The Guardian have this morning published their annual feature on the most promising young talent aged 16 or 17 at each Premier League club, and Irish fans will be happy to see that one of our own has made the cut.
In 2014, Marcus Rashford made the list so it bodes well for Bournemouth teenager Gavin Kilkenny to be acknowledged in this tear's crop, labelled the "next generation" by the British newspaper.
Kilkenny is a winger who is a product of Dublin-based St Kevin’s Boys Club, who blessed us with Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick in recent times, and will definitely be one to keep an eye on in the Irish underage setup.
The Guardian asked Bournemouth's youth team manager Carl Fletcher (not the Harchester United striker who was killed by his manager) for a quote and he had some promising things to say about the young lad:
The 16-year-old winger impressed after initially arriving on trial from the Dublin-based St Kevin’s Boys Club towards the end of last season. The young Irishman, who has been capped at Under-17 level, spent 10 years with St Kevin’s, a club that nurtured Hull City’s Robbie Brady and Burnley’s Jeff Hendrick as well as, in years gone by, Robbie Keane.
“He’s a fairly attack-minded winger, he’s bright, has got good feet, good technical ability and a good work-rate,” says Carl Fletcher, the Bournemouth youth team manager. “He’s progressing nicely from what we have seen so far.” The club’s Category Three academy status stipulates recruited players between under-nines and under-16s must be from within 90 minutes of Bournemouth. “We had to make a conscious effort to broaden our horizons in our recruitment, we wanted different players in different positions, and the ones you want are not always so close to Bournemouth,” says Fletcher.
“We still look at those dropping out of Category One academies like Chelsea and Arsenal, as well as non-league. With the first team being in the Premier League, we’ve had to really step up the recruitment.”
Hopefully he continues that progression, and you would have to imagine that Bournemouth is a fantastic club to develop as a player considering how well the club has been run over the past few years.
When Balls.ie compiled our list of young Irish players to watch at each Premier League club, 20 year old Josh O'Hanlon was the player selected after making the move over from Longford Town, so it's good to see a club like Bournemouth with promising Irish talent in different age groups.
You can read the list in full over on TheGuardian.com
