Joey O’Brien – Left Out by: Republic of Ireland. Good Shout? Yes.

O’Brien’s been a strange one for West Ham.

When he came to us, we were his ‘last-chance saloon’ in a lot of ways, but boy did we get a lot of use out of the player!

This season however, the defensive reinforcements we brought in have meant O’Brien can barely get a game for the Hammers, and so he’s not been called up for the Republic of Ireland.

O’Brien is 28 years old, so not the oldest exclusion from the team, but the Irish team includes three Championship defenders, as well as someone from Burnley (a team who have let in 19 league goals this season) and I can’t help but wonder if O’Brien may wish to go to a team where he can get some regular playing time to get the best from the remaining years in his career.