This annual scouring of English Premier League squads in advance of a new season inevitably leads to wistfulness about those bygone days when you’d lose count of the number of Republic of Ireland players in the top flight over yonder. And never more so than this time around.
Put it this way, Jack Charlton was so spoilt for choice he was able to overlook a third of the 32 who made appearances in the inaugural PL season back in 1992-93, many of them with the league’s biggest clubs. Only England and Scotland had a higher player representation than Ireland in the English top-flight. In the new Premier League season, Ireland will be 13th on that list.
But, nostalgia begone. Evan Ferguson was still 12 years away from being born in 1992, so its relevance is somewhat limited. What’s it they say? We are where we are.
And it hasn’t all been downhill since then. There have been the occasional spikes in the numbers thanks mainly to spells when the likes of Wolves, Sunderland and Stoke had a raft of Irish players. But, as we know, the overall trend has seen the Irish presence in the PL dwindle.
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Last season, 15 Irish players made PL appearances, but most of them were peripheral figures at their clubs. Just three – Nathan Collins, Dara O’Shea and Matt Doherty – accounting for more than half the combined 17,000 minutes playing time they amassed. Back in 1992-93, those 32 Irish players racked up 64,000 minutes of game-time. Read it and weep, Heimir Hallgrímsson.
Will this season be any better than last season? Hell no. It could be considerably worse seeing as nine of the 15 who played last term are no longer in the Premier League.
O’Shea, Sammie Szmodics, Jack Taylor and Chiedozie Ogbene were relegated with Ipswich, Ryan Manning and Will Smallbone with Southampton (Gavin Bazunu too, but he was on loan with Standard Liege) and Kasey McAteer with Leicester. And Brighton’s Ferguson and Eiran Cashin are now out on loan too, at Roma and Birmingham City respectively.
The promoted clubs have only three Irish players between them – Josh Cullen and Michael Obafemi at Burnley, although the latter is wholly out of favour and likely to leave, and Alan Browne at Sunderland. There’s not as much as a hint of green in Leeds United’s senior ranks.
The upshot is that as few as five Republic of Ireland internationals could see regular Premier League action this season: Caoimhín Kelleher and Collins at Brentford, Cullen at Burnley, Jake O’Brien at Everton and Doherty at Wolves.
Kelleher’s bench-warming days will finally be over after his move from Liverpool, while Collins was so impressive last season, when he played every minute of every PL game, there’s been no little chat about him attracting the interest of some bigger guns.
O’Brien will hope to maintain the momentum he gained under David Moyes having been persona non grata under Sean Dyche, and Cullen is so highly regarded by Burnley manager Scott Parker that he has been made captain. Doherty’s career, meanwhile, has been revived by Vitor Pereira, having struggled for game-time under his predecessor Gary O’Neil.
On the less positive side, Séamus Coleman, now 36, has struggled yet again with injury in preseason, while his new Everton team-mate, goalkeeper Mark Travers, is unlikely to dethrone Jordan Pickford. Browne, meanwhile, won’t have been buoyed by Sunderland splashing out almost €100 million on four new central midfielders this summer, while Andrew Moran will probably go out on loan from Brighton again, or even leave on a permanent basis.
Of the more youthful crew, teenagers Trent Kone-Doherty (Liverpool) and Jacob Devaney (Manchester United) will, most probably, have to bide their time for opportunities, Kone-Doherty having made his first-team debut in February and Devaney called up to train with United’s senior squad this summer. The same applies to Newcastle’s Alex Murphy and Rory Finneran.
Mason Melia will arrive at Spurs in January after he became the League of Ireland’s costliest player ever when the London club agreed a fee with St Patrick’s Athletic that could rise to €4 million. He’s a big loss to the game at home, but it will be interesting to watch his development at Spurs and see whether the 17-year-old Wicklow native will be given early chances to shine.
But that’s the overall picture, one that could result in the lowest ever Irish representation in a Premier League season.
All of which makes the growing trend for players to test themselves farther afield a welcome one. This has taken Troy Parrott to the Netherlands (AZ Alkmaar), Andrew Omobamidele to France (Strasbourg), Festy Ebosele to Turkey (Istanbul Başakşehir), Callum O’Dowda to Hungary (Ferencváros) and, of course, Ferguson to Italy on his season-long loan with Roma. Hallgrímsson will work up a fair bit of mileage if he travels to watch them all.
Ferguson’s performances at Roma this season will be fascinating, as the 20-year-old’s career needs a reboot after a sticky couple of years. If he can flourish as Parrott has done in the Eredivisie, it’ll be some boost for Hallgrímsson as he prepares for his first World Cup qualifying campaign with Ireland. His hat-trick on his debut for Roma – albeit in a friendly against a side just promoted from Serie D – was a sweet start.
So, grim and all as the Premier League figures are, there is indeed a world beyond it when it comes to footballing destinations for our players. Scotland and the lower leagues in England are, of course, well populated with them too.
While Charlton, back in the day, would have been trekking from Manchester to Middlesbrough, Southampton to Sheffield and London to Liverpool, with a heap more English ports of call thrown in, Hallgrímsson’s schedule could take in trips to Alkmaar, Strasbourg, Istanbul, Budapest and Rome. If the FAI’s budget can rise to it.
Changed times. But we are where we are.
