TRANSFER DEADLINE day, as it proved, caused minimal disruption to the Republic of Ireland’s preparations for Friday’s Euro 2012 qualifying game, as Liam Lawrence was the sole member of Giovanni Trapattoni’s squad to change clubs yesterday.
While the midnight deadline in Scotland allowed for later business to be done, at the 6pm close of the English window Shay Given and Robbie Keane were respectively still Manchester City and Tottenham employees.
Anthony Stokes and Marc Wilson, both left out of the squad for the games against Armenia and Andorra, were at the centre of the biggest deals involving Irish players. Celtic paid Hibernian €1.45 million for Stokes and Wilson joined Stoke City from Portsmouth in a player-plus-cash exchange that saw Lawrence and Dave Kitson drop down a division.
Celtic will be 22-year-old Stokes’ seventh club in as many years, as his nomadic career has taken him from Arsenal to Sunderland to Hibernian, with loan spells at Falkirk, Sheffield United and Crystal Palace in between. After an unsuccessful spell under Roy Keane at Sunderland – who, ironically, he joined having rejected a move to Celtic – the striker revived his career by scoring 23 goals for Hibernian last season.
“I knew I was going to have to start from the bottom again and build myself up,” he said yesterday of his time at Sunderland.
“I wasn’t playing any games, even reserves, so I was lucky a club like Hibs came in for me. I was sitting in Sunderland rotting away. Hopefully now I can do well and settle at Celtic – if it was up to me I would sign a contract for the rest of my career.”
Wilson, meanwhile, makes a swift return to the Premier League after being relegated with Portsmouth, as the 23-year-old defender impressed in what was a torrid year for the club.
Keane, out of favour at Tottenham, and having been linked with moves to Newcastle, Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton, among others, was rumoured to be the subject of a €10 million bid from Besiktas yesterday, the Turkish club said to be willing to match the Ireland captain’s €85,000-a-week wages. By the deadline, though, no deal had been done.
Similarly, Given, now understudy to Joe Hart at City, will remain at his club until at least January after rejecting a move to Fulham, having been persuaded by manager Roberto Mancini to stay and fight for his place.
Given’s former Republic of Ireland team-mate Ian Harte moved to the Championship from League One yesterday, joining Reading from Carlisle, for whom the defender scored a remarkable 19 goals last season. “It’s my birthday today (33), and it’s the best present I could have wished for, I’m really looking forward to getting started,” he said.
Meanwhile, as John O’Shea prepares to win his 64th senior cap on Friday, fellow Waterford man Jim Goodwin, the player he partnered at the centre of defence in the Irish under-16 team that won the 1998 European Championships, was left without a club. Having struggled to make the first team this season, Huddersfield terminated Goodwin’s contract by mutual consent, but promised to help the 28-year-old find a club.
