Kelleher reportedly back training with Liverpool so should be in line for his first cap in June.
Will leave Tets to standardise the thread title (which works well actually)
Less than a month to go to one of our biggest friendlies in recent years. Against Andorra... We have to win this one, don't we? (To put in context how far we've fallen, the site eloratings.net says we're actually closer in strength to Andorra than to Belgium.)
Would very much like to see Kelleher in these games, though I see he hasn't made the Liverpool bench since January. Is he still injured?
Beyond that, I don't really care so long as we beat Andorra.
Kelleher reportedly back training with Liverpool so should be in line for his first cap in June.
sean mcdermott
jamie mcgrath
anthony scully
joe gallagher
any news on the celtic kid? for me this is the time to make him ours
its a FIFA date
FAI COULD block him from playing if the team or government block the call up, what about the mexican or canadian or jamaican players there ? we have some there, not call yet for the nat team, but Venezuela Colombia Paraguay Bolivia Ecuador and Paraguay are calling guys from the mls .,..not rejection whatsoever
if there is a time to check this cat is now
Players I'd like to see get their first caps:
Kelleher, Omobamidele, Scully, Nathan Collins
Players I think need more international experience in advance of the autumn qualifiers:
Bazunu, O'Shea, Manning, Cullen, James Collins, Connolly, Idah, Obafemi (definitely Obafemi)
Kelleher, Omobamidele, and Nathan Collins will likely form the core of our defensive set-up for the next decade. We definitely need to see those three starting if they are available.
Jon Gallagher is definitely worth calling up if the FAI are willing to pay his travel costs from America. He might never start a competitive match for us, but we're so weak on forward options that we have nothing to lose by seeing what he's made of.
I'd agree with your list and also say that there is definitely scope for SPL and League One players (additional to Scully) to be brought in given the standard of the opposition and the drop off in participation rates from Premiership and Championship these matches always see.
I would add Jamie McGrath and Olamide Shodipo in there on that basis.
Players I can see making in due to withdrawals would be:
I think Smallbone is injured but Will Ferry making it in there would be fine with me too and Lewis Richards and Conor Coventry would be in similar situations to Ferry and potentially worth a look also.
We are likely to see a couple of under 21 players in there too, lads that Kenny has worked with at that level before. Afolabi and O'Connor would be the two that spring to mind. Not sure if Conor McCarthy at St. Mirren worked with Kenny at that level but he might not be too far away either. Connor Ronan is another name.
From some of the less traditional leagues for us, I wonder if someone like Graham Carey, Jon Gallagher, Derrick Williams and Jake Mulraney will get a call. Williams is an obvious one.
I expect a few players will drop out alright, but I'd be disappointed if we needed to go digging as deep as that to fill the squad. There's a good few players mentioned - such as Gallagher, Mulraney, Carey that are not good enough at the moment and almost certainly never will be. Both Gallagher and Mulraney were very average in Scotland and Carey is a bit of a journeyman really.
The likes of Ferry, Richards and Omobamidele will be with the Under 21s I would imagine. Afolabi will make the under 21 squad at best - he's lucky there's a good few under 21 forwards in the senior squad or he wouldn't even make that squad. I'd quite like to see Obafemi called up to the seniors again, but I suspect it will be the under 21s for him also.
Kelleher, Taylor and Scully should hopefully win their first senior caps. Not sure where Nathan Collins is at in terms of fitness, might not travel with either squad as he hasn't featured for Stoke in a while. McGrath and Shodipo would be worth a look and maybe also Sykes if we're short of numbers. McNamara, Ogbene and Kioso may be others who are worth a callup if we're particularly short in their positions. It would be useful to confirm Kioso as an Irish player if he's happy to commit to us. I'd have Jimmy Dunne and Warren O'Hora in the squad before Conor McCarthy at this stage, although probably not much between them and it's a position of depth so they might not be required.
I'm a fan of Stephen Kenny even though he in my opinion has made 2 big mistakes so far (Selection of back room team and playing inexperienced players)
BUT he needs to start winning some f**king games! Therefore team selection should reflect this.
Absolutely - if they were available I'd want him to pick his best squad here. Have a full camp with the first team squad and work on his game plan for the autumn.
The issue though is that a lot of players have come through a condensed season which started late - Championship and League 1 players in particular have been playing two games a week all year. Some players were involved in the late finish to the previous season also and didn't get much of a break in between seasons. So I'm expecting player dropouts to be in double figures here and that should give the opportunity to bring some new names in.
We need to turn things around quickly, bad results and lower rankings are like snowballs and gather pace through younger players opting not to declare for you as it looks unattractive and older players retiring early as it seems pointless.
Would Rice have declared for Ireland if we were qualifying for WC and EC , probably/possibly , would McGoldrick have retired if we were flying probably not.
"one of our biggest friendlies in recent years. Against Andorra... We have to win this one, don't we?"
Well is appears Kenny has been given some sort of footballing diplomatic immunity, so I would be of the view that we could actually lose the match and a similar debate posts lux game will take place
I think we will draw the match if im honest
I can't see that. Andorra are a whole other type of awful than Luxembourg. We'll win 2-0/3-0 which won't move anybody from their current stance in the "Kenny deserves at least 25 years to get this right/Kenny deserves to be loaded into a catapult and hurled into the Irish Sea immediately" opinions.
If nothing else you have to say Kenny has been brilliant in very quickly and dramatically lowering expectations among the Irish footballing public.
When you consider what Irish football fans previously viewed as acceptable in terms of performance, much less results, under McCarthy - who played and managed in the English top-flight, as well as playing in a European Championship and World Cup for Ireland and managing in a World Cup, and O'Neill and Keane, who managed in the Premier League as well as winning European Cups and English league titles as players - the turnaround has been little short of miraculous.
Last edited by Trequartista20; 12/05/2021 at 7:47 PM.
The "Kenny In" crowd must all be right wing Republicans then.
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