Young Talent Emerging

I somehow doubt St Kevin's "released" him.

OK, so in each of the years that those players were released by their clubs, how many other Irish players were released by other top level clubs and didn't go on to play for Ireland ?

 

 

Everyone has an opinion, and most on here will engage in a discussion about football & Irish players. 

Personally, I would prefer if that discussion, or discussions, had some tenuous links with reality. This one is merely the latest example of one that doesn't. It is pretty much established in football that lads go to an academy, the reserves, the LOI, a lower division team and work their way upwards from there. After an amount of senior appearances, and this bit varies from player to player, the international manager calls him into squad, and maybe eventually team. Again, this is pretty much established football practice. 

There are exceptions, Robbie Keane scored 2 goals for Wolves on his debut at 17, his talent was such that his form demanded an early call up. Ben Woodburn is getting a bit of attention, but he has been a big prospect at Liverpool for years, and has played a few first team games. The fact Klopp has picked him to do this suggests he is getting close to making that break from reserve to first team squad member. Chris Coleman has simply run with that, and used him as a sub for Wales, probably reasoning that if he is good enough for the fringes of the Liverpool squad, he is good enough to be a sub for a nation not exactly stocked with prolific centre forwards (bar one fella). The important thing to note here is that lads like these are exceptions. 

Lets go with McCauley for a minute. Fine, he is in great form. Maybe he is indeed the next Robbie Keane. So let's pick him. Next thing, why stop there ? How about Man U's Kevin O'Connor, also doing very well ?? How about Kieran O'Hara the Man U keeper who has made their Champions League squad ?? Declan Rice ? Yeah, why not. Josh Cullen as well. And therin is exactly the issue, where does it stop ? 

Do we take to the field V Wales or Moldova with a team of U21s ?? Do we call up 1 of them, 2 of them, 16 of them to the next squad ? Who gets dropped ?? How many do we drop ? What are the chances (I'll give you a big clue, its in decimal points, with a load of zeros in front of the number) of any of this actually happening ?? Absolutely fcuk all is the short, blunt answer, so posts like these are about as relevant as putting up what you think might be Friday night's lotto numbers, or what ya had for tea this evening. 

One of my issues with this section is that there are more posts about fellas who don't play for us than those that do, and because I'm something of a realist, I'd prefer if people were talking about realistic candidates who might play for us in the near future than prospects in 3,4,5 years time. There is, as Green Devil pointed out, an existing thread for these lads anyway, it too features more lads that will never play for us than those that eventually will. 

There is also the fact, and maybe the OP is/was not aware of this, that this section has been spammed to death by similar stupid posts by trolls, one fella managed to get a thread on Rangers Rob Kiernan (probably the 43rd choice CB for us) to 20 pages, and every bit of it complete bollix. Stick about long enough and you will get fed up of it too. 

If the banning suggestion isn't been run with, I'd suggest an entire seperate section for these 'prospects' (most of whom are anything but), so that the 7 or 8 lads who enjoy talking about fantasy teams, how many Grannies an English lad with a vaguely sounding Irish name playing in League 2 might have, which Irish player has the fifth most assists in League 1, or what will be our team (and, of course, formation, that bit is important too) for the World Cup, the one after Qatar that is, as I presume they have 2022 sorted already, can chat away amongst themselves. 

I removed your suspension last week. And already you're back on annoying me!

Should have left you on the sidelines. I'll let this personal abuse slide. But next time, you're gone again, this time for good.

Is it not borderline racist as well as personal?