Hourihane

Made his seventh Eire u21 appearance when he came on as a 55th minute sub for Torquay's Eunan O'Kane. Eire lost 2-1 to Denmark and face Italy u21s on Monday in a Euro qualifier.

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Good experience for him. He's got talent, I don't think anyone would doubt that, it's just the manner in which that talent is applied that concerns me. Working with International-level coaches can only improve him, and hopefully he'll mature in his second full season with us. He could be the creative midfielder we need, if only the coaching staff can work on him and get the best out of him.

It might help him if we played through midfield as opposed to over it.

Warny wrote:

It might help him if we played through midfield as opposed to over it.

Warny wrote:

It might help him if we played through midfield as opposed to over it.

Ah buts its going to be oh so different in the coming season from a man drenched in the tradition of West Ham

The chap really baffles when in an Argyle shirt. Some games he is utterly useless,while other games he is outstanding.

Some game good, some games very poor. A bench player for me.

If he hadn't scored that wonderfluke against Dagenham then many more people would be putting him down as one of Argyle's all time worst ever players. He makes me miss Jason Peake and Sean Evers.

At the moment I don't rate him at all, I thought he was woeful last season.

He has some and talent & potential as shown by his performance on the last day against Cheltenham but unless he can re-produce it on a far more consistent basis I really don't think that'll be enough.

He's lightweight, his long passes go awry and his short passes are panicked, flappy and to the wrong man. There's talent there but for me it'll take a lot of work it to be harnessed into a decent player. His woeful passes, his light weight and passing decisions entirely outweigh his positive atributes. Not good enough to be playing in League 2 for me and think it'll be difficult to change.

It's strange how the majority of fans don't really rate him, yet he gets capped again for the Eire U-21's.

Somebody somewhere must think he can play a bit so he has been given the chance to prove it. Last season was his first real year in professional football and he was a first team regular so Fletcher has to think he's half decent, or a prospect as well.

With that first years experience behind him, he ought to improve from now on.

Greenjock wrote:

It's strange how the majority of fans don't really rate him, yet he gets capped again for the Eire U-21's.

Somebody somewhere must think he can play a bit so he has been given the chance to prove it. Last season was his first real year in professional football and he was a first team regular so Fletcher has to think he's half decent, or a prospect as well.

With that first years experience behind him, he ought to improve from now on.

Maybe Eire U-21s are absolutely terrible.

Mock Cuncher wrote:

Greenjock wrote:

It's strange how the majority of fans don't really rate him, yet he gets capped again for the Eire U-21's.

Somebody somewhere must think he can play a bit so he has been given the chance to prove it. Last season was his first real year in professional football and he was a first team regular so Fletcher has to think he's half decent, or a prospect as well.

With that first years experience behind him, he ought to improve from now on.

Maybe Eire U-21s are absolutely terrible.

Probably. Or they might encourage passing the ball around and tell him his role is to create chances for the strikers instead of marking an opposition defender who's venturing forward?

I think there's definitely football potential there, I expect he was a bit confused last season and might have thought "this is football, but not as I know it Jim".

There sgain I was with Luggy in hoping a team would be built around Sean Evers and again with Kari Arnason before he was converted to centre half.

IF we change to actually playing football I expect him to be prominent.

Its definitely the team style of play for this lad.
I remember seeing him last pre season when Reid was trying to adopt an on the deck approach, his ball retention and passing ability was of a high standard.
OK it was friendly games but he showed a lot of technical ability and I believe he has come through the FAI coaching system which although at full international level is not a great advert for "Total Football" they have certainly been successful in producing decent players, for a small country they punch above their weight in the FIFA rankings.

I get what people mean, he would be good in a passing side and he did look good in pre season and against Shrewsbury and Millwall, two games in which we played some nice football.

Unfortunately, I can't see us playing good football next season, me thinks another season of scraping 1 nil wins, but that will suit me