Celtic creativity – Ireland’s knack of producing skilful midfielders in the mould of Arsenal legend Liam Brady

Back in the mists of pre-satellite time, when the top flight in English Football was known, quaintly, as Division One, there were no foreign players in England.

A slight exaggeration, that. There were a few in the 1970s, more in the 1980s - still not many, mind you - before the 1990s and the massive successes of a few key players (the likes of Cantona, Bergkamp and Klinsmann) opened the floodgates. In the 70s, a foreign player seemed a hugely exotic and risky gamble for any club to take. There were the Argentines of the late 70s - Sabella, Villa, Ardiles - and a few Dutchmen like Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen, but UEFA’s restrictive rules and a healthy dose of ignorance meant that English football would be largely unaware of the benefits of some continental class until the 90s. Even then, it took a while for enthusiasm for what a foreigner could bring to the game to really spread. Only 11 foreigners - from outside the UK and Ireland - started the Premier League Season in 1992.

Before that, the “foreigners” relied on to supply some artistry and skill were largely Celts. Scots - like Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law and Billy Bremner - and Northern Irishmen like George Best could be sublimely skilful players, but they combined those skills with levels of commitment and aggression familiar to the English, and as such they all flourished in the English game.

The same is true of players from the Republic of Ireland. All of the pre-Premier League big English clubs of my youth in the 1980s had a couple of Irish players: Ronnie Whelan, Mark Lawrenson and Michael Robinson at Liverpool, Kevin Sheedy at Everton, Tony Galvin and Chris Hughton at Tottenham Hotspur, and Frank Stapleton, Kevin Moran and Paul McGrath at Manchester United.

That’s a mix of types and talents, but I would argue that Ireland has produced more classical playmakers than any of the home nations. England famously produces few true number tens, and when it does it mistreats them by exiling them to the wing (Paul Scholes, Joe Cole) not really playing to their strengths (Glenn Hoddle) or allowing them to self-destruct (Paul Gasgcoine). None of those players was ever an out-and-out number ten in the Platini/Zico/Maradona mould anyway, with the exception of Joe Cole. The British football mentality prizes hard work and consistent legwork to such an extent that the positional selfishness required of the playmaker role - the need to stay in space between midfield and attack - is trained out of players young and replaced with the impulse to run ceaselessly, chase back and cover gaps.

But in Ireland, I would argue, something of the national sporting character, the high-energy combat of Gaelic games perhaps, which are as seamless a fusion of physical graft and tremendous skill as any game, means that Irish footballers, in every position, play with intensity and conviction. The ability may not always be there, but the effort and fighting spirit most certainly will be. That explains the high tempo - that violent Gaelic hustle - which characterises the Irish national team. But it has also meant that Ireland has produced a number of high quality playmakers able to combine an energetic approach to the midfield battle with the guile and technique demanded of the creator-in-chief playing in the hole behind the forwards. Here is a selection of the best of those players:

JOHNNY GILES

Best remembered for his midfield partnership with Billy Bremner at Don Revie’s legendary “Dirty” Leeds United, where he won two League titles and a hatful of Cups. Giles begun his career at Matt Busby’s Manchester United and the manager later called the 1963 sale of Giles to Leeds one of his biggest mistakes, for Giles soon developed into a formidable central midfielder. Bremner was the destroyer in their partnership, Giles the creator, but each was more than capable of assuming the others duties if there was need. Giles’ chief attribute was his range of passing, which allowed him to dominate games, set a tempo, create goals and dictate tactics. But he could look after himself too, and his ferocious tackling is as well-remembered as the excellence of his passing and vision.

He is often referred to as a great tactical thinker on the pitch, and he used that when he retired, as a manager for Ireland but more notably for West Bromwich Albion. Since then he has gone on to a career as a pundit - probably the best I’ve ever seen - on Irish TV.

LIAM BRADY

Perhaps the most purely talented player ever to emerge from the Republic of Ireland, Brady’s quality may be best illustrated for the young fan unaware of him by the fact that Jack Wilshire is highly flattered by the many comparisons between him and the Arsenal legend from Dublin. Brady (top) was the biggest star for Arsenal during a period marked by a relative lack of success. He won an FA Cup for the club - where he was joined by a couple of other young Dubliners, striker Frank Stapleton and centre back David O’Leary - and established himself as a midfield playmaker blessed with sublime technique and vision. He won PFA Player of the Year in 1979 and his performance in a European tie against Juventus prompted the Italian club to sign him in 1980. There he was trequarista in a team that won the Scudetto two years in a row, in 1981 and 1982 and famously scored the penalty which secured the ’82 title despite knowing that he was to be sold by the club in the summer. His replacement was none other than Michel Platini.

He remained in Italy, going on to play for Sampdora, Inter Milan and Ascoli before returning to play at West Ham from 1987 until 1990.

He was unlucky in his International career. The lynchpin of what many believe to be Ireland’s greatest ever side in the early 80s - a side formed almost exclusively of star players from England’s biggest clubs - he masterminded legendary wins against Platini’s France and the USSR in Dublin only for Ireland to miss out on qualification for the 1982 World Cup on goal difference. A similarly tough group in qualifying for the 1984 European Championship - Spain and Holland - meant Ireland missed out again, and when qualification was achieved, under Jack Charlton in 1988, Brady missed the tournament through injury.

He had a brief and unsuccessful managerial career at Brighton and Celtic and today he is Arsenals Head of Youth Development, fostering the sort of technically precise, visionary passing game he himself once specialized in.

JOHN SHERIDAN

Though he was plainly uncomfortable with Liam Brady’s insistence on always passing the ball rather than lumping it, Ireland coach Jack Charlton could not afford to ignore a player of Brady’s talent until age began to affect the midfielder. Oddly enough, once Brady and Ronnie Whelan had passed out of the squad, Charlton regularly selected another playmaker in the classic mould in the guise of John Sheridan and played him in the hole behind the strikers, where he was most effective.

While never quite a top-class talent, perhaps due to a lack of pace, on his day Sheridan was a fine player, with vision and excellent passing ability allied to a good work rate, set-piece ability and an eye for a spectacular goal. The most famous example of this is his scorcher for Sheffield Wednesday in the 1991 League Cup Final against Manchester United, one he must have enjoyed as a Stretford-born fan and youth-team product of Manchester City. He also played for Leeds, Oldham and Bolton in his career in English football while collecting 34 caps and five goals for Ireland.

He played in every game at the 1994 World Cup and hit the bar with a nice strike during the legendary 1-0 win over eventual finalists Italy at Giants Stadium, though his most important goal was probably the goal he scored in a 3-1 defeat to Spain in the qualifiers for that tournament. Ireland qualified on goal difference, by a solitary goal…

He would undoubtedly have earned more caps, but for the presence of Roy Keane and the hard-working efficiency of Andy Townsend ahead of him in Charlton’s pecking order. He works these days as coach of League One side Chesterfield.

STEPHEN MCPHAIL

Perhaps the first “new Liam Brady”, McPhail has never really fulfilled the promise he showed as a young player when he broke into the first team at Leeds under George Graham and David O’Leary (but then, did any of that Kewell-Woodgate-Robinson-Smith-Harte-Bowyer generation?). A memorable performance in Rome against Zdenek Zeman’s exciting Roma side in the UEFA Cup in 1998 actually suggested that McPhail might just be worthy of those Brady comparisons. Here was a startlingly mature young player, unafraid of putting his foot on the ball and slowing the pace, and capable of spearing a through-ball right into the heart of the Italian defence to one of Leeds’ energetic attackers. Leeds fans still rhapsodize about his assist for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in a win over Derby in 1998, when he effortlessly put a 60 yard pass right into the striker’s path to set him up for a goal.

But, as with many playmakers, he was inconsistent as a young player, and that together with some niggling injuries ensured he never fully became a definite first choice in his seven years at Leeds, from 1997 to 2004. He had a couple of loan spells in that period - at Nottingham Forest and Millwall - and eventually stepped down a division to join Barnsley. From there he joined Cardiff City, where he became something of a talisman, was made captain and has made 190 appearances over the last five years, even returning inspirationally from a cancer battle in 2010.

His limitations - he is undeniably lacking anything resembling pace - mean that he has only earned ten Ireland caps in his career and has never been a first teamer, but he is a talented player with a solid career behind him.

McPhail and Hasselbaink, Leeds vs Derby by Sheridan8

ANDY REID

Generally played on the left of midfield due to a left foot which resembles a magic wand, Reid is actually far better suited to a role at the point of attack between midfield and strikers where his lack of mobility is no hindrance but his technique and unerring eye for a killer pass are deadly. Seeing his barrel-chested frame and tendency to carry extra weight seems to put off most coaches from even attempting this, however.

The justifiably-maligned Steve Staunton played Reid there for Ireland and he was perhaps the sole positive from Staunton’s disastrous spell as the national team coach. His superb performance against Germany at Croke Park was full of first-time through balls and exquisitely judged raking half volleys which made him easily the pick of the players on show. Afterwards, Bobby Robson said “If Andy Reid was Argentinean we’d all be cooing over him”, a quote which will probably feature in Reid’s obituary, but one which seems quite true nevertheless.

His club career has never quite matched his talent, joining Nottingham Forest straight from Dublin schoolboy club Cherry Orchard, then falling in and out of favour and fitness at a succession of clubs under different coaches: Tottenham, Charlton, Sunderland, loan spells at Sheffield United and Blackpool, before rejoining Forest under Steve McLaren at the start of this Season.

For Ireland, he was a senior International and a regular starter before the arrival of Giovanni Trapattoni in 2008. They had a notorious screaming-match in a hotel in Wiesbaden, Germany, when the coach interrupted a late night sing-song led by Reid (who likes to break out the guitar at any opportunity) and Reid has not been selected since. Trapattoni justifies his stance - which is a massive controversy in Ireland, where Reid is seen as the most creative midfielder available - by insisting that Reid is too much of a luxury for his system, which is based around two hard-working screening midfielders (generally Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews) without anything like Reid’s talent.

As it is Reid is unlikely to add to his 27 Ireland caps and four goals until Trapattoni quits Ireland, which is a great shame.

WES HOOLAHAN

So Norwich City, expected to struggle on their return to the Premier League after years away, faced the mighty Chelsea in one of their first games back in the top flight. Under Paul Lambert, Norwich lit up the Championship playing a cultured passing game based mainly around the talent of playmaker Wesley Hoolahan, who Lambert had moved from the flank to play at the tip of a midfield diamond. Against Chelsea, Norwich acquitted themselves well, and much of that was down to Hoolahan, who never looked overawed by the occasion or the opposition.

Instead he played his natural game, drifting into space, receiving the ball and moving it on, then playing in the strikers when he saw a gap. And he can spot a gap. Three times in that first half he clipped lovely little passes between Chelsea defenders to create chances, and John Obi Mikel struggled to get close to him in the midfield space they contested. He is perhaps the best dribbler of all the players I’ve discussed here; frequently surging through midfield with the ball at his feet and taking defenders on, and he did that against Chelsea too.

In short, though Norwich lost, Hoolahan looked a class act and one easily good enough for the Premier League.

He emerged at Shelbourne in the League of Ireland, winning three Championships between 2001 and 2004, when he moved to Livingston. From there he went to Blackpool and finally onto Norwich in 2008, and there he has found a relaxed home for his gifts, scoring 24 goals in his 112 games for the club and creating many more.

He has a single Irish cap, having played as a substitute against Colombia at Craven Cottage in 2009, but given Trapattoni’s view on creative midfielders, he is unlikely to add to it in the near future, however well he does for his club.

More of David N’s musings on football and film can be found on his Twitter page and he also writes excellent capsule film reviews here.

Tags: Andy Reid, Arsenal, Cardiff City, FAI League of Ireland, Giovanni Trapattoni, Liam Brady, Nottingham Forest, Premier League, Republic of Ireland, Stephen McPhail

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