The Evan Ferguson question. Should he or shouldn’t he?<\/p>\n
When the Irish striker fell out of a favour at his parent club Brighton, the usual loan moves to the spit and sawdust joints of the Championship were mooted. Should we send our finest frontman to the grim and dreary north-east of England? Or the grim and dreary midlands?<\/p>\n
However, the bright lights of Rome emerged as an unlikely ray of sunlight and before we knew it, the Bettystown star was on his way to Serie A. A dream move – but a challenging one.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, about 1600km or so north of the Italian capital, Ferguson’s international strikemate, Troy Parrott, was taking the Eredivisie by storm, banging in goals to beat the band for AZ Alkmaar. Parrott would take that form into the crucial international window against Portugal and Hungary and, well, you know the rest.<\/p>\n
So begs the question – reach for the stars or for something more pragmatic?<\/p>\n
Speaking on the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast, former Bray Wanderer Alan Cawley asked if Ferguson’s – and indeed Ireland’s – immediate needs would have been better served with a confidence-boosting season in the familiar surrounds of England’s second tier, rather than the relative unknown of Italy’s notoriously cut-throat top flight.<\/p>\n
“All Troy Parrott is thinking about is banging in goals. He’s on fire. It leads you to thinking, he\u2019s playing in maybe not the most established league, like Serie A,” Cawley wondered.<\/p>\n
“Evan made his choice to go to Roma. He\u2019s in a situation now \u2013 fair enough, he had an injury. But you look at the attention Troy is getting. You look back at Evan\u2019s decision and whoever was guiding him \u2013 of course, he\u2019d always have good guidance in [father] Barry, a former player, but to go to Roma was a big decision.<\/p>\n
“The scrutiny on the club. The manager\u2019s outspoken, things not happening for him. There\u2019s no guarantee of first-team football anywhere \u2013 but if he was in the Championship where he\u2019s 80% sure he\u2019s going to play every week, be the big fish for a year, score a few goals.<\/p>\n
“Look at what it\u2019s done for Troy Parrott.”<\/p>\n
\n
For his part, former Ireland international Keith Treacy is not convinced that Ferguson’s move hasn’t worked out. Ferguson has had his successes – and his frustrations – at Roma and his relationship with manager Gian Piero Gasperini remains a peculiar one. But, Treacy argues, when presented with the prospect of a stint in Serie A, what footballer would turn it down?<\/p>\n
“In a way, I would love Evan to be playing in a Championship team every single week and getting a handful of goals,” the former Burnley midfielder said.<\/p>\n
“But, imagine sitting with your agent, going for a cup of coffee, you’re surplus to requirements at Brighton \u2013 maybe third or fourth choice \u2013 and all of a sudden Roma are interested. Gasperini fancies you.<\/p>\n
“I understand the thought of ‘is that a great move?\u2019 but if a manager of that calibre and a team of that calibre want you\u2026 when Evan finishes his career in 20-odd years, imagine saying to yourself \u2018I had the chance to go to Roma but I didn\u2019t take it\u2019.”<\/p>\n
“An ankle injury is an ankle injury, he could\u2019ve got that anywhere. I understand Gasperini has cracked the whip at him a couple of times. But Evan\u2019s a young lad, he\u2019s struggling with injuries and what he\u2019s done to date in his career has been absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s still so far ahead of the peak at that age, that we shouldn\u2019t worry too much about him. While Troy is doing what he\u2019s doing, we\u2019re in a privileged position to be able to say \u2018Evan, go and do what you\u2019re doing and take your time\u2019.”<\/p>\n
Watch Bodo\/Glimt v Inter Milan in the Champions League knockout phase play-offs on Wednesday from 7.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Evan Ferguson question. Should he or shouldn’t he? When the Irish striker fell out of a favour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-301628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}