All-Irish team?

Mr.Nice Guy

I noticed on other forums that some people were trying to implement an all-English team for the clubs they were managing and trying to develop young English players.

I was thinking of trying something similar with Irish players and figured I might try it at Celtic.

What players would you say are must-buys for this to work?

SantryRed

Conor Clifford from Chelsea is a must buy.
Only 16 but will be a star player for you when he's about 18.

Anthony Stokes is a must buy as well.

MrJoeSoap

Kevin Doyle does the business.

I did this with Celtic in Championship Manager years ago, only with UK players instead of Irish. Lasted about 17 seasons iirc. Got bored of it though.

Vokes

Im guessing one thing to do long-term also (and maybe you did this MrJoeSoap) is to make your entire backroom staff Irish? thereby starting to produce only Irish youngsters (with a smattering of Scots)...

Mr.Nice Guy

Doyle would be the best Irish striker in the game wouldn't he? I will need an Irish goalkeeper as well. Given might be too costly though I don't know.

SofaKing wrote:

Im guessing one thing to do long-term also (and maybe you did this MrJoeSoap) is to make your entire backroom staff Irish? thereby starting to produce only Irish youngsters (with a smattering of Scots)...

Yeah I was thinking that myself. Going to try and get scouts who will search the Irish leagues north and south for talent. I'll try and do a few transfers later on and see how I go. Hopefully I won't piss off the fans too much by selling off their foreign favourites.

MrJoeSoap

I wouldn't risk the wrath of the fans by going gung-ho and selling all the foreigners in the first season or two. I'd maybe allow myself to keep whatever foreigners were there but not renew contracts, so either let them leave on a free or sell them whilst they're worth good money.

I can't remember about my backroom staff in that season I had, but definitely think that setting up an Irish scouting network would be a very good idea. As well as that I think you can get scouts to seach England for only Irish players, if I'm not mistaken?

Would be a strange achievement to manage both a club and international team with exactly the same squad, especially if you were to win things.

gustavo

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I noticed on other forums that some people were trying to implement an all-English team for the clubs they were managing and trying to develop young English players.

I was thinking of trying something similar with Irish players and figured I might try it at Celtic.

What players would you say are must-buys for this to work?

Doesnt doing it in Scotland defeat the purpose of the experiment?

thusspakeblixa

Kevin Foley from QPR is solid for me atm. You'll get him cheaper than most other quality Irish RB's. Stephen Ireland is a must-have IMO

DONK!

what do you have to do so that the intake of youths each year includes irish youths

Thanx 4 The Fish

I bought Kev Doyle for liverpool and he did the biz for me, also had a young lad in from Cehlsea, cannot remember who it was.

besty

I'm playing at Celtic at the moment and bought Duffer as my first transfer for £4.9m. Haven't looked back since, he's been quality.

DerekD Goldfish

DONK! wrote: »

what do you have to do so that the intake of youths each year includes irish youths

If you put your nationality as Irish and have some Irish staff/players they will automatically come I had lads from Limerick and Clare comming through my youth system as Livorno manager

Gavin "shels"

A good Irish keeper will be hard to get. If you have the need update look at Darren Quigley and Barry Murphy from the LoI.

MrJoeSoap

Hows this going? Any joy?

Mr.Nice Guy

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

Hows this going? Any joy?

No joy for me unfortunately. I probably cleared out too many of the foreign players too soon. Ended up getting a lot of draws whilst Rangers soared ahead before January. I then went and asked the board for more money and when they refused I issued an ultimatum which got me sacked. (Have they ever worked for anybody?)

I'd have to class this experiment as a fail although I'd love to see someone pull it off. I would say you would need to be prepared for it to work in a good few years and have some promising regens on the books. It's hard to have top quality Irish players right through the side in the short-term. You'd need to be very patient and with Celtic they expect you to be successful from the start.

smellyanus

Ultimatums only work if you have at least 4 or 5 very successful seasons behind you at the club.
If you cant get it to work legitimately........dare I say take a venture into the editor and adjust the Irish clubs youth facilities.
I did it once to about 10 LOI clubs and within 7 or 8 years had a top class international team.

conormurphy

Good challenge for anyone wanting to build an all-irish team.

In Football Manager 2007, I done a game with NK Livar from the Slovenian Second Division, picked them because of a random team picker I came across on the net.

Anyway, I had to dodge relegation in the first season but thanks to the incredibly flukey double signing of Dudu Ceasare who went on to play for Brazil in the second season and had played for them in real life now, and also a good signing in Goran Stojanovic, an 18 year old Serbian plying his trade at Panionios in Greece... I came second, just one point off the team on top who were way to good, must've been down for something similar to Juventus, I don't know, I beat them 6-5 though and both of said players scored hat-tricks.

So I got promoted anyway and halfway through the second season, struggling to hold on in the league, and last years division two winners battling it out at the top as one of the top 2, I just said, i gonna get the full irish because on a board I was on, they were having a challenge to win the champions league with a team full of your nations players only. I think you could have one foreign sub.

Basically, it didn't really matter who played for me, I'd be doing how I was, once I had a solid DM and two quick full backs. So, Dudu was about to leave with no chance of staying, he went to Spartak Moscow who he turned down to join me (money issues) and I got around €100,000.

Stojanovic of course was off as well except he stayed in the league, tried to shift him to Slovakia but the team wouldnt meet my demands and lost interest, and I needed to get some money, I wasn't letting him go for free. I got I think €22,000 which was really measly considering he had eased throuh the second division and had at one stage been watched by Roma (a bit odd but it was affiliation I think, had Italy as a league anyway)

So I went to the market, filtered out all out of contract Irish players and made an offer for the first 30 or 40 I suppose. Sold my Keeper for about €1,000 to the same team that bought Stojanovic. Everyone else just left. Managed to bring in Sebastian Deisler as my assistant manager (check the game, he always retires at the start and end up at some crap club as a coach or scout or whatever)

So I got my team going, but I also got an offer from Zenit St Petersburg in Russia. Little did I know, they had just bin relegated, so another year in a communist craphole wasnt going to live with me, and I went on holiday, the ful irish almost fully left that team the next season and they built a new side on Slovenian regens who prospered thanks to Deislers management. Nah i messing they got relegated twicee ina row i think, good effort though. Try it, even a holiday gae, good craic

BetsyGray

gustavo wrote: »

Doesnt doing it in Scotland defeat the purpose of the experiment?

I've always loved the idea that there could be a big team from Belfast playing in the EPL. Could have all the young talent from Ireland in it.

Would have been better than creating the Belfast Giants

hunter164

If you hve the update sign robbie brady from Man. United. He's a left winger, unreal.