IRELAND U21 BOSS Stephen Kenny has acknowledged it won’t be easy to accommodate all his in-form strikers in the starting XI.

Adam Idah, Jonathan Afolabi, Aaron Connolly, Michael Obafemi and Troy Parrott were all named in Kenny’s squad on Wednesday.

It has been a special few months for all of the individuals in question. Idah and Connolly both made their full senior club debuts on Tuesday, with the latter scoring for Brighton.

Afolabi helped Ireland U19s progress to the semi-finals of the Euros in the summer and his displays in the tournament helped the youngster seal a move to Celtic.

Obafemi has featured for Southampton in the Premier League, both this season and last, and was also among the goals in the League Cup on Tuesday.

And Parrott enjoyed a run in the Spurs’ senior side during pre-season and is understood to be not far off Tottenham’s first team for competitive matches.

With Kenny usually adopting a 4-3-3 formation incorporating only one out-and-out striker, the Ireland boss admits it will be difficult to keep everyone satisfied.

The situation is a contrast to previous years, with former senior boss Martin O’Neill lamenting the lack of strikers available and the absence of a natural successor to Robbie Keane.

Kenny, though, was keen to emphasise that there is a long way to go for the players in question to fulfil their potential.

“Listen, there’s no point in me talking all these young players up,” he said. “They’ve done really well individually and they all are very young. And on the basis that we’ve not selected any strikers that are in the [older] 1998 or ‘99 age groups, and we’ve gone with these players, we’ve said that these are the ones with the best potential, we feel.

“Obviously, it will depend on how they go with their clubs, as they progress over the next year or two. But I do think that we are not relying on one player, hoping that one player does it for us.

“We’ve got five strikers there who are all different, versatile. We saw Aaron Connolly playing on the left [on Tuesday] night in a 3-4-3 and he’s played on the left for us. Troy Parrott has played for the U19s as a number 10 and on the right as well. He hasn’t really played upfront for the U19s, he’s mainly played supporting the striker.

“And I think Adam Idah and Johnny Afolabi are out-and-out number 9s. Michael Obafemi, even though he’s a centre-forward, has played on the right for Southampton. So they have flexibility.

I don’t play with two strikers, so five into one doesn’t go, but I think some of them are versatile enough that they can play in different areas. You could easily get four of them into the team in different positions.”

And while there are plenty of options for Kenny in attack, the Ireland squad are not at full strength.

Neil Farrugia and Connor Ronan were influential in the opening qualification win over Luxembourg, though both are unavailable for the upcoming games with Armenia and Sweden due to injury.

Those players’ absence, meanwhile, has meant opportunities have opened up for others, such as Afolabi and Gavin Kilkenny, to come into the squad.

“[Conor has] unfortunately broken his ribs after having a really good loan spell in Slovakia. So far, we’re happy with how the young players have done, but we’ve had a lot of changes, we’ve a few young players coming in for the first time. We have to integrate them over the four days we are in.

“We want to maximise the attacking talent that we have. And we’ve got a lot of pace in the team, dynamic midfield players and full backs who can raid. We want all the players to be positive in their play and confident in themselves on the pitch. We want them to display a level of confidence in possession.

The challenge is if you are overloading with so many forwards, you tend not to able to dominate in possession, because they are attacking, so we need to work as a unit. That’s where Connor Ronan was brilliant, because he could come from that attacking position into midfield and overload with quick passing, so we will have some work to do on the training ground to integrate all of the forwards into an effective team.”

In addition, Kenny reiterated previous suggestions that he would be “unlikely” to manage the U21 side in combination with the senior role he is just to undertake next year, even if Ireland’s youngsters qualify for the Euros, which takes place in June 2021 in Hungary and Slovenia.

Whether that situation will arise is far from certain, with Ireland never having qualified for a major U21 tournament before, in addition to being fourth seeds in a group that includes Italy, and where the play-off route will likely be required if they finish second.

Kenny also urged fans and media not to get too carried away about Ireland’s current crop of exciting youngsters.

“It is a little too early to make those judgements on a grand scale. Jonathan Afolabi was released by Southampton, it didn’t go well for him and then all of a sudden he gets picked in the top-four players of the [U19 Euros] tournament and has a real productive period in Russia and Armenia in the qualifiers. Things can change quickly for players and injuries can affect their career and other players can really emerge. It’s not always the best 17 or 16-year-old [that ultimately succeeds], as we found out.” 

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