Under-21 Euro 2021 Qualifying

Would I be exaggerating if I said you could field 2 really good u21 teams with that squad?

9fingers wrote:

An excellent squad, one of the most potentially exciting Ive seen

Myself and a mate chatting about this earlier. Can't remember the last time the squad had this much potential in it. And there's still a few decent players who could feel hard done by or are injured.

Jimmy Bullard - "Favorite band? Elastic."

djhegzy wrote:

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strong squad, missing barrett who scored 2 for reading last night. also means no troy/obafemi/collins in senior squad

Only 3 English born players is it ?

Some change from Noel Kings reign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OfHuZVGVTc&t=9s

Hardly a golden age compared to the likes of Belgium, or even our youth years under Kerr. But given what we have had to contend with the last 15-20 years, it does feel like at least some of the stars are starting to align.

Edited by t_rAndy - 28 Aug 2019 at 11:20pm

t_rAndy wrote:

Hardly a golden age compared to the likes of Belgium, or even our youth years under Kerr. But given what we have had to contend with the last 15-20 years, it does feel like at least some of the stars are starting to align.

I think there's a potential golden irish generation, the last for ireland being the Duff/Keane generation some 20 odd years ago.

It's still very early for all these players but I haven't seen a bunch like this for while. From goalkeepers, defenders and a few good forwards

"Golden Generation" - that's going a little bit far. We have some good prospects and maybe two or three that look like they will have a successful PL career. The entire squad has what, 5, PL appearances to their name. In fairness, an interesting aspect of the squad is many of the better players are still U19 eligible, so time is definitely on their side.

However, a quick comparison to other similar-sized countries shows we're not flying ahead in terms of talent - Wales have U21 lads on big-money moves playing senior football for Man U, Bournemouth, RB Leipzig and Schalke, as well as lads with first team appearances for Liverpool. Granted Wales isn't really a country and most of those players are English, but the point stands.

Even Scotland have lads getting first team action with the likes of Celtic and Rangers.

That's not addressing other "smaller nations" like Belgium or Portugal who are light years ahead, as recently demonstrated against us at U16 and U19 level respectively.

Sweden, a comparable nation that we are playing shortly, have lads with a plenty of first team appearances in Serie A for clubs such as Bologna and Udinese, for Russian heavy-hitters, Rostov, and lads previously playing Bundesliga for Dortmund, not to mention the bigger Swedish clubs like AIK Stockholm.

We're all looking for the next big player, but are prone to be a little carried away.

As a reminder, look at the first post on the general U21 team thread, with what appeared at the time to be a talented squad full of young players playing at prestigious clubs.

How many of them have "made it", at least in terms of being a PL regular?

One.

His name?

Jack Grealish. Ouch

We may want to curb our enthusiasm slightly.

Having said that, Mick would do well to bring Connolly in for the Swiss game. If we need a late goal, he's a livewire player who they'll know nothing about and could make a real difference if he came off the bench.

Edited by Luis Amor Rodriguez - 29 Aug 2019 at 2:13am

Golden generation

.

I think about 4 of those players in that squad have be played 1st team football - you could count the total amount of caps on 1 hand.

At least the LOI players are playing weekly with their clubs.

There is a lot of talented players there with potential.

It was far across the sea,
When the devil got a hold of me,
He wouldn't set me free,
So he kept me soul for ransom.
na na na na na na na na na
na na na na na na na na.
I'm a sailor man from Glasgow to

Anyone know is the game v Armenia U21 on TV? Cheers.

€5 for an adult ticket - if you're Dublin, get down to it.