New thread as the last thread seems to be broken.
Yeah, saw an article today suggesting his loan will be cut short in January.
So drop the guy whose actually scoring goals for Ireland because HH isn't going to play with two strikers?
The one bit of hope is that neither striker is in form there. They started strikerless today with Dybala and Leon Bailey in attack instead. They were ahead in the game long before any changes, so didn't need to go searching for anything, just wanted to see it out. Dovbyk was the choice to come on and just try to hold things up, but he's not in favour either, so it's still not a massive stretch for Ferguson to get ahead. But to do that, one way or another, he has to score.
No, I think he should play both. EV has been too isolated in many games
Doybyk is seeing more minutes in the battle of the manager's unfinished strikers. That's not encouraging.
He won't though as he wants the extra body in midfield and players with pace such as Ogbene and Ebosele for the counter act as we saw last month.
Only going to see two CFs against teams weaker than us which as the months go grows smaller.
At least we hace a world cup to look forward to in few weeks.
See women's u17s beat Belgium 4-0. Great week for women so far.
Senior team had a good win against Belgium in the first leg of the promotion/relegation play off winning 4-2 at home. They play the second leg on Tuesday.
that Ferguson move to Roma is a dead dog, manager has wrote him off as not properly training and that’s worrying as it suggests a physical decline.
We’ll see how Roma go under Gasperini. Think they are a blunt attacking force with or without Ferguson
I agree but we can't pretend that the fact we are utterly hopeless now is not a repellant factor either for those with any prospects at all who are thinking about their careers because naturally it is, unfortunately.
I'm hoping we get to the round of 32 and our kick off is the latest one as I will fly over that weekend in the hope of catching a game. Was going to go to the Uzbekistan game the week before but I also want to go to the HSBC golf championship on Abu Dhabi
A hard life, eh? 😅
He definitely won't be playing two strikers in our next game v Portugal, that's for sure. No point even talking about it.
Evan is still our best option as the sole number 9 against Portugal.
Evan has been moving around a lot and has only been at Roma a few months. The lack of stability can't be good for him.
You'd hope Roma give him at least the full season.
that move is dead, Hes better off getting out of there asap. Gasperini has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t rate Ferguson or doesn’t trust his body’s ability to deal with the rigour of games. I’m beginning to wonder if Ferguson can train normally or is already “compromised physically”
What does he have this season, three goals in four internationals? That's all I'm interested in, tbh. It's a shame that his club career hasn't taken off as people hoped but he's doing the job when he puts on the green shirt in a team that are struggling. It feels like Robbie Keane all over again; plenty of people criticising him but he always popped up with a few goals. That's what Ferguson's doing right now.
that’s correct to a degree but Ireland needs an international star as that can basically be worth 5 million or so to the association a year.
Ferguson is our only potential world star
What world cup is this in a few weeks?
And he's struggled to live up to it so far. He doesn't need more pressure on his shoulders with all the hype heaped on him already. Is he even 21 yet?
Its not club football. We need someone who's scoring goals, not someone selling shirts for some arbitrary figure plucked out of thin air. If he's scoring goals that get us points, he's worth more to us in real terms. What he does or doesn't do for clubs is irrelevant.
you’re right that there’s too much hype or expectation on him. You’re wrong that it’s irrelevant what he does for his club. The senior men’s team is the primary income stream in Irish football. A world star would be an enormous asset
How is Ferguson being a world star going to be worth 'five million or so' a year? On what basis does he qualify as a 'world star'?
merchandise, sponsorship and endorsement, tickets sales.
how does he qualify to be a world star? At the risk of stating the obvious, how any player in the world becomes a world star is by becoming one of the best players in the world. Ferguson is way off that obviously. It looked a possibility when he was scoring a premier league hat trick at 18. Looks a long way off now but Hes the only player we’ve got who ever looked like they could.
Same was touted for Troy Parrott years back
Mason Melia could be the next one
I’m not sure anyone was touting Troy parrot to be a world star or if they were the lack of appearances for spurs and failed loan at millwall put an immediate stop to that.
The U17s WC is in a few weeks. The lads qualified as one of the four best placed runners up in the UEFA Euros qualifiers. With UEFA cutting the number of teams from 16 back to 8 for the Euros it's good that the numbers for the WC were extended so there's a back up option if they don't finish top of their group in qualification for the Euros.
Overall though, our options upfront aren't bad - Ferguson, Parrott and Idah.
Idah is the oldest one at only 24. Add in Jonny Kenny now getting some game time with Celtic, and indeed Mason Melia, Noonan and others hopefully waiting in the wings.
We desperately need find few lads with bit of steel and few CMs though
Few decent FBs would not go astray either
God some weird posts in here.
3 goals in 4 qualifiers is good going.
Ferguson should try and move to a club who play a front 2 or front 3 next though.
wingers who can cross and not just run aswell.
Yup as long as he keeps scoring for us then I'm happy with that. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to be enough to ever get us to a tournament given the rest of the mediocrity that makes up our squad.
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