Six defenders and a goalkeeper? That should do it.
If Martin O’Neill is looking to play tight in France, he has no shortage of options.
Another week of club action has seen the rankings for Ireland’s hopefuls top-heavy with backs.
Jon Walters is still injured. Jeff Hendrick is injured.
Daryl Murphy, Alan Judge, Rob Elliot, Seamus Coleman: injured
Wes Hoolahan is on the bench for Norwich but they didn’t play this week anyway whilst John O’Shea sat on the bench for Sunderland again.
Still plenty of reason for optimism though and Shane Long tearing Aston Villa a new one bodes very well heading into the summer.
Shane Long in 90 minutes
1 goal
2 assists
1 offside goal
2 one-on-ones missed
1 underside of the crossbar
1 washed-up Joleon Lescott— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) April 23, 2016
Keiren Westwood has finally become the country’s number one form goalkeeper. Shay Given’s game and a half and six conceded goals for Stoke haven’t been enough to register the Donegal man in the top table. Darron Gibson has returned to the Everton line-up but hasn’t yet played enough games to make any in-roads into the Irish top 30 form players.
Preston left back Greg Cunningham has made his way into the top 10 along with four other full backs in the shape of Matt Doherty, Robbie Brady, Seamus Coleman, and Cyrus Christie – the Derby man is the highest ranked player from outside the Premier League.
A reminder of the stipulations:
- Only league games are considered (based on the WhoScored rating each player receives).
- Stats only include Premier League and Championship performances.
- Each player’s last three league games constitutes their form rating.
- 0.5 will be deducted for each match a player misses in his own ‘Last Three Games’ period.
- To account for standard, Championship players will be rated at 80% of their form.
If we were to squash the 11 best players on form into the one team, there’d be five full backs lining out across the pitch. And yet it doesn’t work out too badly.
Matt Doherty and Greg Cunningham have been playing most of their games at left back for their respective clubs but the Wolves man has been used on the right on occasion whilst Cunningham has deputised in the centre for Preston. So it’d be fine, especially if you wanted to close the game down.
If Martin O’Neill wanted to stick with his diamond-esque formation though, these are the top 11 players capable of doing that.
James McClean in the Jon Walters role like he did against Slovakia and Robbie Brady in the hole like he also did against Slovakia. It’s nice to see there are options there anyway.
Especially with all these injuries.
