Fair enough but the comparative names being bandied about are nowhere near the standard of Gary Kelly. The likes of Gareth Farelly, Curtis Fleming & Alan Moore were never more than journemen pro's in England. Kelly played for a club fighting for the title and in the champions league, he was a mainstay of the international team for the best part of 10 years was involved in 2 world cups.
Lets not compare apples and pears here.
Was he a failure? Only time I saw him play for Shels was out in Romania, when he was one of their best players and about the only defender not to gift Bucharest a goal. I think Fenlon had one of his strange team selection fits and didn't play him as often as he should have.
Unfortunately, every league in the world bar the Italian, Spanish and English is in the same boat of having to sell their best players. As it stands the players aren't staying until 22/23 because they believe that the only way to get to play in the Premiership is to move to England age 16 or 17. This means that many players go who don't make it but end up at the lower levels of English football. If we can create a situation where it can be seen that the best players in the league are scouted by English clubs, then it might prompt more kids to stay in Ireland to play football when they leave school.
We're always going to lose the best players across the water, the challenge for us is to firstly hold on to those players as long as possible and thus keep the financial rewards within the league here, and secondly to hold on to those players who might not be good enough for top level but are still good players. It's all too easy for a player who doesn't make it at a big club to let his head drop and drift down in to the lower reaches of the league, or perhaps out of football, despite the fact that he might actually be a very good player, in the right environment.
In my opinion, it's a better situation for clubs to sell their best players in their early twenties than to lose them completely when they're 16.
Foot.ie's entire existence is predicated on the average idiot's inability to ignore other idiots
Really, we should be aiming to attract Irish players from League 2 and the conference in England, and lower teams in the SPL - as well as attracting players that still have much to offer back at the end of their careers, rather than them ending uo at some hell hole like Walsall.
Also, we should be aiming to get players from other similar ranked leagues in Europe, to help add something extra.
Agree with this, why not get some decent Lativan/Polish players to add some experience.
I'd love to see more Irish players in their 30's coming back think players like Cunningham, Breen, Kavanagh(bit of a push I know), Kilbane could really add off the field.
By the way seeing that Eric Miller played football for Dublin this week shouldnt they really be encouraging Kelly to throw in his lot with Louth!
With Kelly finished up in Engerland, its strange that this has died down.
City definetly have the best bands playing at half-time.
O'Bama - "Eerah yeah, I'd say we can alright!"
G.O'Mahoney Trapattoni'll sort ém out!!
and with ken bates saying he was on £5 million a year surely he could now come and play free of charge![]()
Just wondering if it was Kelly who leaked the team against Crystal Palace back in January, Wise said the player in question would never play for Leeds again and Kelly hasn't played since then. Its a pity he is retiring, he would have been a great addition to his home town team.
Always look on the bright side of life
£5 million a year for the bottom of the championship. thats criminal...........
yeah but he signed his contract when they were top-ish of the premiership, in regular european competitions and all looked rosy in the garden!! the fault really lies with the club for not safe-guarding themselves by putting relegation and non-european qualification clauses into the contract. all clubs do this nowadays after what happened to leeds!
http://www.eleven-a-side.com/acrosst...p?newsid=27614
I don't think he'll be getting another club anytime fast with that attitude. £5 million ayear is about £96,000 a week. In euros is about €140,000 a week. No way any Irish club would pay that much.
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Spot on. That's what we should be aiming for, realistically. Problem is that the best kids are very rarely at our top league clubs. It's not a case of Pats, Bohs, Cork, Derry, etc losing kids at 16. They've never had them to begin with. This is probably the first area where clubs need to improve. Schoolboy clubs are really just breeding the players for export. (They've banned exports of live cattle, but not of schoolboy footballers)
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
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