Republic of Ireland Premier League Starting XI

While researching yesterday's article on Irish starting XI's of players with Premier League experience, we wondered how many times the Republic of Ireland started a game with eleven players who were under contract at a club in the PL at that time.

As we said in the article, the Boys in Green have played 269 games since the breakaway league was formed in 1992. According to our research, of these, only eight (3% of the total amount) of these were started by eleven players who were all playing Premier League football at the time. As always, we are open to correction on this.

When we investigated this, we realised that, in the early years of the league, squad mainstays like Packie Bonner and John Aldridge never played in England's top division, and in more recent years Robbie Keane's time in MLS as well as Sean St Ledger's time in the Irish starting XI meant that there was a narrow window where regular starters for Ireland were all playing in the PL.

Even though the first game of the league was played in 1992, it took nine years before an Irish manager named a starting XI of players from the league. Mick McCarthy had the honour of being the first Irish manager to name 11 Premier League players to face Portugal in 2001 for a qualifier for the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. A year later, in August, he would repeat the feat in a 3-0 friendly win against Finland following the tournament.

Brian Kerr has named a team of players in the Premier League in five games, more than any of the other managers since the league was formed, four of which were in 2005. The last time an Irish manager named a starting XI of Premier League players was Steve Staunton's first competitive game against Germany in 2006 - 130 games have been played since that 1-0 loss in Stuttgart.

No player started all eight games, but Shay Given, Kevin Kilbane, Damien Duff, and Robbie Keane started seven of the eight, while John O'Shea, Steve Finnan, and Kenny Cunningham started six.

Of the eight games, three finished all square, there are three wins (although only one of these was in a competitive game) and two were losses.

Date	Home	Score	Away	Starting XI
2-June-2001	Republic of Ireland	1-1	Portugal	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Ian Harte(Leeds United) Steve Staunton(Aston Villa) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Tottenham) Kevin Kilbane(Sunderland) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Mark Kinsella(Charlton) Gary Kelly(Leeds United) Niall Quinn(Sunderland) Robbie Keane(Leeds United)
21-August-2002	Finland	0-3	Republic of Ireland	Dean Kiely(Charlton) Ian Harte(Leeds United) Gary Breen(West Ham United) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Gary Kelly(Leeds United) Thomas Butler(Sunderland) Mark Kinsella(Charlton) Lee Carsley(Everton) Jason McAteer(Sunderland) Damien Duff(Blackburn) Robbie Keane(Leeds United)
9-October-2004	France	0-0	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Chelsea) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
9-February-2005	Republic of Ireland	1-0	Portugal	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Andy Reid(Tottenham) Matt Holland(Charlton) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
26-March-2005	Israel	1-1	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
17-August-2005	Republic of Ireland	1-2	Italy	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Matt Holland(Charlton) Steven Reid(Blackburn) Andy Reid(Tottenham) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City)
8-October-2005	Cyprus	0-1	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Graham Kavanagh(Wigan) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Stephen Elliott(Sunderland) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
2-September-2006	Germany	1-0	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Andy O'Brien(Portsmouth) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Newcastle Utd) Steven Reid(Blackburn) Kevin Kilbane(Wigan) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Kevin Doyle(Reading) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)

Goals Per Game

After posting Stephen Ireland's international record on his 31st birthday in August, one of our facebook followers asked if he had the best goals per game ratio, and if not then which Irish player has that record?

Happy birthday Stephen Ireland(6 caps, 4 goals), 31 today! 🎂 #COYBIG pic.twitter.com/IYFVUYDSoj

— Irish Abroad (@irish_abroad) August 22, 2017

Former Bohemians striker Jimmy White scored twice in his single appearance for the Republic of Ireland, which is the best ratio of any player ever to pull on the green jersey. There are four players who scored on their only appearance for the Boys in Green - Jack Sullivan, Johnny Squires, Paddy Bermingham, and Jimmy McCann - giving them a perfect record of one goal per game. Tom Davis and Matty Geoghegan both finished their international careers with a ratio of one goal per game after matching their appearance total of four and two caps, respectively,  with the number of goals scored in each.

Looking at players with five (or more) caps, Ringsend striker Jimmy Dunne scored 13 goals in his 15 appearances, finishing his international career on 0.87 goals per game.

Player	Goals	Caps	Goals/Games Ratio
Jimmy Dunne	13	15	0.87
John Joe Flood	4	5	0.80
Paddy Bradshaw	4	5	0.80
Paddy Moore	7	9	0.78
Stephen Ireland	4	6	0.67

The only goal of David O'Leary's career, a strike against Turkey in 1990 (his penalty against Romania is not counted), means he has the worst goals/game ratio of all players who have scored at least one goal for Ireland, scoring only 0.014 goals in each of his 68 caps.

Shay Given's 134 caps is (unsurprisingly) the highest caps total without a single goal and Kenny Cunningham's 72 caps is the highest total of the outfield players to retire without scoring

Dispelling The Mistrust Myths

A recent post by Póg Mo Goal examined the recent claims in Irish media that Wes Hoolahan is not trusted by the international management team. While the creative midfielder has been omitted by Martin O'Neill for some high profile fixtures, most notably Scotland and Poland in the Euro 2016 qualifiers, there has always been an explanation - for Scotland he was injured, and the midfielder himself asked to be excluded from the starting XI in the Poland game after not feeling fit having completed 90 minutes against Germany three days previously. Having witnessed that famous victory first hand, I clearly remember Hoolahan signaling to the bench that he had to come off late in the game. However with all three substitutes already used, the playmaker was forced to remain on the pitch until the final whistle.

After examining the appearance data for players during O'Neill's reign, the stats do back up their discovery. Only Shane Long(31) and James McLean(30) have had more appearances than Hoolahan's 28 caps in the manager's 34 games to date

Player	Caps	Goals
Shane Long	31	8
James McClean	30	7
Wes Hoolahan	28	2
Aiden McGeady	24	3
Glenn Whelan	24	0
Jeff Hendrick	24	1
Robbie Brady	24	6
John O'Shea	23	1
Robbie Brady	23	8

While researching the appearance details for Martin O'Neill, we also compiled the appearances under previous managers. Having given Glenn Whelan his international debut, Giovanni Trapattoni went on to select the midfielder more than any other player. earning 51 caps in the manager's 64 games in charge

Player	Caps	Goals
Glenn Whelan	51	2
Robbie Keane	50	28
John O'Shea	48	0
Aiden McGeady	42	2
Shay Given	39	0
Richard Dunne	39	3

Despite the Italian's reputation for defensive football, his predecessor Brian Kerr favoured defensive players, with Kenny Cunningham(28), Shay Given(27), John O'Shea(26) making up three of the top four most selected players during the former St Patrick's Athletic manager's 33 games. You could arguably add Kevin Kilbane to the list as a defensive player, given that he played at left full under Kerr.

Player	Caps	Goals
Kenny Cunningham	28	0
Kevin Kilbane	28	2
Shay Given	27	0
John O'Shea	26	1
Damien Duff	24	4
Robbie Keane	24	11
Clinton Morrison	24	6
Stephen Carr	23	0

The defensive trend continued with Mick McCarthy. In his 68 games, only Robbie Keane and again Kilbane(both 40 caps) appear in the top five most appearances, with centre half Gary Breen earning the most caps under McCarthy - 50.

Player	Caps	Goals
Gary Breen	50	6
Shay Given	47	0
Ian Harte	47	9
Kenny Cunningham	44	0
Steve Staunton	41	2
Kevin Kilbane	40	3
Robbie Keane	40	14

Further Reading
MythBusters: O'Neill doesn't trust Hoolahan - pogmogoal.com