Dual-qualified, but unlikely to defect, having initially played for England in two underage friendlies.  Took the brave decision to play for one of Slovakia's best teams on loan, DAC Streda, helping them to a Europa League spot and playing alongside senior Slovakian and Hungarian internationals.  Wolves have moved to tie him down for another two years. I wouldn't be surprised to see him go on loan on the continent again, possibly to the Erddivisie or similar. 

He's one you could see Stephen Kenny bringing up to the senior team with him in 18 months time.  One of the most creative players we have available for selection at any level, though may need to develop physically a bit more to be considered seriously at senior level.  

Here's a good article on him:

https://www.the42.ie/connor-ronan-interview-4659593-May2019/?utm_source=shortlink" rel="nofollow - https://www.the42.ie/connor-ronan-interview-4659593-May2019/?utm_source=shortlink

I doubt Kenny would have the same apparent reluctance as Mick to calling up players playing in perceived "weaker" leagues in Europe, so playing away from England may not hurt his chances of a senior call-up, provided he is playing well.

Banjaxed wrote: The main advantage that kenny's going to have when he comes in is he genuinely will be part of a rebuilding project. And he'll have a group c Nations League to do with into which is fairly handy.

Perhaps. I'd imagine they'll be seeded in terms of where teams finished the season before hand

i.e Relegated teams from league above will be 1st seeds

Teams who finished 2nd would be 2nd,

3rd would be 3rd *

and promoted teams from leagues below would be 4th seeds

that would mean

Slovakia, Turkey, Northern Ireland, Rep of Ireland

Israel, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania

Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Georgia*

*One 3rd place team were relegated so the best placed promoted team takes this place

Belarus, Kosovo, Macedonia

Romania- A talented young team can be hot or cold on their day but would provide a stern test

Georgia - More in a sense we always seem to draw them. Montenegro would be another tough team should we draw them.

Kosovo- A bit of an unknown really as an emerging nations their ranking probably doesn't do them justice

Bulgaria- mostly on the fact they are the lowest ranked them in UEFA Rankings from the pot will still be a difficult trip

Albania-Between Albania and Greece, The Greeks are going through a bit of a lull but I'd still be wary of them and would prefer Albania over them.

Belarus- More down to I'd rather them over Kosovo or Macedonia though a tough trip The North needed late goals to beat them in Euro qualifying

Either way some cracking trips

He's been flying since he went there: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  

Must be a contender for a call-up in September (at least the friendly) given the amount of football he's playing and his star turn in Toulon.

https://www.flashscore.com/match/QJH23alE/#video" rel="nofollow - https://www.flashscore.com/match/QJH23alE/#video

Read this excellent interview on The42 with a specialist in player development. Very interesting stuff

Got me thinking about Ronan, and the loan choice that Wolves made here. Can’t help but think they have a lot of faith in him as a player and are just looking for the right way to develop physically.

https://twitter.com/DAC_1904/status/1161567375952625664" rel="nofollow - https://twitter.com/DAC_1904/status/1161567375952625664

Yeah sure is

Kenny will be delighted to have him back for the Italy game. 

Nice shot which could have seen a goal had Parrott or Idah been a little sharper on the follow-up of the keeper's parry.

Could make a decent career for himself in a good European league though, maybe somewhere like the Eredivisie. 

I think he's a good player so hopefully can find games.

Now CC has a loan we can hope he gets good minutes in for the rest of the season.

Really hope Ronan gets likewise somewhere up from the Slovakian league.

League 1?? I think we can safely say that's is career over. He'll never amount to anything.....

That's how it works around here - Right??!!

Must keep an eye out and see how he gets on - Has impressed me also with the bits of seen of him. 

It would have been a bit of a disaster had he just stayed at wolves for the rest of the season. Now he's going to get that all important competitive experience for a lad his age.

A type of player we rarely have and I'm curious to see where the new season finds him.

We also lack such a #10 in the senior squad (I know we may have Byrne and do like him as a player but far from proven) and I'd love to think Ronan could get a decent loan (Champ level or on the continent) that could put him into contention for a senior call-up, sooner rather than later.

If he stuck in the Wolves reserves, or loaned to L1 again, then you have to imagine he's no better an option that Byrne.

I can see Ronan making it (full international and possible Premier League player) but may have to take the long route like Wes. Spell in Slovakia restored some confidence and Blackpool stint was better than Portsmouth and Walsall loans. 

I think he's a cracking player and want to see him do well. 

What's the problem?  He hasn't at International level or a level approaching it.
Neither has Ronan so this is not a dig at Byrne who'd I'd love to see push on, but playing LOI is not pushing on, regardless of how much we'd like it to be.

I'm happy to see Byrne in the squad and even get game-time as he brings something different, but to  suggest he is anything but unproven at this level is farcical.

Saw that and was abut to comment.

Good news and I hope he is fit as he's a massive talent at U21 level for us.

Onwards and upwards I hope.

Shame thought as he was getting regular games.
Hopefully he recovers fast (didn't think a metatarsel was 4-5 months?) and can get going somewhere better than Swiss Div 2 next season.

Slovakian 1st division, Swiss 2nd division, little impression made at several clubs down the divisions in England.

He's 23 years old. He'd want to kick on if he's going to achieve what Irish fans thought him capable of.

Comparisons to late starters like Wes could be made. But Wes pretty much hit the ground running straight away when he did move to England. So not totally valid.

I'm not losing sleep anyway. He'd be England's if he was tearing it up at Wolves.

Wes didn’t even hit the ground running at Norwich. Still hoping he’ll be a late developer, Wolves evidently hoping the same. He’s nowhere near our squad right now though.

5 months is a long time for a metatarsal, no?

As said, at 23 you get a clearer picture as to where players are and he's likely going to be released at Wolves.

I would say league1 could be his level but I'd be very happy to be proved wrong.

I think he'll have a decent enough career and maybe win a few caps, but there's little so far to suggest that he'll ever be an important player for us.

Terrible luck.

Grasshopper won the Swiss 2nd Div tonight in his absence.

Wouldnt be the worst move to see him go back there next season in the top flight.

Had he stayed, and but for his injury, you might expect him to have continued in that role for Grasshoppers this season in their Premier League - not a bad standard, given results in Europe and a smattering of their players at Euro 2020 and throughout other national squads. 

Any time he played for Kenny's U21s a couple of years back, you could see his quality.

He should get over the metatarsal injury soon enough and hopefully get a loan back to Grasshoppers or similar.  

His future may not lie immediately in the PL with Wolves.  However, that's unsurprising given how difficult it is for young players to break through now.  A better model is Josh Cullen going to Anderlecht before being seriously considered as an Ireland regular. 

I'd be hopeful of Ronan continuing in the same vein when he's over his injury, and becoming a senior international in the next few years - in a position where we badly need players.  

Has signed for St. Mirren on loan.

Is he the contingency plan Jim Goodwin was referring to when discussing the possible sale of Jamie McGrath?

He did.

Have you considered detective as a career   ?

Not before now but you may be onto something!

McGrath is in Portugal with the team tonight, I doubt he's on the move unless a serious offer has come in all of a sudden as the likes of Hourihane stayed behind to sort out his move with Randolph being left out to sort his.

I dont follow St Mirren or Scottish football all that closely but does McGrath not play mostly out wide for them? Livescore usually have him wide right and I know from his time at Dundalk he played there a lot.

Is it fair to say he's not anywhere near a senior call? I haven't heard how he got on at grasshopper

Looked to have got very well, their fans seemed to have rated him anyway from what I read on Twitter during games and he played in 30 of 32 games he was available for. Missed their last 2 games having fractured his metatarsal though. Think hes still out with it for another few weeks.

They walked the league and he played a big part in it. I was hoping he'd go back there & play Swiss top flight. 

But it seems like his loans are getting worse each time. Blackpool would have been League 1 at the time, then the Swiss second division, albeit a well known club. Now one of the weaker SPL sides. I'd say he'll do well again, but he doesn't seem to be progressing in the game.

Any way we can blame Stephen Kenny for it? 

Just like he’s to blame for dropping Randolph & not contacting him…. Gotcha 

I think I was fairly clear regarding Randolph when I posted:

Nice contribution to the discussion there. Thanks for that.

Starts today for St Mirren along side McGrath.

looks like McGrath on the right with Ronan in the middle.

How did the game go for both of them, anyone know?

The odd thing for me about Conor Ronan is getting used to a player who has two first names..

Or two surnames

If Flynn Clarke ever declares for us we could arrange some kind of swap deal between them.

Half the st mirren outfield are irish which good to see.

Call him up for the Qatar game sure.

Fair play to him by going to St Mirren, playing week in week out - he'll soon reap the benefits of this.

If we're to attempt the 3-4-3 / 3-4-2-1 shape again as we did with Idah, Connolly and Parrott vs Azerbijan Id really like to see it with McGrath and Ronan as the 2 in the hole behind the striker as they were playing today. Really looked like it could work, they've a good understanding of one another and how to pick those key passes out.

Great to see him progressing and Kenny is a big fan!

Been waiting patiently for Ronan to kick on. In fairness to him, he went out to Europe to get 1st team football which appears to be paying off. A classic no. 10 that we need

This is good. 

In terms of potential new call ups, how do we see the list of players looking in terms of most likely/deserving. 

Kilkenny 

Ronan

Obafemi

Keane 

Coventry

Taylor 

Scully 

Szmodics 

Kilkenny, Taylor/Ronan, Scully, Keane, Szmodics, Coventry, Obafemi

In that order based of most deserving.

It's going to be hard integrating all these lads into squads when we already have Cullen, Hendrick, Knight, Browne and McGrath all deserving of a squad place on merit, not to mention Molumby on a run of form and potentially Brady and McCarthy to come back.

I don't think Coventry is likely to come into the senior discussion because he hasn't proved anything at club level yet and his performances at U21 level have been mediocre.

That aside, Molumby looked very good for a season at Millwall and hasn't made the step up to Intl football comfortably, and has struggled subsequently at Preston, so I wouldn't be getting wet about Ronan having a couple of good games and Taylor scoring a cracker just yet.

For all the criticism Harry Arter gets now, he used to be the heir apparent just because he happened to be in a team that got promoted, before getting found out at this level. Daniel Crowley's performances at Birmingham supposedly warranted a call up yet he's found himself barely earning a move to a poor League One team after being cast adrift at both Birmingham and Hull.

I, for one, will be exercising caution about these lads until they do it on a sustained basis.

Yes, no other way around it.

Going to be pretty upset if Arter is in the next squad and these lads aren't.

Don't think anyone is suggesting all these players get called up.

Just that they are in the next pool of players we can potentially look at.
And yes, of course, for every one we call in, we drop someone.

I'd say drop Arter for Kilkenny to start.

Taylor would be next and Hourihane can go to accomodate him.

I don't believe either of these changes would weaken our squad as both dropped lads were hardly getting minutes anyway.

Ronan would be next for me and we could look at dropping Horgan there.
Both himself and Taylor are a few years older than the rest and being 23/24 is a big difference in football terms to being 20.

So it's far from fantasy stuff to look at such changes at the periphery of the squad for the next window and we can look deeper again come March (Smallbone hopefully back fully fit and playing in the PL should then be considered ahead of Molumby or Browne).

Almost forgot that O'Neill used to do that. So annoying! Basically every fit Irish player was named in the initial squad and killed excitement for a squad announcement. 

Whatever about Molumby's impact for us, Browne deserves a bit more credit for performances like the ones against Slovakia and Serbia. He adds the same kind of drive and impetus people think we miss and need.

A more pragmatic option off the bench than any of the uncapped, if he can continue his run of games at Preston to build up his fitness.

Starting combinations are essential though. A Ronan and McGrath might be unnecessary. A McGrath and Ogbene might make more sense. 

Anyway, it's a bit more flexible is my point. Which means that lads need to start kicking on and sticking their heads above the parapet!