EVAN FERGUSON’S loan move to West Ham had not gone according to plan.
That is according to Ireland assistant boss John O’Shea who believes the Meath man needs to seize every opportunity he can get to impress.
After struggling to re-establish himself at Brighton after his ankle injury, Ferguson was expected to kick-start his career at the Hammers.
But he has managed just 92 minutes across five games under his old Seagulls boss Graham Potter.
And, with Troy Parrott and Adam Idah in better club form, it means Ferguson’s place in the Ireland starting XI can no longer be taken for granted.
Asked if he had expected him to feature more, O’Shea said: “Yeah, exactly that, you would, especially with a former manager that obviously knows him well.
“But listen, the Premier League teams, there is big competition for places and obviously they probably felt as well that there was a little niggling injury where they had to build up fitness too.
“Hopefully that will improve towards the end of the season and we will see Evan get more starts for the club. That will help massively.
“But that’s a classic example of a learning curve. And he has got to, simple as, knuckle down in training and prove to us this week and to West Ham when he goes back that he deserves a start, and that he deserves to be in the team.
“If he gets the chance, whether it’s five minutes, 20 minutes or half-an-hour, you show why you should be in the team. It’s a combination of all of that.
“It always is the case in that with any player that comes into the squad you are trying to assess everything – ‘can he start? how is he going to impact a game?’
“Hopefully that will improve for the rest of the season and we’ll see what happens over the course of these next two games, but he looked very sharp in training.”
Parrott has scored 17 times for AZ Alkmaar to help them into the Dutch Cup final, their current sixth-place spot in the Eredivisie and the last 16 of the Europa League, where they were beaten 3-2 on aggregate by his former club.
Idah has 14 goals to his name, including two against Aston Villa which helped Celtic into the knockout stages of the Champions League where they suffered an agonising late exit to Bayern Munich.
He said: “It’s a huge plus. Goalscoring is obviously the hardest thing in the game, so it’s very important when you have that confidence. They are two players playing in Europe as well, obviously.
“Adam has another fight on his hands to get that starting spot in the Celtic team, he is obviously coming on and affecting games. That’s an ongoing one for himself.
“But the most important thing is they are coming into us fit and well, and obviously confident from scoring goals and playing well in Europe and playing on big occasions. The more that happens for Irish players, the better.”
Heimir Hallgrímsson has been forced into two late changes to the squad which will travel to Plovdiv today.
With Callum O’Dowda and Will Smallbone ruled out through injury, the latter’s Southampton clubmate Ryan Manning and Andy Moran – on loan to Stoke City from Brighton – have been drafted in.
If that is the extent of the disruption, Ireland will be happy enough as they prepare for opponents who lost 5-0 to Northern Ireland in Belfast in October but conceded only one goal in their five other Nations League matches.
Given Ireland’s last outing was also a 5-0 loss – to England, with Liam Scales’ sending off prompting a collapse – a morale-booster would be welcome.
Certainly, Ireland are keen to avoid relegation ahead of the World Cup qualifying campaign later in the year.
O’Shea said: “You don’t want that to be the case. We want to go on a positive run of games before September.”
And he is confident there will be no hangover from Wembley.
He said: “The lads go back to their clubs and in terms of the minutes, the game time they are getting is the most important thing.
“When you flip it back to what we are going to face this week, the quick turnaround, travelling over there, getting back and getting ready to go again, and the situation of some of the boys in the squad is very positive.
“You can’t dwell on things too much. Obviously you have to reflect and learn to hopefully put things right in the next two games.”
