The Irish in Britain, including those of Irish descent, make up a significant part of the UK population. Here, you will find news, entertainment, events, sports and features from the local Irish Post newspaper.

By Ciaran Cronin

Given the time of year, St. Patrick’s Day and all that, it would be nice as an Irish man to look at the upper reaches of the table and wonder which one of our boys might get their mitts on the Premier League trophy come May.

Truth is, there isn’t an awful lot to wonder about. John O’Shea might well have a third title win under his belt by the end of the season but for me he’s a player frittering away his talent on the United bench happy to pick up medals he hasn’t really earned.

Of course, as Alex Ferguson will tell you, leagues are won by squads not teams but it’s time O’Shea cut the ties from the mothership and went out to try to make himself a first-team regular somewhere else. Phil Neville did it a few years back and it’s been the making of him. The Waterford man should follow his path.

But while there’s little to exercise the nation at the top of the Premier League, the bottom of the table contains more Paddies than a Harrow local on a Friday night. Reading have a decent quota as do Newcastle. We all know about the contingent at Sunderland while Birmingham, Bolton and Wigan each have an Irish man in and around their starting line-ups. And while this trend tells us much about the real quality of our international team the main worry is how our already slim 2010 World Cup qualification hopes might suffer if the wrong teams go down.

Think for a moment of Ireland’s best 16 players right now. In my book, that represents the 11 who started against Brazil (Shay Given, Stephen Kelly, Richard Dunne, John O’Shea, Kevin Kilbane, Aiden McGeady, Liam Miller, Lee Carsley, Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle) and five others who were either substitutes that evening or injured at the time (Paul McShane, Andy Reid, Stephen Hunt, Shane Long and Daryl Murphy).

At the moment 11 of those players are involved in a relegation battle and there’s a worse-case scenario in all the possible permutations that could be catastrophic for Irish football.

Were both Sunderland and Reading to be relegated on May 11, seven of Ireland’s top 16 players will be playing Championship football by the time we start our World Cup qualifying campaign in September against Georgia in Tbilisi. That must be a scenario Giovanni Trapattoni, Marco Tardelli and Liam Brady are losing some sleep over not least because the trio would have to invest in a pretty good map — and a pretty reliable motor — if they’re to follow their players around the backwaters of English football. Barnsley, Bristol and Sheffield may become more familiar ports of call than London, Liverpool and Manchester.

As for the players themselves, second tier football will certainly not aid their football development one bit. The Championship is an ultra-competitive division, one that’s both physically attritional and mentally demanding. Proper football, in the sense of putting the ball on the ground and passing it about, is a near impossible ideal in the helter-skelter world of the Championship and having seven of our front-line players operating in that kind of environment on a weekly basis has the potential to extinguish Ireland’s qualification hopes before we kick a ball.

And before you think I’m in the business of scaremongering, the worst-case scenario I have sketched out above has a real chance of happening. A lot of pundits out there think Fulham are already for the chop but I have a sneaky suspicion they can stay up — particularly after Sunday’s spirited victory over Everton. They still have Sunderland and Birmingham at home as well as Newcastle and Derby County away. Their last game of the season is away to a Portsmouth team who should, all things being equal, be playing in the FA Cup final at Wembley the following weekend. Fulham can still save themselves.

As for Reading, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long and Stephen Hunt’s side have to face Tottenham and Arsenal as well as relegation six-pointers against Birmingham, Fulham, Newcastle and Wigan. Of course those six-pointers are fine if you win them but lose two of those four games and Reading could be in serious trouble.

As for Roy Keane’s Sunderland, they’re in a bit of bother too. Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Chelsea was their fourth game without scoring and without wanting to state the obvious if you don’t score goals you don’t win matches. Their games against Fulham and Bolton, both away from home, already have a season-defining look about them and if you throw in two north-east derbies against Middlesbrough and Newcastle and a final day game at home to Arsenal you realise that Keane is going to have his work cut out to keep his side up.

Giovanni Trapattoni might well be the man responsible for ensuring Ireland qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa but whether the Italian succeeds or not in his mission could well depend on how well other managers perform at the bottom of the Premier League over the next couple of months.

ciarancronin3@eircom.net