Evan Ferguson - Top Irish Prospect

Pogue Mahone

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Clickbait title aside, this kid does seem quite an interesting prospect. Scored his first senior goal for Brighton last night and Potter seems to rate him. Very big and strong for his age. Reminiscent of a certain someone :wenger:


Potter is now focussed on nurturing the 17-year-old striker, whose performances belie his years.

"He is an intelligent player for someone so young, you look at him and you have to remind yourself he is only 17, so he's got an exciting future, I think," Potter told Sussex Live.

"He’s level-headed and a humble guy who again wants to just play football, wants to score goals, help the team, so he has got lots of nice attributes, good movement, intelligent, so we are happy with him.

"He is a 17-year-old so I want to be careful with him in terms of his development, but he is training with us every day and never looked out of place.

"The boys know his quality and attributes so I wouldn’t want to rush him into anything, but at the same time we really believe that he is going to have a really big future."
I wonder if he’ll end up at a big club soon?


A big club that is a bit short of prospects that play as a tradional #9, for example?

Yeah, feck it. He’s Irish. I admit it. I just want United to have Irish players again, dammit!
 

Looptheloop16

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Only watched the first 10secs of the clip... similar enough to Hulk all the same
 

EtH

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He’s like Haaland but better at football.
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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Hadn't watched him prior to yesterday but be interesting to see where his career goes. Has the physical attributes to be a beast of a striker.

Absolutely bullied Saliba for his goal yesterday.
 

17Larsson

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Irish as well? Nice.
Grew up not far from me as well by the looks of it.
Would be great to have a top player play for Ireland again
 

BerryBerryShrew

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Bump!

Per BBC livetext: Evan Ferguson is the youngest player to score in back-to-back Premier League games since Federico Macheda for Man Utd.

He hit the woodwork earlier too. As an Irishman who's still waiting for Terry Dixon to come through, I'm very excite!

 

IrishMcD

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Bump!

Per BBC livetext: Evan Ferguson is the youngest player to score in back-to-back Premier League games since Federico Macheda for Man Utd.

He hit the woodwork earlier too. As an Irishman who's still waiting for Terry Dixon to come through, I'm very excite!

Terry Dixon, we all fell for that one didn’t we?
 

BerryBerryShrew

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Terry Dixon, we all fell for that one didn’t we?
You'd think we would have learned something from it, but I seem to recall believing the hype completely on Troy Parrott as well. We're just so desperate for anyone to fill that Robbie Keane shaped void up top that we'll latch on to anything!
 

IrishMcD

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You'd think we would have learned something from it, but I seem to recall believing the hype completely on Troy Parrott as well. We're just so desperate for anyone to fill that Robbie Keane shaped void up top that we'll latch on to anything!
Ritchie Partridge and Liam George too!!! Remover their hype? In fairness to George, he had his leg smashed and never fully got back to himself. Stephen McPhail another one who never lived up to the hype.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Bump!

Per BBC livetext: Evan Ferguson is the youngest player to score in back-to-back Premier League games since Federico Macheda for Man Utd.

He hit the woodwork earlier too. As an Irishman who's still waiting for Terry Dixon to come through, I'm very excite!

Nice stat.

Told my young fella that and he said “Was Macheda any good?” Erm….
 

Ali Dia

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Nice! He was rated in Ireland as a very young player. I saw an article about how Brighton went in as early as possible with him and how they scout Ireland now the bigger clubs seem to be concentrating their efforts elsewhere. Must see if I can dig it up. Let’s hope he can keep the momentum going!!
 

IrishMcD

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Nice! He was rated in Ireland as a very young player. I saw an article about how Brighton went in as early as possible with him and how they scout Ireland now the bigger clubs seem to be concentrating their efforts elsewhere. Must see if I can dig it up. Let’s hope he can keep the momentum going!!
He played against Chelsea in a preseason friendly for his former club, aged 14!!!
 

FootballHQ

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He played really well tonight, nice movement for his goal and really unlucky in first half when he hit the post, excellent technique for that strike.

Early days but he has potential for sure and exciting plan B option for Brighton when they don't want to false 9 their attack. ROI also need this type of striker considering the other promising ones like Parrott, Aaron Connelly and Obafemi have stalled.
 

SilentWitness

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Only 18, pretty nice talent. Brighton is a great club for him too.
 

The Boy

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He’s way more Irish than those two traitors. Doubt he could even qualify to play for England. Proper Dublin lad, through and through. Great to see him doing well.
Sadly he's been capped for ROI senior team twice already, I'd have loved to poach him for England.

I do think he's the real deal though, a great mix of physicality and technical skill, not sure he's on Haaland's level though!
 

Samid

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Sadly he's been capped for ROI senior team twice already, I'd have loved to poach him for England.

I do think he's the real deal though, a great mix of physicality and technical skill, not sure he's on Haaland's level though!
Only in friendlies, which don’t count.
 

yumtum

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Ritchie Partridge and Liam George too!!! Remover their hype? In fairness to George, he had his leg smashed and never fully got back to himself. Stephen McPhail another one who never lived up to the hype.
If only he changed his name to Stephen McSucceed.
 

cyberman

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Am I missing a meme but surely there’s no way he qualifies for England anyway?
 

Godfather

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He looks good on YouTube. Pretty composed on the ball for his size. Any chance we could snap him up?
 

Oranges038

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:lol: So basically from Dublin. I knew he played for Bohs/SKB. Always assumed he was from the area. Oh well.

In fairness Bettystown may as well be Dublin.

He seems to have the ability and could have a bright future, let's hope he can drive on and deliver in both the PL and for Ireland.
 

Pogue Mahone

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In fairness Bettystown may as well be Dublin.

He seems to have the ability and could have a bright future, let's hope he can drive on and deliver in both the PL and for Ireland.
Some commitment from his folks though. He was at SKB from the age of five. They train their best kids teams three or four evenings/week. Plus a match at the weekend. That’s a savage amount of driving.
 

Oranges038

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Some commitment from his folks though. He was at SKB from the age of five. They train their best kids teams three or four evenings/week. Plus a match at the weekend. That’s a savage amount of driving.
It's a massive commitment.

In saying that his dad was a good LOI player and is now an FAI development officer or something. So you would have to assume that he was able to identify that the kid had the talent, he was willing to put in the hours but also had the connections to get him into somewhere like St Kevins from such a young age.
 

footballbite

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He took his goals really well, and seems very fluid on the ball - he could be the real deal.

Utd should be keeping an eye on him if they wish to splash out on a number 9 in the foreseeable future.
 

Kinsella

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Am I missing a meme but surely there’s no way he qualifies for England anyway?
I think his mother's English, which is also why he was able to sign for Brighton at 16 and not 18 post-Brexit.
 

Kinsella

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I wonder if he’ll end up at a big club soon?
It's best for him and the national team that he stays at Brighton for the next couple of seasons at least imo. Brighton play good football and he'll get more game time and develop more there than at another club.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I think his mother's English, which is also why he was able to sign for Brighton at 16 and not 18 post-Brexit.
So she is. Feck. Was wondering how he got round the Brexit nonsense. Oh well. Senior competitive cap can’t be far off. Not exactly up against stiff competition.

Been googling a bit about his background. Interesting link between his old man and Brighton academy.

Bohemians had a tie-in with Kevin’s. They also had Trevor Croly, the most gifted coach in the League of Ireland. Again Ferguson Senior’s knowledge was paying off.

“At 14, Evan was very big, really fast but the big thing he had was a snap to his finish,” says Croly. “When he played against St Pat’s, he was just really aggressive in the box, attacking everything, having a goal wrongly disallowed. He was ready for first-team football at a really young age.”

But they held him back – aware of the furore caused when they picked Ferguson to play in a friendly against Chelsea. He was still 14 at the time, prompting noisy social media obsessives to say (loudly) that a kid shouldn’t be in an adult dressing room.

“That time we played Chelsea, he gave them a torrid time,” Croly recalls. “He did to Chelsea what he did against Arsenal the other night, making runs in behind; you could see the centre halves were a little bit on edge against him.”

In fact they did make enquiries. So did each of the big six clubs in the Premier League. But Brighton had an edge. John Morling, their then academy manager, had worked with Barry Ferguson in the FAI.