FOR FOLLOWERS OF the Premier League with a keen interest in how Irish players perform, this season has seemed particularly dispiriting.
Usually, no matter how bad the situation gets or how poorly certain Irish players perform, there have been at least a couple of players reliably holding their own — for years, Roy Keane was an integral part of Manchester United’s title-winning sides, before Damien Duff began to look world class for a season or two at Chelsea. Even Robbie Keane, for a period, was scoring goals for fun at Tottenham, producing a series of match-winning performances that would eventually earn him an ill-fated move to Liverpool.
Last season, Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy were the standouts and played important roles, as Everton came agonisingly close to earning a spot in the Champions League.
This year however, any attempts to cast a positive light on the season from an Irish perspective would be clutching at straws.
McCarthy has been injured for much of the campaign (though he is nearing a comeback), while Seamus Coleman has underperformed to a degree along with the rest of his Everton teammates.
A couple of moments over the past month have consolidated the view that finding first-team football is more problematic than ever for the majority of Irish players.
Kevin Doyle, linked with Arsenal at his peak, was sent back to Wolves after a disappointing loan spell at Crystal Palace in which first-team opportunities were few and far between. Once considered as key to the future of Irish football, Doyle appears to be facing into a worrying period of uncertainty for the umpteenth time of late.
And in general, the number of Irish players starting for their clubs has struggled to reach double figures this season, and even then, success has been hard to come by. Stephen Ireland, Robbie Brady, Shane Long, Paul McShane, Joey O’Brien, Rob Elliot and Stephen Ward to name but a few have all so far endured difficult 2014-15 campaigns and have been consigned to a place on the bench more often than not. And earlier this month, during one particular weekend of Premier League football, Damien Delaney was the only Irish international to feature on a winning top-flight team.
And with the transfer deadline fast approaching, it looks increasingly unlikely that the majority of out-of-favour Irish players will secure the move they ostensibly need.
(Like the rest of his Everton teammates, Seamus Coleman has struggled at times this season)
So why has the level of Irish talent become so limited of late? Part of the reason is the gradual influx of foreign stars into the league, making it tougher than ever for Irish players to thrive in an increasingly competitive environment. The players of today are consistently being compared unfavourably to past Irish stars, but it’s an unfair analogy, as Robbie Butler writes:
“In 1988, being the best in the so-called British Isles was probably enough to get selected to play for the top teams. Suggesting that today’s Irish players do not play for top clubs at the moment, and those from the Charlton era did because they were far better, is misleading.”
Furthermore, it is also worth noting that squad rotation in the Premier League is more prevalent than ever (though the current Chelsea team are seemingly attempting to break this trend), and the recent results prove that regularly altering lineups is a key part of a team’s success. Only the odd indispensable player — a Luis Suarez or a John Terry — is considered virtually undroppable, and no Irish player can claim to come into that category currently.
But that said, the lack of Irish players in England’s top flight is often exaggerated — a survey last year found that Ireland had 29 representatives in the Premier League, with only England, Spain and France boasting more
Another issue, and perhaps the most commonly cited reasons for Irish players’ lack of success is the inept underage structure in this country and players’ slow development compared with foreign counterparts.
Last May, ahead of Liverpool’s friendly with Shamrock Rovers, Brendan Rodgers told reporters: “A lot of them [Irish players] start the apprenticeship at 16 but even then it’s too late as a lot of boys across the water are beginning at the age of eight and by the time they’re 16 they’ve been trained technically, tactically, physically and mentally and then they’re ready to step into full-time football.”
(Brendan Rodgers believes Irish players are falling behind their foreign counterparts)
Dublin-born Stephen Bradley, a former Arsenal trainee, has suggested that the money and the difficulty of moving abroad at such a young age are also hindering Irish players’ development. In a recent interview with Off the Ball, he recalled his brief brush with fame:
“Liam [Brady] pulled me into the office and basically said, ‘look, you know there’s a lot of money coming your way and this is what you shouldn’t do’. But at that stage for me, I’d turned pro and I’d seen the money. For me it was too late. I didn’t know then, but I know now that I needed to sit down with someone long before that even happened.”
He also echoed Rodgers’ view that the Irish youngsters are not being adequately prepared in contrast with others.
“We go away and you’re in a system with lads from all parts of the world and 99 per cent of the time they’ve come from a professional background and we’re coming from training two nights a week. Straight away we’re at a disadvantage.”
John Giles, meanwhile, believes that in many cases, the style of coaching is a problem.
“For too many of them, it’s about them being a winning coach and what you’ll find is that creative kids will make more mistakes than anybody else and instead of living with them and encouraging them, they say ‘off!’ They put a big lad on, win 2-0 and win the league. After four years of that, the creative kids give up playing. There’s too much emphasis on the coach being a winning coach,” he told Newstalk.
Of course, the situation is not entirely bleak. The World Cup illustrated how even the top teams’ players can find it difficult to break into their club sides.
Costa Rica, who Ireland more than matched when the sides met in a friendly last summer, were one of the surprise packages of Brazil 2014, progressing into the knockout stages at the expense of higher profile teams such as England and Italy. One of their star men, Joel Campbell, since then has barely got near the Arsenal first team, and recently completed a loan move to Villarreal. Furthermore, Andre Schurrle, who set up the winning goal in the World Cup final for Germany, has been conspicuous by his absence in the Chelsea side for much of this campaign, and was linked with a move to Wolfsburg recently.
There are also a number of promising Championship players who could be plying their trade in the Premier League next year. Ipswich’s David McGoldrick and Derby’s Cyrus Christie (both of whom were tellingly brought up through the English underage system), in particular, impressed in last November’s friendly against USA.
But overall, the lack of quality Irish players being produced remains a serious problem. Despite the odd positive result, the gap between Europe’s top sides and Ireland in terms of technical ability is wider than ever. When Ireland played Germany at the 2002 World Cup, Mick McCarthy’s side had 58% of the possession. In contrast, during the sides’ most recent meeting in the Euro 2016 qualifier, the Germans had 63% of the possession and thoroughly dominated proceedings up until the final 20 minutes, when they ill-advisedly sought to sit back and protect their lead. While both matches ended 1-1, on a technical level, there is no comparison between the two games. The spirit of 2002 remains, but in terms of skill and confidence on the ball, the Irish side has gone backwards while their rivals have progressed substantially.
Martin O’Neill is a master at getting the best out of limited players, but even he can only do so much. At present, the Irish team looks well organised and hard to beat, but rare moments of Aiden McGeady magic aside, watching the Boys in Green in years to come is unlikely to be a pretty spectacle unless radical changes are implemented promptly.
