I'd have other immediate priorities over Festy tbh. I'd rather have a look at Joe Hodge. Ferguson and attacking midfield is where I'd be looking to look at new players. Sykes is in a rich vein of form.
I think we should have looked at Festy last year when he was playing regular club football.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 21/02/2023 at 2:10 PM.
Stu's argument about who do u leave out is correct. Right now right back is our position where we are probably strongest all things considered... but both Coleman and Doherty are cover for other positions so I do think there is room for a 3rd right back in the squad and that's where for me Festy, Lyons and McNamara fit in.
By the end of this campaign one of them will replace Coleman as he ages.
I actually see it as a positive that there's arguments about who should be in or out of squads. We want to be in a position where good players are left out of squads and teams. Means we have depth and competition for places.
There's a big succession planning at full-back (both sides) though that's worth addressing sooner rather than later. I think it's worth using the Latvia game to consider that.
I just don't know if someone with 53 minutes all season, even if in a decent league, is one to throw in though. Agree the likes of McNamara would be higher up the pecking order at the moment.
Kenny seems to have a blind spot re; McNamara.
Kenny seems to have a thick head on him at times re; certain players.
Seems Udinese play similarly to us and Ebosele is being schooled to play that RWB position. Ideally you would want him to have more first team football, but I think we can assume Italy has improved his positional awareness - his obvious weakness. That burst of acceleration he has maybe merits overlooking his lack of football.
He is only 20, hes played plenty of 1st team football for Derby already and now he is getting increasing game time in one of the top leagues in the world. We probably should be more excited about this lad than we all seem to be.
I think we saw in November that succession planning is out the window for the next while. Kenny has bedded in his favourites from his Under 21 team now, alongside the stalwarts and one or two others that were pretty much forced on him like Josh Cullen. He doesn't seem to be interested in much further development - other than capping Ferguson of course, which may turn out to have all been for nothing.
Basically I can see us more or less going with what we have for the remainder of the Kenny era.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
I do think this is probably correct alright.
He's played 50 minutes all season; that really needs to be kept in mind. "Increasing game time", going from 6 minutes to 15 minutes as a sub appearance, is a hell of an exaggeration.
He can be a good prospect without necessarily being worth a cap in March.
Is it also not worth something that he is training with better players every week than any of our lads at Championship level? Im not saying he should be starting for us now, Im just saying we need to consider that he could be pretty exceptional to be getting all this experience at such a young age.
I think we've seen lots of players who are judged pretty exceptional here because they're young and Irish to be honest. By the same logic, Abankwah should be called up too as he's also on the bench regularly. But I don't think that's reasonable either.
So not really. I think there's better options available at the moment.
I dont recall Abankwah ever playing regularly in the Championship before moving to Serie A, so no I dont think thats the same thing
Eight months without any real competitive action isn't at all ideal tbh and I think dulls the Derby games argument too. Especially when you've someone like McNamara playing regularly for a side pushing for promotion to the Premier League.
McNamara has only played 15 more games in Championship than Ebosele, despite being 4 years older.
If we are only looking at people playing regularly at the moment then Festy would be ahead of Matt Doherty who hasnt played a game since moving to Spain! Festy is getting more minutes in 1st team currently.
I'd say a minutes played stat would tell a very different story in terms of Festy v McNamara. McNamara tends to play the full 90 week in week out, whereas many of Festy's Derby appearances were off the bench. McNamara also had a very impressive spell in Scotland.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
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