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Two salient points made this summer by Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny may have slipped under the radar.
“Over the next few years there will be a really strong cohort of players coming through and for the next European Championships a lot of them will have 10 or 15 caps under their belt,” he assured an understanding and patient media. “The Irish public will identify with these players and when they are successful, there will be a great connection there I feel.”
Kenny also defended the 16 debuts he handed out since unceremoniously replacing Mick McCarthy in April 2020 by insisting that the senior Ireland team has had “absolutely no development for about eight or nine years” and that “nobody is really looking at that”.
Well, clearly, he is.
Kenny has been forced to pick the players he believes are good enough to play international football rather than their form demanding inclusion. Playing regularly at club level has become a welcome bonus as it is increasingly apparent that being Irish and attached to an English team is an achievement in itself. Similar to reaching an Olympic final only to be blown out on the back straight.
The Premier League transfer deadline – 11pm on August 31st – has created uncertainty for an alarming number of Irish men who should be laser focused on denying Cristiano Ronaldo his world record 110th international goal at Estádio Algarve the next day.
September’s World Cup qualifier window also welcomes 50,000 supporters back to the Aviva stadium when Kenny’s team face Azerbaijan and Serbia. This is when the public will either identify with these players or switch off.
What’s certain over the next month is far too many important players will lack job security.
James McClean, for example, could be sold by Stoke City before Michael O’Neill’s side open their campaign at home to Reading this afternoon. The former Northern Ireland manager left McClean out of a recent training camp in Belfast while his squad number for this season has been changed from 11 to 30.
“Tell ye something for free,” McClean posted on Instagram last month, “there’s no quit in me, never have been, never will be.”
Maybe Celtic will come in for the 32-yea- old as they did for James McCarthy.

St Mirren’s Jamie McGrath, seen here tackling Scott Pittman of Livingston, is on the radar of a number of Championship clubs. Photograph: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images


The list of Irish players being sold, released and loaned by Premier League and Championship clubs is guaranteed to continue with, for example, Shane Long’s days at Southampton appearing to be numbered.
Goals can always alter the 34-year-old’s situation. If the veteran Tipperary striker suddenly adds to his 27 goals in 185 appearances at St Mary’s, manager Ralph Hasenhüttl might keep him on the wage bill.
Another Southampton centre forward, Dubliner Michael Obafemi, is seemingly available for a cool £6 million. Blackburn Rovers have apparently shied away from the asking price. The 21-year-old Obafemi has been hampered by hamstring injuries which, Kenny stated, ruled him out of consideration for recent squads.
Mipo Odubeko is another Dublin-born striker of Nigerian parentage who possesses all the raw materials to make it at West Ham. The 18-year-old is weighing up his options, having repeatedly rejected recent call ups to Jim Crawford’s Ireland under-21 squad.
Ideally, Adam Idah at Norwich City or Brighton’s Aaron Connolly – fresh from a summer of inadvertent Love Island headlines – or whoever starts rattling the net will find a way into Kenny’s starting XI.
Nobody seems safe anymore. Any one of these strikers could end up dropping to a lower league, perhaps even being forced to the third tier of English football like current Ireland starters Gavin Bazunu (Manchester City) and Troy Parrott (Tottenham Hotspur), who are young enough to embrace League One exposure at Portsmouth and MK Dons respectively.
Club standards might be completely ignored if Kenny decides to shape Ireland’s attack around the 19-year-old Parrott, as reward for the priceless brace he scored against Andorra in June.
Loan moves are currently the life blood of the national squad. The group Kenny selects in September will include plenty of asterisks.
Take Shane Duffy. A miserable loan season at Celtic has the 29-year-old back at Brighton & Hove Albion but manager Graham Potter refused this week to give the Derry giant his stamp of approval.
“We know Shane, we know his qualities, we know what he brings,” said Potter. “He came back and has worked really hard . . . and he has played well. There are no plans at the moment.”

Ireland midfielder Gavin Kilkenny in action against Milton Keynes Dons’ David Kasumu (left) and Charlie Brown during the Carabao Cup first-round match at the Vitality Stadium. Photograph: Kieran Cleeves/PA Wire


Injuries to other centre halves might gift Duffy a few months of Premier League action and allow Kenny to stick to the same defensive triumvirate, beside Sheffield United’s John Egan and West Brom’s Dara O’Shea, that held firm against Hungary in June.
The 49-year-old and his assistant Keith Andrews are expected to visit plenty of dusty old grounds in the coming weeks, possibly starting last night at Dean Court as West Brom’s Callum Robinson and O’Shea travelled to Bournemouth, where Mark Travers and Gavin Kilkenny would have been worth seeing.
Sheffield United and Egan open their campaign at home to Birmingham City. Unfortunately, Enda Stevens is still injured but United is one of several Championship sides trying to pry Jamie McGrath, who Kenny shaped Dundalk’s attack around for two seasons, away from St Mirren.
Another option is Ashton Gate to watch Callum O’Dowda as Bristol City host Richard Keogh’s Blackpool. Or Preston North End’s five strong Irish contingent – including Alan Browne and Seán Maguire – against Hull City, although Seán McLoughlin is ruled out with illness.
League One will also become intimately familiar to the Irish management this winter – presuming they still have jobs in November – after encouraging performances from Parrott, Bazunu, Chiedozie Ogbene (Rotherham United) and Daryl Horgan (Wycombe Wanderers) in a green jersey. He may even, for old time’s sake, take in a Tuesday night at Cambridge United or Sunderland, where ageing tricksters Wes Hoolahan and Aiden McGeady are seeing out their careers many miles from the madding crowds.
Injuries continue to dog Robbie Brady as the 29-year-old rehabs an Achilles problem, suffered against Qatar last March, having been released by Burnley.
“I’ve a few offers,” Brady told the Irish Examiner, “but I’ll take my time in coming to the right decision. Things can change very quickly.”
McCarthy can attest, having just signed a four-year-deal with his boyhood club. Now all the Glaswegian needs is some luck. Same goes for Brady, McClean, Duffy, Long, and Parrott too. There will be no “great connection” without it.
Irish in the English Championship
PRESTON NORTH END Alan Browne Position: Midfield Age: 26 Caps: 14
Seán Maguire Position: Centre back Age: 27 Caps: 12
Adam O’Reilly Position: Midfield Age: 20 Caps: 0
Greg Cunningham Position: Defender Age: 30 Caps: 4 Joe Rafferty Position: Defender Age: 27 Caps : 0
SHEFFIELD UNITED David McGoldrick Position: Striker Age: 33 Caps: 14
Enda Stevens Position: Left back Age: 31 Caps: 21
John Egan Position: Centre back Age: 28 Caps: 14
BOURNEMOUTH Mark Travers Position: Goalkeeper Age: 22 Caps: 3
Gavin Kilkenny Position: Midfield Age: 21 Caps: 0 Ben Greenwood Position: Left back Age: 18 Caps: 0
STOKE CITY James McClean Position: Winger Age: 32 Caps: 80
Jack Bonham Position: Goalkeeper Age: 27 Caps: 0
PETERBOROUGH UNITED Jack Taylor Position: Midfield Age: 23 Caps: 0
Sam Szmodics Position: Midfield Age: 25 Caps: 0 QPR Jimmy Dunne Position: Centre back Age: 23 Caps: 0
Conor Masterson Position: Centre back Age: 22 Caps: 0
MILLWALL Alex Pearce Position: Centre back Age: 32 Caps: 7 Danny McNamara Position: Right back Age: 22 Caps: 0 WEST BROM Dara O’Shea Position: Defender Age: 22 Caps: 8
Callum Robinson Position: Forward Age: 26 Caps: 18
CARDIFF CITY Mark McGuinness Position: Centre back Age: 20 Caps: 0 James Collins Position: Striker Age: 30 Caps: 10
NOTTINGHAM FOREST Harry Arter Position: Midfield Age: 31 Caps: 18
FULHAM Cyrus Christie Position: Right back Age: 28 Caps: 28
BRISTOL CITY Callum O’Dowda Position: Left winger Age: 26 Caps: 23
BLACKPOOL Richard Keogh Position: Centre back Age: 34 Caps: 26
BIRMINGHAM CITY Scott Hogan Position: Striker, winger Age: 29 Caps: 8
BLACKBURN ROVERS Darragh Lenihan Position: Defender Age: 27 Caps: 2 HULL CITY Seán McLoughlin Position: Centre back Age: 24 Caps: 0
COVENTRY CITY Jordan Shipley Position: Midfield Age: 23 Caps: 0
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN Danny Grant Position: Forwar Age: 21 Caps: 0
DERBY COUNTY Jason Knight Position: Midfield Age: 20 Caps: 7
LUTON TOWN Glen Rea Position: Midfield/defender Age: 26 Caps: 0 SWANSEA CITY Ryan Manning Position: Left back Age: 25 Caps: 4