Few green shoots: Irish footballers’ midterm report card

Stephen Kenny called up 40 players for Ireland international duty in 2020 but there’s more bad news than good from Irish football’s mid-season report card

IT’S A NEW YEAR but with few reasons to cheer for Stephen Kenny. The Republic of Ireland manager last night lost a second member of his backroom team, with Damien Duff quickly following his goalkeeping coach Alan Kelly out the door, while on the field there have been few displays in recent months from his playing staff to set his pulse racing. A travel ban between this country and England means that, even if he wanted to, cross-channel trips for scouting purposes are off the agenda, and a pre-Christmas stint in England, where the Ireland manager managed to get to three games in a five-day spell, will have to do for now.

Kenny called on 40 players in the games played by Ireland in 2020, but the list is a Top 40 without a hit, without an obvious No 1, more players on the slide than on the rise and if the Premier League finished with the current standings, four members of his current squad would drop into the second tier.

The Premier League is fallow ground for Kenny most weeks. Yes, 21 players eligible for the Republic have played in the Premier League already this season, which is the same tally as the entire campaign last season, with half of the term yet to play so that number could increase by season’s end, but in terms of actual activity it’s slim pickings as only nine Irishmen have played for their Premier League clubs so far this month.

Of the starting XI from Ireland’s final international of a dismal 2020, a 0-0 draw with Bulgaria, only one player (Dara O’Shea) can be seen as a Premier League regular.

Relief

The arrival of the FA Cup this weekend will offer some relief, some sightings of lesser-seen Irishmen: Darren Randolph will play for West Ham on Monday night (and the Hammers could also add Dublin-born attacker Ademipo Odubeko, a highly-rated former Manchester United trainee, to the first team squad if David Moyes is brave).

Liverpool’s Caoimhín Kelleher made his fourth appearance of the season for the Reds in last night’s tie against Aston Villa.

Ciaran Clark and Jeff Hendrick could get some action for Newcastle against Arsenal, and Clark’s revival in the Magpies side is one of the rare good news stories for Kenny and or Irish football from the last two months of the Premier League.

Too many of the players available to Kenny are simply out of favour and out of sorts in the Premier League, with the likes of Conor Hourihane, Jeff Hendrick, Shane Long, James McCarthy watching from the bench most weeks, while younger prospects like Jimmy Dunne and Michael Obafemi have been shunted down the pecking order, and Jayson Molumby pushed out on loan from the top flight.

And unlike last season, when the trio of Adam Idah, Troy Parrott and Aaron Connolly popped their heads up in the Premier League at this stage of the campaign, none of the younger Irish have bridged that gap this season, bar

Dara O’Shea’s regular presence in a relegation-haunted West Brom side.

The really big concern is over the worrying slide in the form, and career, of Shane Duffy. Loaned out by Brighton to Celtic, Duffy was at the heart of a Bhoys defence which leaked goals, though it carried on leaking them after Duffy was dropped.

When moving to Parkhead, Duffy would have relished the challenge of an Old Firm derby but when that came last month, Duffy’s only contribution was off the bench in a loss. A Champions League tilt with Celtic was never even close.

Even a mid-season break offered no respite for Duffy, who left Celtic’s controversial warm-weather training camp in Dubai earlier this week and returned home for personal reasons. Brighton have said they have no plans to recall Duffy early from his season-long loan but with their European campaign over and the Scottish league title looking like a lost cause, the second half of the season is unappealing, whether Duffy plays for the Bhoys again, and his career needs a reboot.

Here’s how the 40 players called up by Kenny are faring.

ON THE UP: Ciaran Clark, Aaron Connolly, Dara O’Shea, Jason Knight

IT’S NOT all grim and there are some