Didier Deschamps didn’t have to dive too deep into the reservoir of talent yesterday to find a panel of players capable of taking on the Netherlands and Ireland for the start of the upcoming European Championship qualifying campaign. Eight of his 23-man squad are with clubs who are in the last eight of the Champions League.
n naming his 26-strong panel in Dublin, Stephen Kenny had no such luxury. He had one obvious choice in selecting teenage star Evan Ferguson, to whom he will likely hand a competitive debut.
The squad also featured a sweep of players drawn mainly from the lower reaches of the Premier League and the Championship, with a touch of the continental in the selection of players based in Spain (Matt Doherty) and Portugal (newcomer Mikey Johnston, on loan to Vitoria Guimaraes from Celtic).
Ferguson is a player whose confidence is sky high and Kenny was relieved to see that he didn’t start Brighton’s midweek Premier League game but was given minutes off the bench, a rest for his teenage frame.
But while France’s players from the likes of Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea march on to the Champions League quarter-finals, times are tough for some of Kenny’s men.
Southampton goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu suffered a 2-0 home defeat to Brentford, while centre-back Nathan Collins remains exiled to the bench with another struggling side, Wolves.
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Yet Kenny says he’s not too concerned about either of that Dublin-born pair.
“I’m not dismissing blind statistics, but I think he has played well recently, overall,” Kenny says of Bazunu, who followed up his much-praised display against Manchester United with his team’s tame loss to Brentford.
“I know people were harping on about the goal against Leeds (on February 25). All of a sudden it was magnified, probably because of Southampton’s position as well. That’s the only goal in four Premier League games that he conceded in that period.
“Obviously on Wednesday night they lost. It’s hard for a young goalkeeper to get an opportunity. There are not many young goalkeepers in the Premier League. You have to be prodigious. And he is.
“He had a few clean sheets recently and sometimes as a young goalkeeper, if a goal goes in that he maybe could have got, we highlight that. But we don’t if it’s Ederson or Alisson; ‘Well, they’re the best goalkeepers, that happens’. Or even (David) De Gea, we don’t really focus on the mistakes, the goals they maybe might have saved. But when a young ’keeper does it, it seems to become magnified.”
It should be of more concern that Collins has started the last seven league games for his club on the bench and has played just 60 minutes (two sub appearances) in the last two months. But Kenny had a chat with Collins in recent days and came away more relaxed.
“He just wants to play. He is determined to play for Wolves,” says Kenny. “I was chatting to Nathan on Wednesday. Basically, he has played a lot of football, so it is less of a concern than for some of the other players. He has played a lot of football and he is sharp and young.
“When he moved first and was doing well, the the expectation was that they might even build a team around him, so it was a bit of a setback for him to get left off. But those are the challenges of Premier League football.
“He’s shown his capacity to be out of the team for periods and still maintain a high level of fitness, but it is far from ideal and he knows that and we know that.”
Moving to Spain from the Premier League was also a challenge for Matt Doherty, and he’s played just once for Atletico Madrid. “It will be nearly eight weeks between his last game at Tottenham and the French game, so it’s not ideal,” Kenny adds.
The midweek schedule threw up another problem for Kenny as Adam Idah – who has missed the last 10 Ireland games – suffered a foot injury while on duty for Norwich City and, while he’s still technically in the squad, it’s hard to see the Cork native being fit in time to face the French, seeing as he left the stadium on Wednesday night on crutches.
His eagerness to be involved is encouraging, but with attacking options Callum Robinson and Aaron Connolly out through injury, and Troy Parrott and Michael Oabfemi not getting the game-time they’d like, there are issues for Kenny to grapple with.
With a couple of calls Kenny has made it clear that what was sufficient in the middling international year that was 2022 will not be enough to take on the French.
Four members of his squad for the last international window are left out: Darragh Lenihan, Robbie Brady, Liam Scales, Scott Hogan. CJ Hamilton’s Ireland career appears to be already over, while Conor Hourihane is also omitted, and there’s no place for the in-form Swansea City man Ryan Manning.
Shane Duffy would have been left out had injury not confirmed his absence anyway.
Brady and Hourihane have 96 caps between them but they’re left out while the uncapped duo Mikey Johnston and Will Smallbone plus Mark Sykes (one cap) get the nod.
Kenny talked up the potential that Smallbone and Johnston offer though it would be some leap for them to not just start but feature against France, though the Latvia friendly offers them a stage as Kenny will experiment.