Likely, but they're in an odd position where a lot of elite talent won't be keen to move to Newcastle or to move to a club that's doing so poorly. They probably need to overpay for some compromise candidates for a while until they qualify for Europe again. Dunne and Given were beneficiaries of that kind of situation at Man City, for example. (Perhaps a little unfairly to them, them being more unfashionable than below the required standard, but that's old news.)
You can't spell failure without FAI
I was looking through the EPL keepers to see who might be on their last legs and got as far as seeing that Kasper Schmeichel is now 35 and had to stop.
And has an 11-year-old son. So Peter was a grandfather at the age of 46.
Mad stuff.
It's fine. Kasper just has to keep playing until he's 42 and the young fella will be ready.
You can't spell failure without FAI
Dean Kiely on managing Ireland's "glut of top goalkeepers"
https://www.otbsports.com/soccer/dea...eepers-1295750
I thought the correct expression was 'an embarrassment of riches'.
You can also have an 'embarrassment of pandas', which is one of the collective nouns for this particular animal. So, why not an 'embarrassment of goalies'?
Having a number of talented young Irish goalkeepers to call upon has been about as rare as a horny panda, until recently, I guess.
I still think Kelleher's the best we've got, right now, but Bazanu - what a talent! And Travers has really stepped this year; and, let's not forget, of those available to us, is playing (regularly) at the highest level of the three.
I see Travers now has the 3rd highest save percentage in the top 4 English leagues, behind Mendy and Sa. He could be the first, first choice EPL keeper of the 3.
https://punditarena.com/football/rud...h-goalkeepers/
Ian harte and Gary Kelly were in that boat
Who cares at this stage.. we seem to have three crackers.. and looks like plenty options at centre half now too.. surely we could turn one of those decent ball playing centre halfs into a defensive midfielder a la Big Paul.. O Shea, Collins.. no?
Are we that stacked at centre-half?
For the three September games, we only called up four, and when O'Shea got injured in the first game, we ended up playing our only three centre-halves for the rest of the fixture list. Omo is young but unproven - shaky in Portugal, excellent against Serbia, not getting his game for a dire Norwich team.
Collins has made his debut since, which is good. There's the great Clark debate, and Lenihan at Blackburn is being similarly ignored, though he's captaining a side second in the Championship. Dunne is doing well at QPR it seems, and Kevin Long is still in the Premier League with Burnley somehow. And we can drop a wing-half or two into the centre if we're stuck (but that's not ideal). Bagan and McGuinness are coming through at Cardiff, but it seems a bit early yet to consider them for the senior squad.
I wouldn't mind seeing us expand on our options in the March friendlies tbh.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 08/01/2022 at 10:44 AM.
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