JONATHAN WALTERS WAS busy enough on social media over the last seven days.
Last Friday, he voiced his support for former Republic of Ireland teammate Harry Arter who was coming under pressure for sitting tight on a £40,000 per week contract at Nottingham Forest despite not playing for two years and still having this season to run.
On Monday, he recalled an amusing story about his first meeting with Neil Warnock when the veteran boss was in charge of Queens Park Rangers and attempted to sign him.
“He told me that he was forever getting prank phone calls off random numbers. He would save the numbers as D***head1, D***head2, D***head3…etc so when he got called up at 3am he could answer the phone by saying ‘Hello D***head’. I did wonder what he saved my number as in his phone as I didn’t sign for him!”
The following day, Walters returned to the issue of player rights, in particular the scenario Jadon Sancho finds himself in at Manchester United after manager Erik ten Hag banished him from all first-team facilities at the training ground.
Later that day, Walters followed up on a post from former player and current licensed intermediary Paul Dalglish, who had highlighted this report.
“Eye Opening… Staggering stats, 97% of former Category 1 academy players now aged 21 to 26 never made an EPL appearance.”
It’s funny where a social media rabbit hole will lead you.
A video from 2019 then popped up of former Ireland assistant manager Roy Keane discussing his fractured relationship with Walters on one of Off The Ball’s roadshows.
Perhaps it was the passing of time, maybe even emerging from a post-pandemic world with a greater sense of perspective, but the depth of the animosity following their run-in on Ireland duty in 2018 was striking.
“He talks a good game,” Keane said of Walters four years ago. “It’s amazing – imagine he had a good career… Imagine he had a good CV. Imagine if he won a trophy.”
Keane then appeared to re-open old wounds earlier this week in his latest venture with Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on the “Stick To Football” podcast.
“I fell out with lads when I was manager of Sunderland, Ipswich and when I was working with Martin [O'Neill] with Ireland,” Keane said.
“I looked back, I analysed it and I’m convinced I was right. The lads I would fall out with were complete idiots who did nothing with their careers or their lives afterwards. So that gives me a bit of comfort. No one has ever really proved me wrong.”
Keane’s assessment, naturally, is based on his own threshold for “a good career”, but it’s also laced with the venom reserved for someone he has fallen out with.
He is unlikely, for example, to single out Everton and Ireland captain Seamus Coleman for his lack of medals.
And as that stat Walters referenced about academy progress highlights, what constitutes success in a career cannot be neatly defined by gleaming silverware in a trophy cabinet.
For most it is simply preserving through the coarse terrain of the professional game, overcoming obstacles and proving capable of longevity.
The plight of the bottom four sides in the Premier League, and the Ireland internationals with the three teams in the relegation zone, highlights this.
They have yet to win a game this season and already seem destined for a swift return to the Championship.
John Egan is Sheffield United’s captain and takes his teammates to West Ham United on the back of a club record 8-0 home defeat by Newcastle United.
Dara O’Shea was Vincent Kompany’s first summer signing at Burnley and was seen as a core component of the manager’s thinking for how he wants his side to not just survive, but thrive.
It’s been a difficult return to the Premier League and after missing out on the last two games he returned to the starting XI with a goal against League Two Salford City in the Carabao Cup during the week.
O’Shea is 24, six years Egan’s junior so their ambitions will likely differ at this stage of their respective careers. Kompany pin-pointed the Dubliner as someone he feels has the capability to kick on in the Premier League, whether that is at Turf Moor or elsewhere.
Former West Ham United midfielder Josh Cullen is another highly regarded by his Burnley manager, and he has found his way back to England’s top flight via loan spells in the third tier and then moving to Anderlecht in Belgium.
Burnley’s trip to Newcastle will be another test of Kompany’s faith in his players.
Each week provides Luton Town’s Chiedozie Ogbene with a barometer for his progress. In terms of his career, it’s been a stark ascent. The former Cork City man left Limerick in the League of Ireland in 2017 and has risen through the divisions – including a loan spell in League Two with Exeter City alongside O’Shea in 2018/19 – to try and keep Luton among the elite.
The 26-year-old heads for Everton away tomorrow afternoon with a body of work to be proud of and the biggest challenge of his career still ahead of him as he aims to show he can be effective in the Premier League and become a weapon to be utilised.
That’s what Walters managed to do at the age of 27 in 2010 when he earned a move to Stoke City while playing under Keane at Ipswich Town. A decade earlier he had been let go by Blackburn Rovers while starring in the youth team after stealing money.
Back on social media he teased the possibility of a tell-all book that would lift the lid on football’s underbelly.
“I can guarantee that it would be the most unrestricted, comprehensive book that has been written.…If you think you know the full story about anything – You don’t!”
Keane should certainly know that as well as anyone.
