Is Conor Hourihane the man to take Wes Hoolahan’s place as the Irish creative spark?

Hourihane is turning heads. Still.

Conor Hourihane has been one of the stand-out players for Aston Villa this season as they chase promotion to the Premier League. His screamer in the Birmingham derby was just the tip of the iceberg of another brilliant performance as he helped Villa push into the automatic promotion places. After a subdued enough start to life at Villa Park, the 27-year-old from Bandon is really starting to show what he is capable of. The Cork man has moved up the Football League ladder at some pace after leaving Ipswich Town in 2011, spending three years playing at Plymouth Argyle in League Two and Barnsley in League One with a half season to boot in the Championship before making the switch to Villa in January of last year. Hourihane already has three international caps to his name and with Hoolahan just retiring last week there is an opening for the former Barnsley man to put himself higher in the pecking order and will most likely be involved in the friendly games over the next coming months. He has bagged himself eight goals this season, chipping in with two assists as well, and he netted 14 times last season from the central midfield role. That's something which Ireland have lacked for a long time, a player who can get goals from midfield but arguably you can say this could be down to the style of play that has been implemented from the last two managers. It’s not just his ability to get forward that helped him make an impact on this Villa team but he does have defensive qualities to his game too. According to WhoScored Hourihane is the second best defensive player in the Villa side, winning 2.3 tackles per game just 0.2 behind winger Albert Adomah. Manager Steve Bruce has partnered Hourihane beside Jack Grealish at the heart of the midfield with either Jedinak or Bjarnasson sitting behind them and it has really paid off with both complementing each other's games quite well with the England U21 providing a fantastic assist for Hourinhane's goal against Barnsley just last month. And with him just hitting his peak years as a footballer, he might have just gotten lucky in terms of getting his foot into the Ireland side. With the likes of Whelan getting on in age, Hoolahan retiring from the international fold and James McCarthy out for some time, O’Neill might have to blend in some new talent come the start of the competitive fixtures in September. Hopefully, for Ireland’s sake, Hourihane will continue to strive under Steve Bruce at Aston Villa. If he keeps up this sort of form, it will be only a matter a time before Hourihane turns into a key player for Ireland too after only being a bit-part player just a year ago. This article was written by Sam McKeever.