Irish football has been a dark and disappointing place over the past few months. A mix of bad results, performances and Stephen Kenny's tenure as manager has led to flooding of opinions and views on what really is wrong with our national team.It's safe to say that another contributing factor to the lack of entertainment while watching Ireland games is the void left by the likes of Eamon Dunphy, Liam Brady and John Giles in the RTÉ studio.
While journalists, broadcasters and pundits all seem to have their own thoughts on where we have gone wrong, an article by Ken Early in the Irish Times has grabbed the attention of legendary pundit Eamon Dunphy.
READ HERE: The Rancorous History Of Eamon Dunphy v The Irish Football Manager
For decades, we have been used to possibly not the most tactical analysis in the build up and post match, but raw reaction, incredible quotes and opinions from the veteran pundits were always guaranteed.
Now, we have yet another quote to add to the collection of Eamon Dunphy's most out there comments.
Dunphy and Giles slam Ken Early's Bazunu comments
Ken Early has become a go-to person for many Irish football fans in recent years. From his role in forming popular podcast 'Second Captains' to columns with the Irish Times, Early certainly has many fans of his work. Eamon Dunphy and John Giles are two people who wouldn't call themselves fans of his work.
Ken Early published an article for the Irish Times where he dissected Ireland's defeat to France in September.
In the article, he also looked at the form of goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu.
He wrote:
Bazunu’s save percentage of 54% was the worst of 113 goalkeepers who played regularly in the top five European leagues last season. It should be remembered that he is also the youngest goalkeeper to have played so many minutes at that level. Most goalkeepers don’t grow up in the limelight the way he has been doing. Nevertheless, the numbers have created the impression of weakness. And opponents like France can hardly be expected to ignore a weakness.
Eamon Dunphy highlighted this in an episode of his podcast The Stand.
Speaking to his former colleague John Giles on the podcast he spoke about how Stephen Kenny has introduced talent like Gavin Bazunu who Dunphy thinks "is a very good goalkeeper".
There's a clown writing in the newspapers here. I won't name him, but he's a statistician really more than a football commentator. He says stats show, as you know Gavin Bazunu has been at Southampton for the last season. He says he has statistical proof that Gavin Bazunu is the worst goalkeeper in, wait for it, Europe.
He's a terrific goalkeeper.
John Giles was quick to get behind Bazunu and echo Dunphy's views.
That's typical of somebody who knows nothing about football. He's playing in the team that's worst in the league . He's going to have more shots against him than any goalkeeper.
It's just ridiculous. That's just somebody making some sort of a stupid article.
With Ken Early's opinion not impressing Eamon Dunphy and John Giles, it's safe to say the the pair won't be subscribing to Second Captains anytime soon.
Despite the most recent spat between Dunphy and Early, it isn't the first time that the pair have clashed.
Dunphy goes head-to-head with Early over Klopp remark
Back in 2017, Eamon Dunphy appeared on RTÉ 2FM's 'Game On'.
Ken Early had previously written a column about Liverpool's defensive struggles in the 2017/18 Premier League season.
Early slammed Jurgen Klopp for his defensive tactics saying:
Klopp is one of those system managers who believes that the best way to defend is to play the game in the other team's half'.
READ HERE: "Bring It On, Baby!" - Eamon Dunphy Calls Out Ken Early For Football Debate
Eamon Dunphy was quick to bite back and issue an appeal to Early.
Everyone knows about their defence except one very prominent writer, who I think is a nice writer but he wrote a piece today about defending. It was daft.
He is a very good writer but he is the one on the attack without naming people, he mentions 'pundits' , who are the football pundits?
Why doesn't he come out and name people and have a proper debate? I'd love to debate him. You could sell tickets to that. If you want to put it on, bring it on baby.
I really admire him and they know that because I did programmes with them and I don't want to put them down but they seem to want to prove that you don't need to know anything about football to write about it or comment on it.
Ken Early Responds To Eamon Dunphy
The Second Captains host took to his podcast to respond to Dunphy's remarks.
With Eamon Dunphy not naming Ken Early directly as the writer, Ken Early was asked on the latest installment of the podcast if he was in fact 'the clown' and 'statistician' that Dunphy was alluding to.
Early said:
I think it probably is me. Statistical proof. He said it. He has the statistical proof that Gavin Bazunu is the worst goalkeepr in Europe..The offending line; Gavin Bazunu needs to make a lot of saves to shake off the reputation he has unfortunately developed as one of the worst shot-stoppers in English football. That is exactly what I wrote so I didn't mention stats, I didn't mention Europe. I said that he had developed a reputation. Which I think is evidence by his manager having to defend him from a bunch of angry fans.
If you talk about the stats. The specific comparison that Giles made with Alisson. What kind of a moron would compare the goalkeeper of Southampton with the goalkeeper from Liverpool who have to do a completely different job. It's a totally different job. I mean who had to face more shots in the Premier League last year between Alisson and Bazunu?
To be fair, Alisson played five more matches than Bazunu. Alisson played 37 instead of 32.
Alisson faced 147 shots saving 72%, to concede 43 goals. Gavin Bazunu is 120 shots, saving 54% to concede 56 goals.
He (Bazunu) is now the last ranked goalkeeper in the Championship. No he's 25th out of 26th in the Championship. He's bottom 1% in saves for the next 14 leagues.
Early was then asked how he feels about being branded a 'clown' by Eamon Dunphy.
It is flattering always to be in the conversation.
While Early does think that Dunphy and Giles are referring to one of his mroe recent articles published, the veteran pundits are most likely speaking about his article after Ireland's defeat to France in September.
It's clear that the pair's views haven't impacted Early, who certainly won't shy away from showcasing his stats on ireland players in the future.
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