The high-profile move we’ve all been waiting for
Okay, it might not be quite as sensational as Sol Campbell changing strips in North London or Carlos Tevez crossing the great divide in Manchester or Luis Figo enraging Barcelona by joining Real Madrid but, still, the sight of one of our best-known performers finally departing a grand old club to hook up with perceived nouveau riche upstarts, is definitely one to put a bit of zip back in the local coverage.
So best of luck at your new home P Kenny — we will, as Il Trap likes to say, follow you closely.
Unhappily, there has been no equivalent story to get worked about when it comes to significant Irish movement in the transfer market across the water. For all the articles which have clogged up the papers since the end of last season claiming that James McCarthy or Seamus Coleman or Shane Long or Kevin Doyle or Aiden McGeady were wanted here, there and everywhere, the start of August finds things pretty much as you were back when the final ball was being kicked in May.
To some extent, this is nothing new. I recently had occasion to sift back through some old clippings and was amused to find a story from the early 90s stating as certain fact that one Niall Quinn, then of Manchester City, was bound for Torino. Hope that Italian job worked out well for the big man! But even allowing for the fact that papers never refuse ink, especially where juicy but not always well-informed rumour about transfers is concerned, there has to be something at last mildly worrying about the failure, thus far, of some of Ireland’s most highly regarded talent to trigger activity in the market.
Which is not to say that at least a couple of the aforementioned boys in green won’t end up in pastures new, perhaps even by the time you finish reading this article, but I doubt too many would have confidently predicted a few months ago that, by the time the big kick-off was looming, James McCarthy would still be contemplating a season in the Championship and, worse, Kevin Doyle preparing for a campaign in League One.
Meanwhile, the elite bracket in the Premier League continues to remain, as it has been for some time, an Irish-free zone.
Part of this is certainly down to brute economics, with one Irish-based agent being quoted recently as saying that English and even Scottish clubs know they can get better value for money by bringing in talent from eastern Europe.
But perhaps we might also be forced to acknowledge that the high evaluation at home of some Irish players — among supporters and in the media — might not necessarily be mirrored within the professional game in England. Which in turn might mean that a stick with which Giovanni Trapattoni has regularly been beaten — his supposed failure to recognise the talent at his disposal or, at least, his reluctance to allow it off the leash to its fullest extent — has been applied with a tad too much zealousness.
McCarthy is a case in point. In some quarters, he has been written up almost as a midfield messiah whereas, from what I’ve seen of his performances to date in the green shirt, his status is still very much that of a developing talent who is some way from the finished article. There’s no question that he has what it takes to become a big player for club and country but it will surely take a move on the former front if he is to fully realise his potential for the latter. Following his old boss Roberto Martinez to Everton would definitely be a step in the right direction.
Certainly, and with all due respect to Wigan, the hope has to be that hype finally does rhyme with reality and, sooner rather than later, McCarthy gets that move back up to the Premier League which, we are constantly being assured, has been in the offing for months.
For different but no less urgent reasons, Doyle badly needs to raise his game profile. Thankfully, it’s not as if he is facing a scenario like that confronting Richard Dunne, whose transfer to QPR has a real last-chance-saloon look about it, with everyone sincerely hoping the great man can confound the injury odds.
But if Doyle’s star isn’t to continue falling, he clearly requires the kind of change of scene that will allow him the chance to confirm that form is temporary and class permanent and, in so doing, restore him to his previous good standing in the Irish set-up. Celtic, you’d have to say, would be a perfect new home — a place where Doyle could feel the love again and start to shed the gloom which has dogged him at Molineux for the last couple of seasons.
But, all the while, the top clubs south of the border might as well be hanging out the old ‘No Irish Need Apply’ sign. One of David Moyes’ last acts as Everton manager was a typically smart one — awarding the hugely exciting Seamus Coleman an extended contract. However, now that he is installed at Old Trafford, the Everton full-back he apparently wants to bring with him is Leighton Baines. Go figure.
And so we’re left back (no pun intended) where we started: wondering if it’s English football which is failing to see the light or just us distorting reality by insisting on looking at everything through green-tinted glasses.
Still, there’s always the chance that, in the great tradition of legendary figures coming out of international retirement — think Keane, Zidane and Pirlo — one of the biggest Irish names of them all could yet decide to throw his hat back into the ring and really give us a story to shake the foundations.
So then, Gaybo for Montrose, anyone?
