The Grove football blog

With the close of the summer transfer window I thought I would update a piece I posted last year. I aim to show how deep the talent pool is for the Northern Ireland national team. To analyse our depth I have kept track of each player (hopefully not missing anyone) who has been called up to the senior or under 21s squads. I have organised them by general position eg. Defender, midfielder etc. rather than their specific positions, and organised them by their club and league. I have assigned each league a grade based on quality, this is subjective and after last year’s I have changed a few grades, notably moving the Irish Premiership, League of Ireland and Welsh Premier League up a tier and dropping Premier League 2 down a tier. I am sure there is still some debate about these but essentially we are focused on grades A-C as O’Neill rarely calls up any player playing below these league grades. The full list includes 137 players.  Following Jonny Evans’ retirement we only have one pla...

This summer was billed as a rebuild for Rangers, but not your typical rebuild. Last season’s team was not bad, and were it not for some key goals by a player Celtic have since spent over £8.5 million on, Rangers might have won the treble. Rather, this rebuild was primarily financial, to be blunt Rangers’ wage bill was far too high, with too many players earning more than £20K per week and too many squad players earning disproportionately high wages. This summer Rangers have lost 14 players from last season’s first team squad, only 3 have left on loan (Ben Davies, Jose Cifuentes and, Johnly Yfeko). As many as 6, were free transfers with several contracts simply not being renewed. I suspect Philippe Clement was content for all these players to leave, with the possible exception of John Lundstram, and while many left for free, they managed to free up a large sum of money in wages. Using Salarysport for reference we can see that Rangers freed up over £9 million in wages. I have not been a...

  As the season draws to a close and the transfer window opens there is again talk of a rebuild at Ibrox. Philippe Clement has improved a Rangers side he inherited and has already made his intent clear with the kind of signings he wants to make. Diomande has done well enough, but is sure to improve with a solid pre-season, Cortés looked great before falling injured and Silva has contributed well despite moving out of position for most of his spell. Diomande will be signed in the summer with Cortés likely to join him, it is unlikely Silva will make his move to Ibrox permanent. Over the past few years Rangers have done well at recruiting solid free agents, players here have included Calvin Bassey, Steven Davis, Dujon Sterling, Tom Lawrence, John Lundstram and Kieran Dowell amongst others. These free agents have been crucial in forming the Rangers squad with several becoming key players over the years. Saving money on a transfer has unfortunately not been entirely successful though. ...

The Northern Ireland national team is going through a transition period with younger players getting more game time under Michael O’Neill. This could be an exciting summer for Northern Ireland fans as we watch the transfer window with several players linked with moves to a higher level.  Sunderland duo Trai Hume and Daniel Ballard have been repeatedly linked with moves to the Premier League with Aston Villa said to be in the hunt for Hume. There is also interest in several Irish League players with Larne’s Lee Bonis attracting attention across the water while we have become used to seeing our promising youngsters leave their local clubs for the chance to play at a higher level in England or Scotland.  This summer we have as many as 13 internationals  coming to the end of their contracts. The list of players below are those out of contract this summer, who have yet to sign a deal with a club for next season. It is likley several will get renewal offers with their current c...

Over the past few years Rangers have been effective at signing free agents in the summer transfer window. These players have played a major role in forming the Rangers squad, a squad that, at the time of writing has just won the League Cup, topped their Europa League group and sit 5 points behind Celtic with 2 games in hand and 3 Old Firm fixtures still to play.     The free agents signed over the last few years are:   2023; Kieran Dowell Dujon Sterling Jack Butland Leon Balogun   2022; John Souttar Tom Lawrence   2021; Nnamdi Ofoborh Fashion Sakala John Lundstrum   2020; John McLaughlin Jermaine Defoe Leon Balogun     It is well known that Rangers are not as strong financially as Celtic, yet they still seek to compete with Celtic domestically and have outperformed Celtic in Europe in recent years. Signing free agents has been a crucial tactic for Rangers with several of the above players being first team regulars and the rest being effective squa...

  Background    This is a breakdown of the current talent pool available to Michael O’Neill as of October 2023. As a long time holder of a block booking I have seen the lows of when we sang ‘we’re not very good’ to the highs of qualifying for Euro 2016. I would hope that we manage to qualify for another major tournament sometime in the near future but current results would suggest we are a long way from that. The point of this piece is to analyse the talent we have available and to adjust expectations.    I have complied a list of 129 eligible players. The 129 players who have made the list are there because they fulfil one or more of the following criteria:   ·        Currently active and capped for the senior team ·        Currently active and has been called up to the NI senior squad  ·        Has been been called up to the NI U21s squad in the last few years ·...