Ireland U21s - 2025 Campaign

kevincronin2000 wrote: Italy (again) Ireland Norway Turkey Latvia San Marino

Edited by You Tell Me - 02 Feb 2023 at 9:44am

2nd seeds and we get THAT group ugh. Norway and Turkey always seem to have good players coming through. 

You could look at the group another way and say if the u21s is all about development, its not a bad thing we get such a tough group. 6 great games there.

We just have to accept that we aren't going to qualify for U21 tournaments. We came close under Kenny. Had he finished that campaign as the U21 manager, we might have qualified. As long as we're bringing through players who go on to play for the senior team, that's all we can ask for. Qualification is a bonus.

Fozz wrote: On paper Norway make it look tough, but they may have aged out their better players. Turkey did nothing of note in the last campaign, but they may have uncovered some incredible 19-year olds. Italy, we can be sure, are a conveyor-belt of talent and should top the group easy. But until the first round or two of games have been played, we don't really know how they compare to us. I agree with Nialler though, watching JC's 21's is a slog and unnecessarily so. I won't forgive him for ceeding all initiative to Israel in that 2nd leg. We did the same v's Sweden and smashed & grabbed the win, but the same negative approach ran aground in Israel. Still, I expect he'll try it again in this campaign, likely to our detriment.

Fozz wrote: Banana_RepublicFC wrote: The two best Norway U21 talents are probably Kristian Arnstad (19, Anderlecht) and Oscar Bobb (19, Man City). Cheers.  One lad a PL2 talent, and the other a semi-regular for Anderlecht. A chance Arnstad gets upped to their seniors. So who are our best prospects? Sure, Ferguson, but he's gone up. Hodge then, I'd say, but he may get promoted out of this squad. Then we're looking at the likes of Cannon, Odubeko, Armstrong, Costelloe and Garcia-McNulty who would be playing regular enough men's football. Or some at least. Others like Adaramola, Lawal, OkoFlex, Moran, O'Neill, Ebosele, Roughan etc. could be decent (and we have high hopes for some, Moran especially) but don't play senior football as yet, so we can call them mostly untested. Then again, I'd expect Norway's squad to be full of the same type of player. Looking at Greenie's list of potential squad members, we should not be fearing anyone in this competition bar Italy, who we'll again be lucky to get anything from, as they seem a league above us at this level consistently.

Roughan is regular at Lincoln City, can see Cannon developing fast and promoted to seniors before campaign out, above parrot in pecking order at PNE. Wouldn’t surprised see Parrot back in U21s if Obafemi, Ferguson, Connolly hit run of form rest of season

PaddyMaddenIsCounty! wrote: Roughan is regular at Lincoln City, can see Cannon developing fast and promoted to seniors before campaign out, above parrot in pecking order at PNE. Wouldn’t surprised see Parrot back in U21s if Obafemi, Ferguson, Connolly hit run of form rest of season

Edited by Fozz - 02 Feb 2023 at 1:12pm

kevin100 wrote: Zero chance Parrott won’t be in the senior squad on merit or not. Obafemi Ferguson Robinson Ogbene Parrott I suspect will be the 5!  Also little indication that Cannon is ahead of Parrott yet. In 6/7 games time if he’s still starting ahead of Parrott fair enough! Troy couldn’t play last weekend and is only back from injury.

Wouldn’t be so sure, Kenny not afraid drop players. Back to topic of U21s I do feel if parrot doesn’t add goals to his game at championship level he will be overtook and back with under 21s. He has achieved nothing at championship level. He is a good League One player trying to step to championship. Done nothing to make him undropable or indispensable at senior level. Can see him back with U21s for start of campaign.