Liverpool's two-legged Champions League semi-final produced more goals than every Irish player in the Premier League this season.
That's the stat that kicked off David Sneyd's conversation with Ger and Kevin Kilbane this morning on OTB AM. The trio were discussing Liverpool's late scare in Italy as Roma failed to force the tie to extra-time, and the Irish Daily Mail's football correspondent noted the comparison between those two legs and the fortunes of the Irishmen hitting the back of the net in the 2017/2018 Premier League season.
"It's actually shaping up to be the worst season ever. I think last year was 18, the top scorers were Jon Walters and Seamus Coleman".
"It's a topic that's been well covered since Robbie Keane has left us, 'where are the goals going to come from?'. I know that's the elite, it's the Champions League semi-final, but it hammers home the dearth that's available to Martin O'Neill at the moment."
Sneyd referenced the low number of goalscorers as well as the shockingly low number of goals they've accumulated, especially when compared to the late 90s and early 00s when the likes of David Connolly, Robbie Keane, Niall Quinn, and Clinton Morrisson were regularly scoring in top flight European leagues.
"It's always been double figures, you've always had lads scoring double figures, and this season there's only nine scorers. Shane Long has two goals, Jeff Hendrick has two goals and hasn't scored since October, and ciaran Clark is up there as one of the top scorers".
The fact that Ireland no longer has a regular scorer in England's top flight has meant we've had to turn our attention to Championship goalscorers, with the country's biggest hope in terms of a natural goalscorer lying in Sean Maguire.
"Sean Maguire at the moment is the great hope of actually progressing through. Every stage he's been at in his career since he came back to Ireland, he's always met each demand".
"Maybe we're coming from the point of view of being over here, at Cork you see him banging in the goals, but he's gone over there and he's scoring straight away".
"You're just really hoping that he can get in the Premier League, either with Preston or if it's next season or whatever, that he can just keep on continuing to rise up".
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