Northern Ireland national team talent pool: October 2023

 

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

·      Is playing in one of the the top 4 English leagues, the Scottish Premiership, or a league of similar quality. 

·      Is currently playing in the youth set up of a Premier league or Old Firm team.

 

I believe I have included every player who meets these criteria but some may have been accidentally excluded. 

 

I have broken those 129 players down by their positions. They are categorised as; ‘Goalkeeper’, ‘defender’, ‘midfielder’, ‘attacker’, and, ‘forward’. I have had to make a judgement call on some such as Stuart Dallas who is currently classified as a defender or Callum Marshall who I have classified as a forward. Their specific positions are further specified in the tables below. 

 

I have further categorised each player by the level they are playing at. I have assigned subjective grades to each league to better indicate its relative strength. These grades are purely assigned by myself, but I hope they make sense. There may be some debate around the relative strength of Premier League 2 or the Irish Premiership but having thought about the players we have available from each league I have settled on the following:

 

Grade A: 

Premier League

 

Grade B:

EFL Championship

Scottish Premiership

Danish Superligaen 

Greek Super League

 

Grade C:

EFL League 1

Premier League 2

 

Grade D:

EFL League 2

Swedish Veikausliiga

 

Grade E:

Scottish Championship

Scottish League 1

The National League (English 5^th tier)

Canada Premier League

Players in all other English youth set ups

 

Grade F:

Irish Premiership

League of Ireland

Welsh Premier League

Lowland League (Scottish non-league)

 

Grade G:

National League North (English 6^th tier)

National League South (English 6^th tier)

Swedish 2^nd tier

 

 

Some of the leagues within these tiers are clearly better than others, but I don’t think they are a full tier better. The Scottish leagues are difficult to rank as Scotland has 4 professional tiers consisting of 42 teams, this is a huge amount compared to England if we consider the relative population sizes. As such the Scottish football set up is weird, it isn’t uncommon for a team to to promoted or relegated multiple times in a short period of time. This tells that there is not a huge difference in standard between the quality of the Scottish leagues below the top flight. Scottish non league is also weird, in recent years players who are good enough for professional contracts have moved to Highland and Lowland League sides, vastly improving the quality of these leagues. In addition some of the top Scottish teams (including the Old Firm sides) have B teams playing in these leagues. 

 

You could make a reasonable argument that the Irish Premiership does not deserve to be 3 tiers below League 2, however most of the local sides are still not professional and while the players may be as skilful, they will not be as fit. 

 

In any case, I don’t think these league grades are too far off and are not intended to be treated as indisputable fact, rather they should give us a sense of what level our players are currently playing at. 

 

Euro 2016 Squad

 

Let’s set the standard and compare to our recent high of Euro 2016. Michael O’Neill selected a 23 man squad which managed to get through the group stage and were eventually eliminated in a close game against Wales. 

 

In this squad we had 5 Premier League players; Jonny Evans, Gareth McAuley, Craig Cathcart, Steven Davis and, Paddy McNair. We had 9 Championship players and 4 Scottish Premiership players. Using the league grades I have assigned this would equal 18 of the 23 players coming from A-B grade leagues. To make it plain, out of our current pool of 129 players only 28 are playing in A-B grade leagues. Only 2 of those players are with Premier League teams, one is Jonny Evans and the other is Conor Bradley (currently injured) who has Trent Alexander Arnold in possession of his spot in the team. 

 

The below data was found on transfermarkt.com but it compiled specifically for looking at Northern Ireland’s senior team. 

 

 

The data 

 

 

You can see that of the 30 players we have in the top 2 grades, 23 have been capped by the senior team. Those who haven’t have either been called up to the senior squad or been capped at U21 level. 

 

 

We have 32 available players in the C grade (mainly League 1) of whom 17 have been capped. There are some mitigating circumstance here, Dale Taylor is on loan from a Premier League team, Shayne Lavery has had injury issues at Blackpool and Luke Southwood dropped down a league in order to play regular first team football. This tier also includes Premier League 2, basically the U21 Premier League but teams also use these games to reintegrate players recovering from injuries. We have 9 players in this league, 2 of whom play for the current Europa Conference League champions West Ham. 

 

 

 

 

We only have 4 capped players from the leagues below C grade. All 4 are over the age of 30 and were capped when playing at a higher level. They are; Michael Smith, Niall McGinn, Matthew Lund and Billy McKay. 

 

 

 

So how does it look for the future? I have created a table breaking down the players by those over and under the age of 23. The list skews young, but this is natural given the amount of players called up for the U21s is larger than that of the senior team. The vast majority of uncapped players included are under 23 and are in the list for their potential in the future. 

 

Of our 30 players in A-B grade leagues 14 are under the age of 23. This is slightly more than I expected which is encouraging. Of the 34 players in C grade leagues, 22 are under the age of 23. The natural optimist sees this as a good thing if they are playing regular football, but ideally many of these players will make the step up to stronger leagues in the next couple of years.

 

 

 

Other factors to consider

 

I haven’t included game time stats as part of this analysis, simply because that would take far too long. I was encouraged to see so many players getting regular game time so far this season. I believe regular game time is better than someone bench warming in a higher league (the exception might be for those teams involved in Europe where more opportunities might arise and where they are being coached by a much stronger set up.) Judge for yourself though, would you rather Shea Charles play regularly in the Championship for Southampton, or play for Man City’s under 21 side? As a Liverpool fan I am conflicted over Conor Bradley. On the one hand he is getting to work with one of the best managers in the world, benefits from some of the best facilities in the world and is the clear understudy to one of the best right backs in the world. Had he not picked up an injury he would almost certainly have played a couple of Europa League and EFL cup games this season and perhaps got some Premier League minutes at a time when Alexander-Arnold was injured. However, might it be better for Northern Ireland if he were playing regularly for another club? I hope he can develop into a quality player with his experience at Liverpool.

 

Dale Taylor is on loan at Wycombe Wanderers in League 1 (and playing very well) from Nottingham Forest. Conor Bradley spent a season on loan in League 1 and now is part of Jurgen Klopp’s plans. For young players, regular game time against stronger and more experienced professionals can often be more useful than playing against more skilful players of the same age. 

 

Callum Marshall is currently in the opposite situation, he is playing for West Ham’s under 21s. West Ham are a better side than Nottingham Forest and so it might seem fine to be in their under 21s, however it also means the pathway to the first team is less straightforward.

 

During O’Neill’s first stint in charge we benefitted greatly from set piece goals. Gareth McAuley was a major threat from corners and free kicks into the box and Chris Brunt would regularly chip in with free kick goals. The set piece threat is currently not as great, that is something that should come with more experience though. O’Neill also had a strong and settled coaching team, the current group also has much less experience. With time, the national team could develop into a team we expect to get results every game again.  

 

Conclusion 

 

Northern Ireland fans are frustrated at the minute, the team is not getting results in a relatively weak group, David Healey’s recent comments shed some light on frustrations inside the IFA and fans are unhappy that a GAA stadium will benefit more than any local football infrastructure as we prepare to co-host the Euros.

 

Michael O’Neill has been frustrated with injuries keeping key players on the sidelines, only as I started work on this piece did I realise the extent of the issue with squad regulars such as Steven Davis, Gavin Whyte, Jordan Jones, Ali McCann, Corry Evans and Shane Ferguson missing recently. Craig Cathcart has recently retired and Liam Boyce has been unavailable for some time now due to personal reasons. If there is a positive to all of this, it’s that young players are getting the opportunity to gain experience in a situation where I hope fans are sympathetic. Daniel Ballard took the captain’s armband recently against San Marino at a time when more experienced players where on the pitch. Shea Charles, Dale Taylor, Paul Smyth, Isaac Price, Eoin Toal, Trai Hume, Callum Marshall and Conor Hazard all made appearances this season with others such as Brodie Spencer, Ciaron Brown and Ethan Galbraith also being in recent squads. 

 

Northern Ireland are going through a transition stage. I am excited to see our younger players get more game time and experience. It is great to check line ups every week and see the next generation of players get a go. I was at the recent Slovenia game, and despite the loss, I left encouraged by most of the performances. I am excited to see where the team of the next generation goes over the next decade.