REPUBLIC OF IRELAND international Troy Parrott scored another superb hat-trick for Excelsior Rotterdam, but couldn’t save them from Eredivisie relegation.
Excelsior faced a huge uphill battle in their Dutch top-flight relegation play-off against NAC Breda this evening, but fell agonisingly short in their bid for a remarkable turnaround.
They won the game at Stadion Woudestein 4-1, but lost 6-7 on aggregate.
🇳🇱 Goal: Troy Parrott | Excelsior 1-0 NAC Bredapic.twitter.com/2WRbAD72wz
— PushGoals (@PushGoals) June 2, 2024
Parrott, who scored a half-hour hat-trick against ADO Den Haag last week, repeated the feat today, making it his second match ball in three games.
The 22-year-old Dubliner broke the deadlock in the 20th minute with a cool finish, before doubling Excelsior’s lead with a 35th-minute penalty.
An own goal made it 3-0 by half time and Parrott sent Excelsior into dreamland with a well-taken header in the 50th minute.
HAT-TRICK, #Tottenham loanee Troy Parrott has scored again to help Excelsior go from 6-2 down to 6-6 on aggregate! 🤯⚽️⚽️⚽️🇮🇪
— Spurs Global (@spurssglobal) June 2, 2024
pic.twitter.com/TkgT3eE47l
But NAC Breda responded just before the hour-mark and that was as close as they came.
“All over and Excelsior are relegated,” Tottenham Hotspur reporter Alasdair Gold wrote on X, formerly Twitter, afterwards.
“Troy Parrott sits on the turf in despair. He did everything he could this season with 17 goals and five assists for a team that finished 16th in the table. It ends in pain but it’s been a big year of development for the young Irishman.”
Parrott was on a season-long loan from Tottenham, and he has attracted interest from several clubs, including Ajax and PSG, as reported by The 42 in February.
He is now due to return to the Ireland squad for the upcoming friendlies against Hungary and Portugal, having missed the fixtures against Belgium and Switzerland earlier in the year.
After that loan spell be interesting to see where Troy goes to next. Might be a player that be best suited to playing in a European league team. I honestly think if he got a move to France or Germany he would get a good few goals next season. The competition for the strikers in the Irish squad will be huge next season.
@Leighton Cullen: If he is on Tottenhams books and has really come on as a player then I think he will return to them and be given his chance to make the first team squad, otherwise he will be released by them and end up god knows where. Too often we get overexcited about an Irish lad playing abroad and scoring a few goals only to find it all ends in failure and disappointment.
@Leonard Barry: he’s too slow for the Premier league.. and not good enough for a team with ambitions of a top ten finish. Looks like he got it together towards the end of the season, was in and out of the team for the first half of the season. Love to see him establishing himself in Europe. Could carve a very good career out for himself.
Well done troy!
Great attitude this season
He is young enough to still make it but old enough that I would have my doubts about consistency