Kyle Lafferty from Burnley to Rangers for £3 Million (plus 10% of next transfer, etc) (5-year contract)
Sammy Clingan from Nottingham Forest to Norwich (free transfer).
Paddy McCourt from Derry City to Celtic (undisclosed, I think) (3-year contract)
…and Maik Taylor has ended the speculation about his future by signing a new 2-year contract with relegated Birmingham.
An offer, believed to be from West Brom, for Derry City winger Pat McCourt, has been written off by City chairman Pat McDaid as ‘insulting’:
“The offer had been rejected because we feel it is derisory - it’s insulting to the club and the League of Ireland in general,” said McDaid.
He added: “We have another Premiership club, a couple of Championship teams and a couple of sides from the SPL in Scotland interested in Paddy. We have been speaking with the clubs over the last couple of weeks.”
After a poor friendly showing against Bulgaria last month, Northern Ireland responded with 4 goals (in the opposition’s net…) and one half of a good performance against a Georgia side wearing higher numbers than you’d see in an American Football game. (Probably. If you ever watched that sort of thing).
After a few half-chances, Norn Iron took the lead as Kyle Lafferty stroked home Steve Davis’ ball into the box. Healy soon added a second as the keeper made a hames of a (albeit slightly deflected) effort from outside the box, and 3 minutes later Laffs headed in his second, this time from a Healy cross. “Are you England in disguise?” Davis, clearly enjoying his football with Rangers these days, was playing his best NI match for ages. Keith Gillespie put in a man-of-the-match performance, despite a few wild balls. Stuart Olyott, who seemed to have come to the close of his NI career, was back in the squad and straight back into the team due to absences and his successful loan spell at Doncaster, and put in a good performance, winning stuff in the air, and getting into the box often to provide Keith with an extra body to aim for. A lot better than anything we’ve seen lately from Chris “hits the bar from 40 yards every other game but apart from that is pretty rubbish” Brunt. Evans was poor though.
So 3-0 at half time, happy days. Time to blood a few fringe players. Not-looking-so-Worthless resisted the temptation to tinker overly, and only brought on Feeney (so much for a Laffs hattrick) and Crewe’s Michael O’Connor. However, whether it was the loss of DJ, or the fact we already had the game sewn up, the second half was pretty terrible from start to finish. O’Connor’s first touch was a foul, and then on 55 minutes he blocked a cross with his upper arm to concede a penalty. Maik duly pushed it onto his right-hand post, but the ball rebounded to the striker who was left with a simple tap-in, but stumbled. However, with their chance fully gone, Sir David Healy, dived in and put the ball in his own net. Think it’s taking the ‘everything he touches goes in’ concept a bit too far…
The rest of the half was truly awful. The defending was non-existent, and we just invited them to come at us, but not even their bright looking number 77 could trouble Maik Taylor. The only other real observations I would make are that their keeper looks like Napoleon Dynamite, and that Iashvili is one ugly boy.
The Linfield duo of Gault and Thompson came on, followed by Alan Mannus, and Thompson got a goal at the end, as A Hughes headed on a corner and it went in off Thompson’s hand.
So if the first half performance is anything to go by, very promising. But if the second half shows all we have in reserve - not good. Although it’s hard to be negative after scoring 5. Er, I mean 4 - sorry David :-P
NORTHERN IRELAND: Taylor (Mannus), Baird, Hughes, Craigan (McAuley), Evans, Gillespie, Johnson (O’Connor), Davis (Gault), Elliott, Healy (Thompson), Lafferty (Feeney).
Hampden Park, Glasgow, Wednesday 20th August
Steve Davis scored his first goal for Rangers last night, their second in a 2-0 win over Werder Bremen - tapping in from close range after Cousin’s shot was only parried by the keeper. Highlights here, courtesy of the BBC.
[Welcome to the new home for AWS. The archives will be added in the next week or so.]
The none-too-moutherwatering prospect of a home friendly with Bulgaria turned out to be a none-too exciting game. Craigan, only relieved of Motherwell duty at the last minute (yet another match called off - they’re now relaying the pitch), Steve Davis and Chris Baird all started on the bench, with Damien Johnston playing his first international in yonks and Gareth McAuley appearing to be now firmly established in the right back position.
The first half was decent enough. Bulgaria didn’t look any great shakes, although they went close to scoring a few times, and Maik pulled off a particularly good save in front of the Kop. But we weren’t very threatening at the other end, and the Scottish referee was proving to be a complete tube (he was clearly from Plains or somewhere!).
With 38 minutes gone, after denying us yet another free kick, the Bulgarians broke, Petrov proved too fast for Keith Gillespie, and he lifted the ball over Maik Taylor and into the net. I see on the news there it’s gone down as a Jonny Evans og.
In the second half, any real good play from NI fizzled out. Davis had come on at half time along with Baird & Craigan, but although trying to play a bit of football, there were signs why a player attracting interest from Man Utd a few seasons ago has ended up being farmed out on loan to the SPL. Maybe the goal was playing on his mind or something, but Keith seemed particularly ineffective. But there was no sign of Ivan Sproule.
It looked like we were only going to be able to score from a set piece, but again these turned out to be pretty ineffective. Brunt certainly didn’t look like a £3 Million pound man. Paterson came on, and looked eager, but didn’t do much. Thompson was worse. Then Mannus joined him for Taylor, and was rounded within seconds, but we survived, and he did well after that. He must be gutted that Worthless is continuing his quest to go after players who don’t want to play for us by trying to get Royston back in the fold.
And that was about it. Both teams slagged off the pitch, but Berbatov was probably just bitter that he’s joined Christiano Ronaldo on the list of Premiership superstars who’ve failed to find the net at Windsor Park. In truth, it probably wasn’t as bad as I’ve let on, but still it’s not making the prospect of the next friendly against Georgia look any more appealing. And still nothing to disprove those block bookers who said they wouldn’t be renewing if Worthington was given the job.
NORTHEN IRELAND: Taylor (Mannus), McAuley, Evans (Craigan ht), Hughes, McCartney (Baird ht), Gillespie (Thompson 78), Johnson (Davis ht), Clingan, Brunt, Healy, Lafferty (Paterson 60)
Not Used: Webb, Robinson, Sproule
