Jack Charlton also brought us to 1988 and 1990 with a stronger squad of players. It was at this time that he was demanding top flight first team football from his squad.
By the time 94 came around we were on the wane. Football was changing and we suffered and continue to suffer from the problem that Carloz has highlighted.
For a country like Ireland its certainly useful. It has perhaps the largest database in the world of professional footballers and includes their second nationalities if they are aware of them. They have far superior research tools than the FAI. I see no problem with using it for this purpose, I doubt anyone would really look at the stats of individual players!
Big Jack was on the Gerry Ryan show a week or two ago, and he said that on one particular Saturday there were only 37 English players starting. Not sure which Saturday it was, but assuming there were the usual 8 games, that's an average of between 4 and 5 Englishmen playing for each team.
If this is the case for the English, it will obviously have a knock-on effect on the Irish.
BTW, I'd recommend that everyone read chapter 3 of Jamie Carragher's book for some very valid points on the 'foreigner debate'.
And to think after all the decades of servile, mindless devotions the Oirish "we", "us" crowd poured upon their West Brition identity crisis of consumer choice you would think they would have more respect for the Irish footballer. Afterall aren't Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Hull etc all Irish teams!
Okay can we all just accept the fact that our best players need to be playing at the highest level and everything, including Champions League results, points to the Premier League. We should be benefiting from our proximity.
If you want to argue about supporting Eircom League clubs, not supporting the British leagues etc, go to a different thread.
We are explicitly discussing the success of Irish players in the Premier League here as it directly affects our national teams ambitions as it does to a lot of other countries. Live with it.
So last weekend we had
Given(probably)
McShane-Dunne-A O'Brien-Delap
Ireland-Andrews-Duff(probably)
Keane
with
Stephen Reid and Liam Lawrence not considered.
Not bad in my eyes?
Scotland-1 starter(James Morrison)
Wales-7 starters(Myhill-Collins-Collison-Davies-Koumas-Bellamy-Evans)
N.Ireland-2 starters(Hughes-McCartney)
France only had 15 and 5 of those were at Arsenal
You do know that when Manchester and Tottenham etc put up the union jack each 2nd weekend its because they are British, not Irish?
Here is a link to show you that Ireland is a foreign country too if you are British:
http://www.studyabroad.com/content/menus/europe.gif
ah the nit picking brigade out in full again....any possibility that he was referring to players overseas from England y'know given the fact that the Prem is in England and all....
Jeez some people have noting better to do....
"Well I think they'll be a little disappointed with that" - Matt Holland on TV3 after 5-2 drubbing by Cyprus
"Well I think they'll be a little disappointed with that" - Matt Holland on TV3 after 5-2 drubbing by Cyprus
On a slightly more positive note, the performances of Hull, Stoke and WBA have proved that the gap between premiership and lower divisions is closing. We have plenty of players at championship level and if the likes of these teams can beat Arsenal, maybe we shouldnt be discounting the players we have at championship level.
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