For every 4 English players in the Premiership there's 1 Irish player

eirebhoy

94 English and 23 Irish players played in the premiership over the weekend. The population of England is 15 times the population of Ireland. It's an English league obviously. Pretty surprising stat.

Full list of nationalities that played in the 10 premiership matches (Many African countries not represented because of African Nations):

94
England

24
France

23
Republic of Ireland

9
Spain

8
Netherlands, Scotland

7
Brazil, USA

6
Northern Ireland, Portugal, Wales

4
Finland, Germany

3
Australia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Jamaica, Norway, Sweden

2
Denmark, Ecuador, Israel, Serbia, Switzerland, Togo, Trinidad & Tobago

1
Belarus, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Grenada, Honduras, Italy, Korea Republic, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine, Zimbabwe

ninebeanrows

Suppose it illustrates that the Premiership aint that good of a league.

Considering most of them Irish players would be considered rather poor players.

OPENROAD

Wow, did you put that together, fair play if you did.

Good stats, that said I don't support any international team, just hope that all our players come back fit, so not bothered who makes up our team, I would say we have very few Irish players at Arsenal, apparently though good bunch of English kids coming up which is unusual for us in recent years.

oobydooby

Amazing stat. From an English point of view it's pretty worrying especially since there are next to no English players in the top flights of any other European leagues. From an Irish point of view that makes great reading. Let's hope the FAI trumpet this in their search for a decent coach (not Tel, Sam or Wally).

estebancambias

1 Italian!!!! Amazing statistic.

Zaph

24 French is quite surprising. You tend to forget that there are that many of them playing in England.

ninebeanrows

Most of the players are playing at the fringe of the league. You can't say there are any outstanding players in the Prem barring Richard Dunne and Robbie Keane.

The you have Given who is apart of a team in chaos as is Duffer.

The rest are playing for relegation battling clubs.

Barring Steven Reid and Carsley.

estebancambias

Eh Steven Irelando and Finnan? But yeah like McShane, Murphy, Stokes and Miller make up a large chunk of that.

I think it is actually a shocking statistic, which indicates that the National league needs to be developed much more. 23 players is the squad total for the world cup. Only 23 of our players play at the top, ok grant it perhaps Andy Reid is far better than Championship but still. Oh and McGeady. However I actually think our first team squad is pretty good. A lot better than teams like Scotland and Poland.

Dave!

Thank you Roy Keane, lol

Seriously though, interesting statistic

jesus_thats_gre

4 Finns

evilhomer

They are interesting statistics, but only the players that played this weekend (given quite a few wouldn't get there game if the ACN wasn't on) is a bit misleading.

What would be very interesting would be to see the breakdown of nationalilties by players that get more then 20 starts a season (this would take into account, resting players, minor injuries and suspensions too).

These stats on a whole are a very slim snapshot and with the ACN on, misrepresent the actual facts of the situation for the rest of time when ACN players are with their clubs.

Where did you get the data, just out of curiosity Eirebhoy? I would love to get my hands on the optastats database.

Zaph

evilhomer wrote: »

These stats on a whole are a very slim snapshot and with the ACN on, misrepresent the actual facts of the situation for the rest of time when ACN players are with their clubs.

This is true. Just been reading in the paper that there are 37 players from the Premier League at the ACN.

KdjaCL

I would love to see one of those on teh early CL group games.

kdjac

mike65

You would? (if I knew what you were on about!)

Mike.

SectionF

estebancambias wrote: »

I think it is actually a shocking statistic, which indicates that the National league needs to be developed much more.

Spot on.

We've been flattering ourselves for a long time. Now we need to get real and develop some depth as a footballing nation.

eirebhoy

estebancambias wrote: »

But yeah like McShane, Murphy, Stokes and Miller make up a large chunk of that.

3 of those players played a huge part in beating Portsmouth.

estebancambias wrote: »

I think it is actually a shocking statistic, which indicates that the National league needs to be developed much more. 23 players is the squad total for the world cup. Only 23 of our players play at the top

And only 94 of England's did. There's no reason why they shouldn't have 15 times as many players as us in the premiership.

evilhomer wrote: »

They are interesting statistics, but only the players that played this weekend (given quite a few wouldn't get there game if the ACN wasn't on) is a bit misleading.

It's actually not. I can't think of one Irish player that played at the weekend that wouldn't have played if the African Nations wasn't on. 18 starters and 5 subs.

evilhomer wrote: »

Where did you get the data, just out of curiosity Eirebhoy? I would love to get my hands on the optastats database.

I knew there was a high amount of Irish players playing in the premiership at the weekend so decided to count them up. Along the way I counted up the rest. Sad I know but I stop the anorak inside me.

astrofool

eirebhoy wrote: »

And only 94 of England's did. There's no reason why they shouldn't have 15 times as many players as us in the premiership.

That's a ridiculous thing to say, China and India should then be world champions due to having such a large range of talent, I'm sure more Americans are playing soccer than there are people in Ireland, yet they're no great shakes.

Once you get near the top, there's only so much training and learning that can be done, as most country's have similar facilities, this is about the same, and then the players that stand out are those with natural skill and talent. On this front, Ireland is about right, with one player in the last 10 years being up there at the top (Keane). England have a few (Gascoigne, Rooney, Beckham), as do most other top nations. Sometimes national teams get lucky (clubs can buy these players) and a few of these players happen at once, and the level of the rest is adequate to get the team winning a competition or two.

Very few Italians play outside of Italy (most don't move as they lose their national place), Spaniards seem to travel a bit more, but then they have a lot Brazilians, Argentinians and Portuguese in their league.

However, if Ireland had a stronger league (say SPL strong), then the national team would have a lot more options than it does now.

eirebhoy

Are you saying that if our population was, say, 20m that we shouldn't expect to have around 5 times as many footballers?

estebancambias

Eirebhoy- I do think we have good players, in fact I think some people on here under estimate our players to be quite honest, however 23 is far too low, I would have no problem with this stat if players like Gamble, Murphy(Bohs) etc. were in the squad, and good enough to be in it, but I just think 23 is far too low, especailly since its our players launching ground.

eirebhoy

I don't think it is relative to our population. We're probably the best team in the world on a relative scale.

evilhomer

eirebhoy wrote: »

It's actually not. I can't think of one Irish player that played at the weekend that wouldn't have played if the African Nations wasn't on. 18 starters and 5 subs.

Sorry, didn't make myself clear, I wasn't talking about the Irish lads. I was talking about the break down in general being out of kilter if the ACN players where there.

For example, Sidwell, Hughes and Nugent (Pompey), Vaughan and Anichibe (Everton) all wouldn't have played if ACN players were about.

I'm sure there are a lot more, but you see what I mean about the statistics as a whole?

KdjaCL

There be less english players then.


Doesnt really change much.

Also what if the french players actually played for the countries they were born in, we be in clear 2nd place



kdjac

Mr.Nice Guy

Shocked by this statistic. I think it's good news though.

WhiteWashMan

eirebhoy wrote: »

And only 94 of England's did. There's no reason why they shouldn't have 15 times as many players as us in the premiership.

in truth you can only play so many people in a football match, and these are supposed to be the cream of the crop.

I think if you want a more accurate stastic of players playing football, rather than segregating out players playing football at a specific level, then you should take the whole league into consideration.

I mean, we could turn it on its head, and say that 99% of players in league 2 are English, and therefore, england has crap players.

Or you could say that there are only 2 ROI players in league 2, which shows that we are a nation of above average players (which considering the current state of the FAI is a bit funny)


Although, I think its interesting merely from the point of it being a bit of footballing trivia.
Id like to see what the states are with the african players back in.

ziggy

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_blank_

ziggy wrote: »

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zing!

Xavi6

ziggy wrote: »

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Ha ha touche