I hope he's right.

https://www.the42.ie/mipo-odubeko-5331631-Jan2021/" rel="nofollow - https://www.the42.ie/mipo-odubeko-5331631-Jan2021/

I'd argue that many elite athletes have an 'attitude problem' as they need to be different to the rest of us to get where they are going.
As a striker, he needs to be selfish, greedy and self-centered. More power to him if it gets him to the top.

What are guy basing that on? 

Fair enough and I'm not doubting your story but to make it as a pro in a PL team means he must be doing something right.  Bad attitude or not.

I think we should reserve judgments to when we see him on the pitch.
And, hopefully, in an Ireland jersey if he's good enough.

Did you see him play in the DDSL? If so, was he the standout player at his age group? It’s weird that he sort of flew under the radar a bit but maybe there was lots of talk about him but I wasn’t aware of it. 

My humorous mood.

As his names not Murphy.

👍

Basically he could play for England once he has been there for five years - possibly he has been there that long already. 

We just need to call him up to the next under 21 squad, show that we're keen to keep him and hope for the best.

Definitely this.

We may have U21 games in March but if not, the next window is not until next season.

We should find out next week after the draw.

Doesn't really matter what his underage coach a half-decade ago thinks, unfortunately. If you asked me am I confident about pulling tonight, I'd respond with an emphatic yes despite going home alone 99 times out of a 100.

We'll find out in a few months where his head is at, but all the signs are pointing towards another Okoflex situation.

Those are very poor riding stats . If you’re heading out once a week on average, that equates to getting your hole every second year. Pull your socks up son.

What signs?

Do you believe this in every case regarding black Irish men?  

I said the same thing about Grealish and Rice and I'd say the same thing about Hodge and Okoflex. It has nothing to do with race and it's really crass and tacky when people bring that up in an effort to shut down conversation about dual-eligible footballers. Maybe you're obsessed with people's skin colour but I'm not. Personally I'd argue that for a nation that loves to claim every person with a drop of Irish blood as Irish, we have this weird thing about ignoring the African lineage of lads like Ogbene, Okoflex and Odubeko, as if the possibility of them not feeling 100% Irish is completely out of the question simply because they were born or spent 10 or 11 years of their life here - ignoring the fact some of them [Odubeko] have spent their formative teenage years in England. God knows if we had an English-born player move to Carlow when he was 12, lads would be jumping on the possibility of him playing for us.

And how do you apply that rule to the English born lads who have worn green  ?   Out of interest 

He's Irish born, of Nigerian parents who possibly has an England option through having grown up there plenty too. He's whatever he says he is. His life and parentage have given him career options and that's that. Whether we like it or not. Hopefully he goes green.

Harry Kane turn them down?

And why wouldn't they?

Rice - English born

Hodge - English born 

Grealish - English born

Odubeko - born and raised in Dublin, hardly the same, albeit I do agree on your point about the contradiction about us claiming second generation lads and ignoring it for these lads. 

The vast majority won't be eligible for them.

Why not?

In this case, his parents are from Nigeria.

Their disadvantage is that their international calendar conflicts with the domestic calendar for players based in Europe. I guess that’s not appealing for young players who are starting their careers.

Because the vast majority of "non Nigerian born player" won't be eligible for Nigeria. Basic demographics.

Any Irish born lad with Nigerian parents have opted to play for us. You really can’t knock them. 

I’d be far more understanding of them opting to play for Nigeria as they would be raised to have real loyalty to their own roots then I would the likes of Will Keane Dan Crowley Declan Rice etc who played for us dumped us and in the former 2s cases came running back when they realised they weren’t playing for England. That’s charlatan behaviour.

I think a lot of us are paranoid over the Rice/Grealish situation but you can’t use that as a stick to beat other lads with. 

Obafemi suffered from that with Martin O’Neill making such a big deal of it Obafemi and his agent had to come out with statements declaring they were desperate to play for Ireland. 

There’s an element of that with Smallbone too despite him saying specifically his target was to break through further for Southampton and hopefully with that following Shane and Micheál into the international team. What more can you ask of him. 

I suspect a few of the lads of African background might like to do it, but the practicalities of it make it difficult in terms of travel, match timings and so on. Also, while we knock the FAI, I'd say some of the African associations probably make our lads look like Liverpool or  Man City in terms of organisational structure and professionalism in comparison.

The reality is that while becoming English increases a player's value and potential income, becoming an international for an African nation probably has the opposite effect.

The main issue with Irish born players with two overseas born parents is always the risk that they will move abroad without becoming as attached to their country of birth as players with one or more Irish born parents might. We have already seen this with Dennis Cirkin, who appears to have no interest at all in representing us, it will be England or, maybe more likely, Latvia for him.

And one could be forgiven for wondering how baseless speculation perpetuates in these circumstances. Afolabi couldn't have been clearer in his words: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the42.ie/jonathan-afolabi-interview-4698504-Jun2019/%3famp=1

With due respect to the three lads, I think it is ambitious of any of them to be talking about International football.  And I am not suggesting they are but likely being asked by journalists or whomever so need to produce some sort of answer, that then goes on to be over-analysed by fans.

All have shown glimpses of quality at various stages but none are doing much to suggest they would be selected for an International team like Ireland or, less so, a Nigeria.

I'd be delighted if all three turned out to be excellent pros, moved up the leagues and went on to represent us in any meaningful way, but I'd be surprised if any were to.  As surprised as if the likes of Curtis, Harness, Sykes, Sadlier and even Cassidy etc. were to do the same.  I mean players in that 'League 1' quality bracket, for want of a better description.

I'm as excited (more so!) as the next lad for the future with what seems to be a conveyor belt of talent coming through the ages but as we have seen on so many occasions, most won't make the grade as a regular senior Irish Internationals as that grade is simply exceptionally hard to achieve.

Back to Mipu, now this lad is knocking on the door of a decent PL team having had a good time at a top academy, so we're looking at a different creature here.

Am very excited about his prospects.

At the moment he’s potentially a different creature yes. Randolph, Stevens Egan Doherty Hourihane all examples of players who cut their teeth in League 1 Scottish League, League 2 as youngsters. Having a nice volume of young lads 21 and under down those divisions is a positive and you’d be optimistic some of them will crack on up through them. 

As for Odubeko if he can get his senior PL debut before the end of the seasons thats 5 Irish teenage attackers that have gotten top flight minutes in the space of 2 years. That is hugely encouraging even if the other 4 it hasn’t gone completely to plan since.

For sure, and I'm not knocking any of these guys.

And every chance of late-bloomers but we're all looking for quick-developers!

Where to start...

Rice was a Granny-ruler so had weak connections to Ireland at best.

It was the good work of the FAI that had him in our setup.
When he bloomed it was then the FA came knocking.  As an English lad, it was an understandable choice he made.

Mipu is an Irish lad born and raised here.

He has Nigerian parents.  And he has yet to get anywhere near blooming - Rice was a PL regular when his switch was made.  Mipu is an U23 player with a couple of minutes of senior football to his name.

To suggest he will pull out of a potential March U21's squad is spiteful and unwarranted.

Now if he does indeed do that, that's fine and we should draw a line under him until he were to come to us, and not go chasing to the ends of the earth.  There is zero to suggest that would be the case so ease off the hyperbolic speculation.

You are indeed correct.

I just didn't look it up and was a bit early to make a stab at Odubeko!

Cheers for correcting.

Yes and spent many childhood summers here. Said as much himself in interview in Fota with FAI at times of first call up. His family's pride re Irish lineage was genuine.

Would be good to see Mipo get some time off the bench 

If Odubeko f**ks off to England for international football so to speak I wouldn’t be blaming Rice. Why wouldn’t Randolph be in his ear by that logic or Coventry and Coventry part of 23s squads 😂

 

 That’s brilliant.

King_Kenny wrote:  rice will be in his ear no doubt if he does make a breakthrough.

Aye, I'm sure Conor Coventry and Mipo Odubeko's international allegiances keep Declan Rice up all night.

Get you back to deadline day and get the info in a bit earlier. Your a poor mans oshea!

Be surprised if he started but a showing off the bench seems a reasonable bet.

Not all his fault to be fair.

No.

But I laugh at your man Irish football fan tv saying that he has looked tidy so far  

But I agree with McG that he's been a passenger so far but not really his fault. West ham are not really showing any ambition going forward.

I'd say Connolly is far and away our best forward option at the moment but the distance between connolly and the 2nd and 3rd best forward option is a frightening gap.

Fair to say that unless we see some incredible turnaround Idah and Parrott are not really options 

Its the sound of Parrots career passing him by.

Randolph said that he’s “already been in there” when someone told him to have a word with Mipo about representing Ireland.

I think we could try and find things to be positive about, but there was no hold up play, few headers won, little positional sense. Very, very poor really.

He barely moved.

Wasn’t his debut.

Haven't been watching it that closely though, its on in the background

Be grand.