He was essentially put out to pasture.
‘Too old. Not the future’ I imagine was Kenny’s thinking
It wasn't posted on here but he signed a one year contract extension with Sunderland a few weeks back.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/spor...nsion-20954137
Another assist tonight. Seems in decent form as Sunderland go second. With one third of the last squad in League One and with us really struggling for goals (Oct games aside), it's strange that there's no place for him in the squad. I don't really want to have lots of third tier players in the squad, and McGeady frustrated the hell out of me down the years, but I think he's a better option than some who are getting in the team and it may be premature casting him aside.
That would have been a fair point in 2018/19, when he was 32, dropped to League One with Sunderland, but was on fire. But at this point he's going to be nearly 37 when the qualifiers for Euro 2024 start and 38 when the tournament takes place and it looks like he won't play higher than League One again
Yeah, he's getting on. But if he's good enough, he's old enough. We've been crying out for some creativity in recent games and if he'd been able to turn one of those poor results against Luxembourg/Azerbaijan/Qatar into a better result, it'd have been worth it for that extra bit of momentum for Kenny. He's 35 now and we've just made a hames of World Cup qualifying; I don't think the focus always has to be on the future at the expense of the now
And if Horgan can start games, then McGeady has to be worth a squad place...
Last edited by pineapple stu; 20/10/2021 at 7:40 AM.
I felt McGeady should have gotten a call up for the WC qualifiers. He was performing for Sunderland at the time and while we needed to bring youth through they also need experienced players playing alongside them. Was never really a fan of McGeady but was more down to he didn't fit in with how other managers want us to play. Would have slotted in nicely in the 3-4-2-1.
But I wouldn't be calling him up now unfortunately. We've got the nation's league before the Euros and a chance for another player to impress like Jamie McGrath has done in his last few games.
While not trying to start a virtual scrap....you can't be bleedin' serious can you? I mean, there's a serious whack of fecal matter off that line in particular - sure it's in isolation to an otherwise fine post, but if it's brown, leaves a stain, and whiffs, then bull**** is bull****, no matter where it's deposited.
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
I agree he's always flattered to deceive, but our squad at the moment is the worst it's ever been, so the bar to be good enough is lower than it's ever been. Horgan and Ogbene are making a lesser impact in the same division. OK, the future is elsewhere for sure, but I think our paucity of options doesn't really allow us to discard players quite as casually as we've discarded McGeady. Bearing in mind the reason given was that he wasn't playing at a high enough level, but it's the level that a third of our squad find themselves playing now.
Probably as JR says, the World Cup campaign was the one to leave him in for, and then with the next Nations League starting in June and the Euro qualification in March 2023, that's definitely a bridge too far.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 20/10/2021 at 7:43 PM.
I think McGeady suffered from the tendency in these islands to always play tricky technically gifted players on the wing. This was a curse for Aiden as his greatest weakness was crossing the ball. If he’d been born in Spain, he would probably have played in midfield as a 10 or 8. That’s where he’s playing now and is probably having more impact on games than he ever had when he played wide for us. Didn’t Wes start out as a winger, before somebody realised it was a total waste of an outstanding talent.
He was pretty decent for carrying the ball forward. The problem was the execution of the final ball: pass or cross or shot. Maybe later on he started passing back to try to lose the ball less often. He was frustrating to watch, but there's something to be said for a player who breaks lines with the ball.
You can't spell failure without FAI
Things got so bad with the disservice around these parts, that maybe in 2013/2014, I did a pretty long-winded examination of his contribution particularly around his Spartak days in the irish jersey. don't forget that in the 10/11/12 era, he was often the only 'flair' player, where we didn't exactly flood the box with advancing players.
McGeady's probably my favourite player of the post Kerr-era, and I'm definitely biased, but am not a Celtic fan. We wouldn't have qualified for EUro 2012 without him, and we wouldn't have been in the hunt late on in the other two campaigns without him either.
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
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