WHEN THE writing was on the wall for Stephen Kenny, the Ireland manager made an interesting admission.
Last October, Ireland beat Gibraltar 4-0 with a 4-3-3 formation — Evan Ferguson started centrally with Chiedozie Ogbene and Mikey Johnston on either side of the striker.
It is a system Kenny ideally would have utilised more frequently but a lack of options left the coach restricted.
“I’ve always liked wing play and wingers, there has been an absence of that,” the embattled manager told reporters. “Some of my early days, we’ve tried to do it, players that gave everything were mainly playing in League One at the time.”
Kenny later added: “4-3-3 is the system I’ve coached the majority of my life, I know it best, getting the wide players has been a real issue for us. We played Jason Knight there the other day. He can do it, but he’s better as a midfield player, as an attacking midfield player. It’s an issue for us in terms of getting a little bit of depth in that position. You’ve nothing off the bench in that system. These are the dilemmas that you have. I’m not complaining about that, it’s just the reality.”
Of course, Ireland have produced top-class wingers in the past, such as Damien Duff and Steve Heighway. However, Ogbene is the only natural wide player who came through the Irish football system in recent years (Johnston began life in the Scottish system) who has been deemed good enough to play consistently for Ireland.
It is a relative golden age for centre-backs with the likes of Nathan Collins, Dara O’Shea, Andrew Omobamidele and Jake O’Brien establishing themselves of late, while with Gavin Bazunu and Caoimhín Kelleher both enjoying good seasons, the goalkeeping department is also looking particularly healthy.
But the production of top-quality wingers has dried up, and that is one of the main reasons the national team has struggled on the international stage for much of the last decade.
Yet there is some scope for optimism amid the emergence of two highly promising Cork City-produced brothers who have been making headlines of late.
In their 1-1 draw with Wexford on Monday, Jaden Umeh becomes the Leesiders’ youngest-ever senior goalscorer at 16 years old and 14 days.
In November, at 15 years and 230 days, he was Cork’s youngest-ever debutant in a dead rubber end-of-season Premier Division loss to Bohemians.
Jaden is not the only high achiever in the family. His brother Franco is on the books at Crystal Palace having come through Cork City’s youth system.
The 19-year-old only joined the Premier League outfit in January 2023, after Palace activated his €75,000 release clause, but already he is making waves in England.
He was nominated for January’s Premier League 2 Player of the Month award after registering eight goals and six assists across 23 games in all competitions this season.
Franco has also made the bench for the Palace first team several times this season, including for yesterday’s Premier League clash with Man City, having first been called up for the Everton game in February.
The Umeh brothers are of Nigerian descent and have been capped by Ireland at underage level.
Both players can play on either wing and are renowned for their pace and physicality.
Early on in their footballing lives, both played for Ringmahon Rangers, the team that also helped develop Irish internationals, Alan Browne and Caoimhín Kelleher.
Cork City’s Head of Academy, Liam Kearney, knows what it takes to sustain a career on the wing having made over 200 appearances in the League of Ireland during his playing days.
Kearney has helped guide the Umeh brothers in their ascension to senior level — Franco also made a handful of appearances for Cork’s first team before departing — since their respective moves to the club.
While Jaden’s rise has been swift, Kearney says Franco’s was comparatively slower.
“The obvious thing was that he’s quick and even height-wise, he sprouted halfway through the time that he was here to grow into quite a tall lad,” Kearney tells The 42.
“So he was direct and always impacted the game with either a goal or an assist. It was just tidying up things around retention and possession of the ball.
“Come the time when he did get his move, he was after really improving his hold-up play or just keeping the ball at times.”
Over time, Franco’s decision-making was better and the youngster was meeting every challenge that confronted him, moving up the age brackets and representing Ireland at youth level.
As a person, he was developing too.
“At the start, he was a little bit immature and over time, he grew up fast and understood: ‘If I want to make a career out of this, I need to knuckle down and take on the information a little bit better,’” Kearney explains.
The former Cork City star comes across countless players in the academy with potential, but only a small minority make it to England.
In addition to his physical attributes, one of the characteristics that made the difference for Franco was his positional intelligence. Increasingly, he developed a knack for knowing when to stay wide and when to come into pockets of space to maximise his impact in the final third.
Shortly before the big move, it became obvious that he was destined for a higher level during a season with the U19s when he was regularly the best player on the pitch.
He was soon deemed ready and made four first-team appearances for Cork City before signing with Palace.
He was on the radar of several clubs, but the Eagles showed the strongest interest. They came over to watch him in a pre-season friendly against Dundalk and his performance that day sealed the deal, which was finalised just before the January transfer deadline.
Kearney adds: “[Then-manager] Colin Healy and the lads were saying at the time: ‘We wish he didn’t play that well,’ because they knew after the game that Palace would sign him because he absolutely tortured Dundalk.”
The fact that Cork were in a race for promotion meant Umeh had been used sparingly in the 2022 campaign and the starlet would have played more regularly in less pressurised circumstances. However, he was “in line to have a very big season” following their return to the top flight.
The Rebels were keen on arranging a deal whereby he stayed home until the summer and played half a campaign in the Premier Division. Nonetheless, Palace were set on bringing the teenager over immediately. Consequently, the transfer was completed just five days after Franco turned 18.
Cork City are due significant add-ons if Umeh progresses and can achieve milestones such as first-team and international appearances.
So the club naturally continue to monitor his progress closely.
“He’s been doing great from the reports I get, and I’d still be quite close to the family,” says Kearney.
“So the feedback from Palace has been really good. And I think they probably didn’t expect him to have such a big impact so quickly.
“It’s a good thing too, because it just lets them know the standard we have here can’t be that bad if he fitted in comfortably, so quickly.”
As an ex-winger, Kearney is ideally placed to offer advice to Franco and Jaden but acknowledges the game has evolved significantly since his heyday.
Wide attackers are now more inverted than ever, with full-backs often the players expected to deliver crosses and get to the by-line.
“They have to have more strings to their bow than just ‘I can beat my full-back on the outside,’ they have to be able to come inside. And with Franco, there were no issues with him going one-on-one on the outside with players.
“But even playing on the opposite side learning to come in on the opposite side and his left. And I think Franco got better at that — he could go on the outside and the right-hand side and cross with his [weaker] right foot, which I suppose when he first came in, he might not have been comfortable to do that.
“So when a full-back doesn’t know whether you’re going outside or inside, they’re in real trouble if the player is rapidly quick.
“As a winger, I was never that quick, whereas Franco is quick, powerful, strong, aggressive, and now has a bit of substance to the end product.”
Kearney is hopeful the Umeh brothers can buck the recent trend of Irish wide attackers seldom reaching the top level and sees parallels to the one exception.
Ogbene also came through the Cork City production line — Kearney believes the brothers share his impeccable attitude and tendency not to get easily fazed by the pitfalls that invariably hamper promising youngsters.
Kearney adds that he is unsure why there has been such a lack of top-level Irish wingers of late.
“I suppose within our club, we’re quite fortunate, we have quite a lot of high-potential wide players that we look at in our academy.
“And in terms of the Irish setup itself, why we’re not producing more Premier League wide players is something for debate. I wouldn’t have the answer to it.”
While it took some time for Franco to develop, from an early age, Jaden’s considerable potential has been clear.
“From the point of view of tactically, technically, he’s already at a really strong point,” says Kearney.
“He’s already a big man very early. But he’s still just turned 16. So we must [avoid] exposing him to too much of a senior setup until we feel he is quite ready.”
Sudden growth spurts, which both brothers have experienced to a degree, can be among the biggest challenges for young players to navigate, mentally and physically, as injuries are more commonplace during this period. It is one of the main reasons clubs are very conscious of and cautious about a youngster’s workload.
So the decision to play Jaden, particularly in that first match against Bohemians, was not taken lightly and one the club were confident was best for all parties.
“There was a time when I felt a 15-year-old getting that opportunity wouldn’t have sat right with me,” admits Kearney.
“But you could see after five minutes, that he was quite comfortable in that environment.”
While relegation last season was hugely disappointing for Cork, the silver lining was that it paved the way to allow more opportunities for young players such as Jaden to get greater game time in a less demanding, more under-the-radar league.
Kearney says Jaden has continued to acquit himself well in seven First Division appearances this season for Tim Clancy’s side.
“He’s tactically quite clever. He’s left-footed, right-footed. He’s got the pace. But in the air even, like Franco, he has got a great leap.
“So there are huge traits in his game at such a young age. And obviously, everyone’s quite aware of that as well.”
There is a sense that it is a case of when rather than if Jaden does leave Cork City.
If the youngster wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps and join an English club, Brexit-related regulations mean he must wait two more years until his 18th birthday.
Yet he may move to clubs in other European leagues before then, with Benfica one of the sides reportedly interested in acquiring his services.
But the benefits of staying at Cork for the immediate future cannot be dismissed. Like fellow promising starlet Mason Melia at St Pat’s, Umeh is getting regular exposure to first-team football, which likely wouldn’t be the case if he chose to sign for a more high-profile team abroad. It will always be tempting for youngsters to move at the first opportunity. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily the wisest course of action.
“If you look at Franco, that was a really suitable club, who like to play in a certain style that suits Franco,” says Kearney.
“Leaving at 18 was the right thing for Franco — if he was going at 16, he might not have been ready in many ways.”
Jaden can learn from his brother’s previous experience of moving, so in addition to a sense of healthy competition, the pair can lean on one another for advice.
The inevitable dream is that they both play for Ireland, something very few brothers have achieved and an even smaller number have done simultaneously.
The usual caveats regarding serious injuries et cetera must be acknowledged. However, the Umeh brothers have shown they at least have the potential to follow in the footsteps of Noel and Stephen Hunt, David and Pearce O’Leary, and Liam and Ray Brady, among others.
“From my point of view, it would be a special thing to see,” adds Kearney. “I could picture a situation of Jaden and Franco on either wing. And I certainly wouldn’t envy any full-backs looking at the two boys running at them.”
