Irish fans in for Premier treat this season
Irish fans of the Premier League will have much to discuss this season with the arrival of Lawrie Sanchez and Roy Keane to the elite division as Irish managers with plenty of Irish faces amongst their squads (here and here.) It looks like local fans will be adopting either Sunderland or Fulham as their 2nd (and 3rd?) teams this season- incidentally, it would be interesting to know if sales of replica shirts across Ireland from these two clubs with little recent history of Irish support have surged in recent times.
Sanchez has wasted no time in bringing four of his international players alongwith him, whilst Keane has a hatful of Irish players at Sunderland, all of which can only be good news for their respective international managers ahead of the crucial international fixtures this Autumn. So, any predictions for the year ahead, Sluggerites?
“I do actually watch Northern Ireland matches in the hope they lose”
WC,
Not quite the same, fulfilling, hobby it used to be!
Spain and Sweden games must have been hell for you.
>>Always remember one comment made to me at Ibrox….
‘I’m too busy lovin Rangers to hate Celtic’.
That was a smart man.
Posted by David on Jul 18, 2007 @ 07:52 AM<<
I’d agree that there are a large contingent of Rangers fans moving away from past indelicacies, Rangers will be the better for it. I know one Rangers fan who absolutely detests the plethora of England tops and flags on show at Rangers games. As if somehow wearing an England top a la mad dog Adair somehow shows how proud to be British you are. His anti-sectarian credentials are plain to see, his Catholic wife is the sole Celtic fan against him and his Catholic children who are out and out huns, ie Rangers fans.
Times are changing, and for the better!
I’d like to see Lawrie do well. He made Our Wee Country into giant killers. Personally I don’t blame him for leaving NI, as a number of fans do. After the way he was treated over the iceland game I’d have expected him to leave there and then. Good luck to them.
Personally I can’t stand Roy Keane. He is a thug and an animal, who in his autobiography joyfully admited to ending another professionals career. However he did serve under two very capable managers in Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson, from the results he’s had it does seem like he learned from them, damn that hurt to say. That said I’d still like to see Sunderland do well. I like Niall Quinn, I’ve always has a lot of respect for him from the time I heard he’d donated his entire testimonial fund to a local Childrens Hospital. How many other footballers can you see doing the same? Niall Quinn is an embodyment of what professional footballers should act like.
Roy Keanes first visit back to Old Trafford should be interesting.
A fair bit of criticism about RK and some of it deserved. However he never called Mc Carthy an English bastard or made any reference to his nationality either English or Irish and MMC acknowledged this this appears to one of the many urban myths which developed shortly after Saipan).
Anyway it would hardly be likely he’d say something like this considering Mrs Keane is second generation Irish like MMC.
Zizivny,
what racist comments are you talking about? The ones attributed to Roy Keane regarding McCarthy that have since been shown to have never been said.
Your racist comments however….
Sunderland will do OK this season, but they should still consider fourth bottom an achievement and anything higher a bonus. I know a Fulham fan quite well and he has always been of the opinion that relegation is a matter of when and not if and considers every season in England’s top division a bonus. To be honest he is still pinching himself that he is going to away games at The Grove, Anfield and Old Trafford etc. rather than Bloomfield Road, Vale Park and Underhill. He still hates Brentford more than Chelsea though! For my money the top four will be the same as usual, although in what order I wouldn’t like to predict, whilst going down it would have to be Fulham, Derby and Wigan.