs though.
Maybe a younger Gary Kelly...
O´Connor is an attacking right back, a very pacy player and very skillful from what i saw in Toulon, and physically very similar to Seamus Coleman.
Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with this outcome and the coming season will tell us a lot about Lee's longer term prospects.
The reality is that he has made some poor career decisions up to now - going to United, then to Celtic is probably about the worst route you could take to becoming a successful professional footballer, unless you're an absolute stand out youth player at either club you're not going to get a fair chance.
So, as a result, he has had to drop at least one division lower than he might otherwise have needed to in order to kick-start his career. But I'd rather this than see him going to another club where game time would be hard to get, at this level - unless he really disappoints or gets injured - he should get a full season of first team football under his belt.
A loan to Exeter at the same age hasn't seem to have done Dara O'Shea any harm. I'd argue that if he doesn't look a cut above most of the defenders in League 2 even at 20 then he probably wasn't going to amount to anything other than a lower league journeyman anyway.
If he has a really good year he should attract interest from the higher divisions in England and hopefully get out of the SPL as fast as possible.
https://twitter.com/TranmereRovers/s...7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Last edited by youngirish; 17/08/2020 at 6:12 PM.
He’s quick but nothing special by today’s standards. And I think he’s technically good but not exceptionally skilful. The likes of Coleman was lightning fast and tough, Irwin was a different era but was a brilliant defender with absolutely flawless set piece delivery.
I think a top class full back or wing back now has to be outstanding at either speed, skill, physicality or delivery and I’m not convinced O’Connor has enough of any of those to go beyond ‘good pro’ level. I’d absolutely love to be completely wrong, but there’s a lot of players like that scattered around lower leagues and league of Ireland. The modern game is ruthless.
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