Northern Ireland national team talent pool: September 2024
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...