Ireland's next big hope?

Oranage2

So a spin off of the other thread.

Who are/were the Irish players who never quite lived up to the hype? So that come to mind are:

Anthony Stokes, very promising as an arsenal youth player, even went to Scotland and scored 3 hatricks in a row, but it never really happened for him.

Steven Ireland - had an amazing season for city and all of a sudden he had a melt down and seem.to lose his footballing ability.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Joe Lapira.

POKERKING

Jack Byrne......cant get a game for Wigan in league 1, has barely played since his stint in Holland.

Willo Flood was always one for me, defo thought he was the right sided version of Daman Duff.

Richie Partridge i had high hopes for not sure what went wrong

pjohnson

Terry Dixon.

Richard Hillman

Conor Clifford.

GLaDOS

James McCarthy

Howard the Duck

Patrick Dillion. Went from Shels to Dundee Utd but never quiet reached his full potential. Still there and scores about 15 goals a season. Of course all of this is happening in my current Football Manager save and he's a regen.

Nerdlingr

Mark Kennedy - most expensive teenager in English football at one stage.

TheCitizen

GLaDOS wrote: »

James McCarthy

Don't think you could describe him as a write off. He has played well on occasions for Ireland. He has had worrying injury issues over the last 12 to 18 months though. He needs to sort that out or his career will be gone before he knows it.

TheCitizen

That Grealish fella was to be Ireland's next hope then he switches to being England's next hope but ends up being utterly hopeless and no use to anyone. What an absolute clownshoe that boy is.

Arghus

Paul McShane. Was very impressive battling big Jan Koller on his debut(?) back in 2006.

Dunphy waxed poetically afterwards: that should have been enough for us to know the truth.

ERG89

Liam Miller

brilou23

Always thought liam george was gonna be a star but injuries hit.

Unearthly

ERG89 wrote: »

Liam Miller

Beat me to it. Thought he'd be a star

eagle eye

Agent Coulson wrote:

Lots of overpriced players to move this summer and not one of the will have the actually skill value to the transfer value.

Mark Kennedy tops the list and he is mentioned above.

David Connolly is another.

Esse85

Colin Healy
Stephen McPhail

Coillte_Bhoy

ERG89 wrote: »

Liam Miller

Left celtic far too soon for his own good. MON said he would have built the team around him and at the time.

sabat

Kwame Ampadu

Morzadec

Surprised McGeady hasn't been mentioned.

Obviously a good player and a very useful player to have in our squad, but many would have touted him as having the ability to play in a top 6 English side.

Ended up not even being able to cut it at Everton and playing in the Championship.

Not to disparage him, it's still a good career and he's contributed well to Ireland over the years, but I feel like he was a rarity in that he was touted as having the pure attacking class and ability to make it at a really high level.

First one that came to mind for me anyway.

thebaz

going back a bit - but Phil Babb was hailed as the new Paul McGrath - that, didn't last long

brilou23

Dare I say Stephen ireland

Laois_Man

Michael Reddy when at Sunderland around the turn of Millennium was regarded by Peter Reid as the best young player he'd ever worked with - Career destroyed by injury after injury!

Mr.Nice Guy

Morzadec wrote: »

Surprised McGeady hasn't been mentioned.

Obviously a good player and a very useful player to have in our squad, but many would have touted him as having the ability to play in a top 6 English side.

Ended up not even being able to cut it at Everton and playing in the Championship.

Not to disparage him, it's still a good career and he's contributed well to Ireland over the years, but I feel like he was a rarity in that he was touted as having the pure attacking class and ability to make it at a really high level.

First one that came to mind for me anyway.

I think this is unfair.

He has 90 caps for Ireland, he has won titles at Celtic where he was a beloved player, he was named player of the year in Scotland, has gone out of his comfort zone to Russia where he did pretty well, and let's be honest it downplays him to say he is just "playing in the Championship" - he has been one of the better players in the Championship on form over the past twelve months.

I get the argument that he never lived up to the huge expectations people had that he would be a Damien Duff-level talent, but are we really putting the above career in the same bracket as the likes of Liam Miller, Conor Clifford and Jack Byrne?

To me those are players that can be described as having failed to live up to hopes. Don't forget McGeady will likely be involved in the upcoming qualifiers and who knows, he could play a decisive role in getting us to Russia.

irishman86

Steven Reid for me, thought he would be the Irish Gerrard

duffman13

irishman86 wrote: »

Steven Reid for me, thought he would be the Irish Gerrard

Injuries ruined him, loved him as a player and had high hopes. Conor Clifford was a player I seen at youth levels and he was brilliant, his career really fizzled out. He's up in Dundalk but don't think he's got any/much game time.

AllGunsBlazing

thebaz wrote: »

going back a bit - but Phil Babb was hailed as the new Paul McGrath - that, didn't last long

Had an amazing World Cup in 1994. Then he became a spice boy and that was the end of him.

Mr.Nice Guy

I seem to recall Sean Thornton generated a fair bit of buzz in the mid 2000s when he was at Sunderland.

Moist Bread

eagle eye wrote: »

Mark Kennedy tops the list and he is mentioned above.

David Connolly is another.

Always thought Connolly did well for his talent. A decent championship level striker for many years. I don't remember him been touted as the next, well anything. Expectations of him always seemed in line with his ability and performance.

brilou23

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I seem to recall Sean Thornton generated a fair bit of buzz in the mid 2000s when he was at Sunderland.

Even before that at Tranmere

David Kelly.

It doesn't get much better than a hattrick on your debut. 6 goals in 25 more appearances.

Rekop dog

Same Carruthers playing pretty far below his ability probably mainly due to his attitude.

Turtyturd

Keith O' Neill.

Stevecw

Mark Kelly, remember him destroying Yugoslavia on his debut in 88, injuries ruined him.