Irish Premier League Players 18/19 Season

Rob Elliot  32 (Newcastle United) 52

Brian Murphy 35 (Cardiff City) 0

Seamus Coleman 29 (Everton) 219

Stephen Ward 33 (Burnley) 169

Ciaran Clark 28 (Newcastle United) 155

Shane Duffy 26 (Brighton & Hove Albion) 43

Declan Rice 19 (West Ham United) 28

Kevin Long 28 (Burnley) 20

Gregory Cunningham 27 (Cardiff City) 2

Matt Doherty 26 (Wolverhampton Wanderers) 2

Cyrus Christie 25 (Fulham) 1

James McCarthy 28 (Everton) 222

Harry Arter 28 (Cardiff City) 69

Jeff Hendrick 26 (Burnley) 67

Shane Long 31 (Southampton) 268

Jonathan Walters 34 (Burnley) 233

Anthony Pilkington 30 (Cardiff City) 75

Josh Cullen 22 (West Ham United) 3

Richie Towell 27 (Brighton & Hove Albion) 0

Connor Ronan 20 (Wolverhampton Wanderers) 0

Joe Mason 27 (Wolverhampton Wanderers) 0

Just noticed that too.

Horrific.

A rather scary looking list. 

Coleman, Duffy, Ward are the only cast iron certainties for a 1st team place, Arter might also make that list. 

2 keepers are 3rd choice- no games unless league cup or injury crisis.

Some will play in the majority of games, like Hendrick, probably Brady when he returns from injury & possibly Declan Rice if things go well for him. 

Others have the place at the moment, but face competition at their clubs, and it could go either way as regards them staying in team or not. Clark from Fernandez, Christie from Fosu-Mensah, Doherty possibly from Traore. Of those, Clark might not be too bad, he's the reserve left back as well as they don't have anyone other than Dummett there, he should finish the season with a respectable amount of games even if he loses the first team place. I think the other 2 will sink or swim & wouldn't be putting much money on either outcome. 

McCarthy is a bit of an unknown, I think he could well get back in to Everton's first team (and ours) but they signed a good few midfielders & he also has to prove fitness/fully recover from injury first, it could be a long way back. 

Cunningham probably won't start in a back 3, but will start if that changes to a back 4- hard to know there, but he will get a chance as Cardiff will likely rack up a few defeats. 

Walters, Kevin Long & Shane Long start the season as subs, and unless there are injuries or a serious run of form from any of them, face difficulty in getting into first teams on a regular basis. 

Cullen might play in a few league cup games & make a few sub appearances, it's probably realistically as much as we can expect. 

The rest aren't a factor at the moment, as mentioned by OShea, they will have to go to the championship & get games there before they come in to any contention. Very hard to be overly optimistic looking at that list, we have plenty championship players to further fill out a squad, but very few who might actually make a difference. The only thing those lads have going for them is the 50 game season in the championship, so if they are in any kind of form at all, most will get a chance at some point. 

And allegedly Jeff Hendrick got the assist on the goal. Game wasn't televised so who knows what it looked like.