Damien Delaney

[FarBeag]

Don’t know what sort of reaction I will get to this thread but I am fairly certain it will be mixed. Anyway as we all know by now we have to agree that we have a big problem at the back. I personally don’t think that O’ Brien or Finnan will play for us again and i sincerely hope I am wrong but we need to find some defenders from somewhere. I think we could be ok at right back with Kelly, J ‘O Brien or O Shea to fill in but who will partner Dunne and who will fill the left back position.

Paul McShane is not getting a game for Sunderland. St Ledger and Mc Carthy are both playing football regularly. I know, I know, it’s only the championship but at least they are playing football.

Our biggest problem area is left back and has been for quite a while. Kevin Kilbane is an accident waiting to happen and Ian Harte is finished. Darren O’ Dea is not a regular at Celtic and the only other left back I can think of apart from the Mr. Versatile JOS and Steven O Halloran is Damian Delaney, I have seen this guy play on a few occasions and believe me he is a good player. He is naturally left footed, fast, and athletic and gets up and down the pitch.Is there any reason why we can't try him in this position in the next friendly, apart from the fact he does not play premiership football.We need someone and there is no one out there so why not?
If ye don’t agrees with me I would like to hear what the alternatives are?

[Razors left peg]

Don’t know what sort of reaction I will get to this thread but I am fairly certain it will be mixed. Anyway as we all know by now we have to say the least a little bit of a problem at the back. I personally don’t think that O’ Brien or Finnan will play for us again and I sincerely hope I am wrong but we need to find some defenders from somewhere. I think we could be ok at right back with Kelly, J ‘O Brien or O Shea to fill in but who will partner Dunne and who will fill the left back position.

Paul McShane is not getting a game for Sunderland. St Ledger and Mc Carthy are both playing football regularly. I know, I know, it’s only the championship but at least they are playing football.

Our biggest problem area is left back and has been for quite a while. Kevin Kilbane is an accident waiting to happen and Ian Harte is finished. Darren O’ Dea is not a regular at Celtic and the only other left back I can think of apart from the Mr. Versatile JOS and Steven O Halloran is Damian Delaney, I have seen this guy play on a few occasions and believe me he is a good player. He is naturally left footed, fast, and athletic and gets up and down the pitch.Is there any reason why we can't try him in this position in the next friendly, apart from the fact he does not play premiership football.We need someone and there is no one out there so why not?
If ye don’t agrees with me I would like to hear what the alternatives are?

I agree that he is definately worth a look. Seen him play a few times and looks a solid defender

[Pablo]

even when he First broke into the Cork City team you could see he had class.

Has to be worth a shot

[tetsujin1979]

John O Shea, Steve Finnan, Ian Harte, Kevin Kilbane, Darren O Dea, Steven O Halloran.

In that order 6 better alternatives to Damian. And if all those contract the rare left back plague at some point it's probably time to switch to 3-5-2.

John O'Shea doesn't play enough at left full to be considered a left full, his last few games for United have all been at right full
In case you haven't heard, Finnan retired, and one of his principle complaints was being played out of position
Ian Harte played his first minutes of football in four months yesterday, he'll need to start producing before he's called into the squad, let alone the starting XI
Darren O'Dea and Stephen O'Halloran have both shown great potential in flashes over the last 18-24 months, but neither have played regular football this season, and we can all agree that this is what is needed to get into the starting side

Delaney has made the move up through the divisions from League 2 to Championship without any major hiccups, AFAIR he was in the League 1 Team of the Season when Hull were promoted. He's made the move to big spending QPR, gotten into, and kept his place in the starting XI. If this sounds familiar, it's because Stephen Finnan did the exact same thing. QPR is a team with more than 2 billion behind it now, and will be in the Premiership by the end of the 2008/2009 and it'll be nigh impossible to deny him a place after than

[FarBeag]

John O Shea, Steve Finnan, Ian Harte, Kevin Kilbane, Darren O Dea, Steven O Halloran.

In that order 6 better alternatives to Damian. And if all those contract the rare left back plague at some point it's probably time to switch to 3-5-2.

Ah Ciaran come on. Can you not see some since here man? As I have already posted either these guys are injured, retired ,crap or not playing football. Delaney is a natural left back while the majority of the others you mentioned are not. Why do you think he is not good enough? Have you seen him play? Why are you so insistent than only premiership players are good enough. Why do you think Darren O’ Dea is better? I would be interested to hear your views on this.

[kingdom hoop]

Another day, another wind-up (surely he's not serious?) from Ciaran.

Anyway, apparently Delaney was superb yesterday - vying with Martin Rowlands for MOM in many people's eyes as it happens.

A few comments from reputable fans: "i think he is absolutley superb. someone should put a mileometer on the guy to see how much ground he covers during a game." "Delaney is rapidly becoming a real favourite of mine. Quite a character." "The lad's got an amazing engine - non stop dashing all around the park." "He is the epitome of how simple this game really is - pass and move."

Sounds a little Kilbane-esque with his energy and roving-ness! Only that he's taller, better on the ball, can position himself in defence, and can tackle. He'd struggle against someone of McGeady's ilk, but then again, so would Kilbane or Jos. Also, he played at CB for a good bit of his Hull career so he'd be good to have in the squad from a utility perspective.

[kingdom hoop]

Here's Ciaran showing Trap how to pick the Ireland team.

[FarBeag]

Finnan could come out of retirement obviously. And I can't believe you'd use John O Shea only playing occasionally at left back for Man Utd as a counter arguement for placing this guy ahead of him.

Ciaran Have you seen him play or not because if you are looking at the Cork city left back this is not him? Finnan is not a left back and as far as I know one of the reasons he retired from International football is because he was played out of position. J ‘O Shea made a rare appearance for Man u yesterday and played at Right back. At present he is the only left full back we have available to us and I really pray that he gets called up just to P!ss you off.

[FarBeag]

Here's Ciaran showing Trap how to pick the Ireland team.

Class.

[sadloserkid]

I posted my squad in another thread, I'd really like to know who some of you clueless championship / Eircom League humping tools would put in instead of who I have.

People like Delaney or John Joe are fine if half our national pool are struck down by a tropical virus but otherwise not up to scratch until they can play against better opposition at club level. Again keep in mind that players like Delaney have never actually played against the calibur of opposition that they're required to have to be international standard.

I rarely post in the international forum but anybody who heralds Ian Harte as the answer to anything (even if you have him as the 5th best answer to Delaney's 6th) is asking not to be taken seriously. Harte can't get near Sunderland's team. He is on the books of a Premier League side but he is not a Premier League footballer.

All jokes aside how does Graham Kavanagh fall into your grading criteria? Is he to be considered a Premier League player because he's on Sunderland's books or a Championship player because he's on loan with Sheffield Wednesday? Harte was seemingly unwanted even on a loan basis by anybody.

You seem to operate on the criteria that a player on the books of a Premier League club is automatically better than a player on the books of a championship club. Now as a rule of thumb that's fine but it's far too simplistic a view to take in the overall scheme of things.

[jmurphyc]

I posted my squad in another thread, I'd really like to know who some of you clueless championship / Eircom League humping tools would put in instead of who I have.

People like Delaney or John Joe are fine if half our national pool are struck down by a tropical virus but otherwise not up to scratch until they can play against better opposition at club level. Again keep in mind that players like Delaney have never actually played against the calibur of opposition that they're required to have to be international standard.

Ciaran, I've posted numerous reasons as to why Championship players should be considered in another thread. I'm not talking about specific chamionship players in general, I'm just saying that we shouldn't rule them out just because they're playing lower division football than some of their counterparts. You still haven't replied to my post, and haven't been able to give any reason why they shouldn't be considered other than that they play in the Championship. As I said in the other thread, it's not as simple as just writing them off because they play in the Championship, but you continue to insult people who suggest these players and then list off 6 players who should play in place of them, some of whom are clearly not viable alternatives.

[jmurphyc]

Harte was playing yesterday. >_>

He's had 8 supurb seasons, 2 poor ones. He's only 30, don't dismiss him. Subtract a year and you could say the exact same thing about Duff.

You tell us not to dismiss him, but that's exactly what you do with other players. Anyway, on the evidence I and most others have seen he is no longer good enough for international football. At the moment he can't get a place in a Sunderland team. Before yesterday he hadn't played since mid November. We can't pick players who have been out of first team football for that long; look at what happened to Andy O'Brien in Cyrpus. If he starts getting regular games for Sunderland then I may revise my opinion, but I currently see no reason why he should be considered.

[kingdom hoop]

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[GavinZac]

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[carloz]

I worry that people are still mentioning Darren O'Dea. He cant break into an awful Celtic defence which says a lot IMO. He should be seriously down the pecking order

[geysir]

By people you mean Ciaran

Anyway, O'Dea is capt. of the u21's and is doing fine there.

[sadloserkid]

I worry that people are still mentioning Darren O'Dea. He cant break into an awful Celtic defence which says a lot IMO. He should be seriously down the pecking order

Have only seen him once in the flesh (The 21s game against England in Cork) and he looked very ordinary then tbh. I'm with carloz on this one. There are some fairly dodgy footballers floating around Celtic's backline. If he's struggling to usurp any of them he has some serious developing to do.

[geysir]

That's why he is the u21's, only Ciaran has mentioned O'Dea ahead of Delaney.
Suddenly people think O'Dea is being mentioned all over the place.
It's a non issue.

[Kingdom]

Like it or not, the championship is where the supporting cast of our squad are going to be playing. The majority of our starting 11 will be of the top divisions (either SPL or EPL) but I think the snobbery we have in our attitudes towards the squad players will have to end sooner rather than later.
We have 3 problem positions. We all agree on Left full, the honey mnsters centre back partner is another and for me right wing/midfield is the other.
There are two options: Pick a lower level player for the position or try putting a round peg into a square hole.
Damien Delaney and Martin rowlands both deserve a squad place. I've been thinking more about this as well with regard to the new formation Gio possibly will employ; so what if we have two championship players doing the holding midfield role? If they can pass to another Irishman 10yds away and they can tackle they're good enough for our team, nevermind the squad. The more I look back on it the more disappointly Lee Carsley was in the campaign, his distribution was disgusting in so many games, and after that he doesn't really offer that much.

[the-blue-harp]

seen him play today for qpr v southampton, have to say delaney impressed me with his running and attacking down the left. composed on the ball and able to pass it about, not lacking in confidence anyway, didnt make any defensive mistakes either. will be irelands steady left back in a few years imo.