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Thread: Embarrassment of riches: centre half

  1. #61
    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    See you're spotting the trend now Stutts - all our players are great. Go us!

    Never seen O'Leary play, but he's 25 and has had a couple of seasons as a backup Championship keeper. I'm sure he can play and he's a nice option to have, but I agree I don't think he's done anything to get effusive over.

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    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    See you're spotting the trend now Stutts - all our players are great. Go us!
    I still prefer Sam's glass-half-full view on things to the high percentage permanent pessimism or extreme nitpicking that's more common here. Max O'Leary might be stretching it but I think there's good reason to think or realistically hope we'll see a good, exciting, talented young team emerge soon enough.

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  4. #63
    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    It's more a glass-overflowing view to be honest.

    But you're entitled to your opinion of course. Just maybe keep in mind that others (not just me) are equally entitled to the opposite opinion.

    Yes, it looks like improvements are coming down the line (not hard after our worst qualifying campaign in half a century). But not every forward has 45-60 international goals in them because they score one great goal, not every keeper is international standard because they get a call-up, and so on and so on.

    A bit of balance is nice
    Last edited by pineapple stu; 01/07/2022 at 9:24 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stuttgart88 View Post
    I still prefer Sam's glass-half-full view on things to the high percentage permanent pessimism or extreme nitpicking that's more common here. Max O'Leary might be stretching it but I think there's good reason to think or realistically hope we'll see a good, exciting, talented young team emerge soon enough.
    I can't quite remember who said it, but somebody on TV was asked about whether they had a glass half-full or half-empty and he quoted his father as saying "it depends whether you're drinking or pouring" and I have taken that outlook ever since - right now I do feel we're at a glass half-full situation when it comes to talent coming through

    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    It's more a glass-overflowing view to be honest.

    But you're entitled to your opinion of course. Just maybe keep in mind that others (not just me) are equally entitled to the opposite opinion.

    Yes, it looks like improvements are coming down the line (not hard after our worst qualifying campaign in half a century). But not every forward has 45-60 international goals in them because they score one great goal, not every keeper is international standard because they get a call-up, and so on and so on.

    A bit of balance is nice
    True, but the essence of debate is to put forward evidence to back up and defend our point of view. And yes, when it comes to predicting young players' prospects, there is some crystal balling going on because we don't know who will make it as stars and who will fall by the wayside. In defence of my optimistic point of view, I'm going to refer back to a similar debate we had in April of last year when I put forward a broad list of 70 young players with potential to be Championship players at least by the end of this year and then pared that down to a group of 23 that I felt was confident would become international standard - this is that second list:
    Goalkeepers
    Caoimhín Kelleher; Gavin Bazunu; Max O'Leary


    Defenders
    Mark McGuinness; Dara O'Shea; Andrew Omobamidele; Nathan Collins; Ryan Manning;


    Midfielders
    Jayson Molumby; Joe Hodge; Will Smallbone; Will Ferry; Conor Coventry; Jason Knight; John Joe Patrick Finn;


    Forwards
    Aaron Connolly; Evan Ferguson; Mipo Odubeko; Troy Parrott; Adam Idah; Anthony Scully; Michael Obafemi;

    Replace O'Leary with Travers, Add Ebosele, Bagan and Adaramola as wing-backs/fullbacks, add Cullen, Ogbene and either Kilkenny or Noß in midfield instead of Hodge, Ferry and Finn and take out one of Ferguson, Odubeko or Scully and you have a squad you could start in the qualifiers in March
    Last edited by samhaydenjr; 02/07/2022 at 4:03 AM.

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    The Premier League has changed out of all recognition even over the last 10-15 years, let alone from what it started as three decades ago.

    To what extent is the current lack of Irish participation in the PL down to our inability to produce players of a high quality, and to what extent is it a consequence of the standard of that league having improved to the degree that we, as a football nation, have simply been left behind by it?

    Obviously both factors contribute to the outcome, but I believe the latter point to be much the more dominant reason.

    The PL has been flooded with a tsunami of foreign capital, often from highly questionable sources (all absolutely fine, of course, so long as it's not Russian), to the point where medium-sized clubs like Man City and Newcastle are now two of the wealthiest in world football. It's completely crazy and something, as someone who grew up enamoured with the English game, I find unseemly and extremely alienating.

    How much all of this damages the fortunes of the Ireland team is open to interpretation, but Roddy Collins suggests in the article linked below that it doesn't matter all that much, that blaming a lack of PL players is an 'excuse', that the Championship is of a high enough standard in itself, and that Mick McCarthy and Kevin Moran, for two, would not be up to playing in England's top tier today.

    https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274
    Last edited by Trequartista20; 02/07/2022 at 5:03 PM.

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  8. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trequartista20 View Post
    The Premier League has changed out of all recognition even over the last 10-15 years, let alone from what it started as three decades ago.

    To what extent is the current lack of Irish participation in the PL down to our inability to produce players of a high quality, and to what extent is it a consequence of the standard of that league having improved to the degree that we, as a football nation, have simply been left behind by it?

    Obviously both factors contribute to the outcome, but I believe the latter point to be much the more dominant reason.

    The PL has been flooded with a tsunami of foreign capital, often from highly questionable sources (all absolutely fine, of course, so long as it's not Russian), to the point where medium-sized clubs like Man City and Newcastle are now two of the wealthiest in world football. It's completely crazy and something, as someone who grew up enamoured with the English game, I find unseemly and extremely alienating.

    How much all of this damages the fortunes of the Ireland team is open to interpretation, but Roddy Collins suggests in the article linked below that it doesn't matter all that much, that blaming a lack of PL players is an 'excuse', that the Championship is of a high enough standard in itself, and that Mick McCarthy and Kevin Moran, for two, would not be up to playing in England's top tier today.

    https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274
    Excellent analysis.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trequartista20 View Post

    To what extent is the current lack of Irish participation in the PL down to our inability to produce players of a high quality, and to what extent is it a consequence of the standard of that league having improved to the degree that we, as a football nation, have simply been left behind by it?

    Obviously both factors contribute to the outcome, but I believe the latter point to be much the more dominant reason.
    I think the answer is a little from column A and a little from column B. But I'd lean more towards a drop off in standard of players we have produced after the 1992 group as being the main reason.

    The league is more international than it has ever been, so I don't think we'll ever get back to the days of 30+ Irish players a season, which was a common enough occurrence until about 10 years ago. But all the same we are going through an incredibly weak period right now due to having produced so few good quality players born between 1993 and 1997. That's five years worth of players that would be aged 24 to 29 now, so it should include a good chunk of our senior squad.

    Here's every Irish player I can find born in 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97 that has played in the EPL (apologies if I've missed anyone):

    Callum Robinson 1995 48 apps
    Will Keane 1993 7 apps
    Anthony Forde 1993 6 apps
    Reece Grego-Cox 1996 4 apps
    Kevin Toner 1996 4 apps
    Samir Carruthers 1993 3 apps
    Josh Cullen 1996 3 apps
    Jimmy Dunne 1997 3 apps

    ...and that's it.

    Eight players, only one has even made double digit appearances and, if we're being honest, he's only there because he didn't make the grade with England. None of the eight are currently with Premier League clubs and realistically five of them will never play another game in the league.

    Even worse, only three of those players came through the Irish system, none are from Dublin (where realistically we rely heavily on players from to fill our team) and none of the Irish developed three have won even a single senior cap.

    That ultimately is our problem right there - a lost generation or half generation of players that is hurting our senior team right now. It's not those lads fault but something went badly wrong with those groups, whether it was just bad luck or something else I don't know.

    The positive view is that the group of players born 1998 to 2002 already have twice the EPL appearances as the 93-97 group, despite being about five years younger than them on average. So clearly our players can still have an impact on the league. Many of that group are Irish born/developed also. But the failure to produce almost any high quality domestic players from Ireland over that five year period is going to impact us for a few years yet.
    Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone

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    I think the issue was that as the PL and English system as a whole, got stronger and more competitive for players to get a look in our over reliance on that system to produce players left us with the gap we see.

    We were still producing the same amount of talent on this island but we were allowing them to follow the same pathway as previous generations. They'd go to the same clubs but those clubs now had the pick of players all around the world so that pathway involved a lot more risk of attrition. So our lads went over and for the most part never made the grade. That's pretty damaging to a kid. I'd love to see a list of the talent who should be 26-29 now that shows where they went and what happened to them. It could tell a completely different story.

    The generation we are seeing come through now might have been a bit savvier about which clubs they picked and more prepared for the setbacks?

    It's also funny that centre backs seem to keep coming through. It's a position on the field unlike most others in that height or general physical superiority goes a long, long way. We might just be seeing centre halves come through because the ones that are were just physically better than their competition on the way up through the ranks. Collins is the prime example. I'm not saying he's just a physical specimen as he can play ball too - but it would have given him an advantage.
    21 leagues and 25 cups.

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    https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274

    Yeah good piece and spot on about Moran and McCarthy but equally so wrong about Ronnie Whelan. Did this guy ever see him play at his pomp. He'd walk into the current Liverpool midfield ahead of Henderson or Keita. It's a pity that injuries had already taken their toll by the time we started qualifying for tournaments, but at his best, he was the complete midfield player.

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    Quote Originally Posted by third policeman View Post
    https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274

    Yeah good piece and spot on about Moran and McCarthy but equally so wrong about Ronnie Whelan. Did this guy ever see him play at his pomp. He'd walk into the current Liverpool midfield ahead of Henderson or Keita. It's a pity that injuries had already taken their toll by the time we started qualifying for tournaments, but at his best, he was the complete midfield player.
    True dat = = Quality midfielder in his day.

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    Coach tetsujin1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by third policeman View Post
    https://www.buzz.ie/sport/stephen-ke...mpact-27281274

    Yeah good piece and spot on about Moran and McCarthy but equally so wrong about Ronnie Whelan. Did this guy ever see him play at his pomp. He'd walk into the current Liverpool midfield ahead of Henderson or Keita. It's a pity that injuries had already taken their toll by the time we started qualifying for tournaments, but at his best, he was the complete midfield player.
    Great article about Whelan's importance to Liverpool here
    https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/0...l-star-of-all/

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