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Jake O’Brien is finding his feet at Everton – but his struggle since Lyon move is lesson for League of Ireland clubs
ON THE face of it, there is nothing unusual about Jake O’Brien’s sudden involvement at Everton.
He is not the first player to have benefited from a managerial change and he will not be the last.
But his case is a little different given Sean Dyche — who had not been playing him — was the manager who had signed him from Lyon for €19million as recently as last summer.
Or to rephrase that, Dyche was the manager when Everton signed the Ireland defender.
His transfer coincided with an attempted takeover of the club by Lyon’s owner.
O’Brien’s experience — in which he has essentially lost six months of his career, although his performances suggest no long-term damage — underlines just how players can become pawns in a game being played out in boardrooms rather than on the pitch.
And, with Cobh Ramblers becoming the third League of Ireland outfit to come under a multi-club ownership model, it is something which needs to be watched closer to home.
Going to Mick McCarthy’s old club from Crystal Palace was an unqualified success for the Cork native.
He played a major part in Lyon recovering from a disastrous start to last season which had them bottom of Ligue 1 in December to finish sixth and qualify for Europe.
They also reached the French Cup final in which they were beaten by Paris Saint-Germain in Kylian Mbappe’s farewell game.
The Real Madrid-bound striker did not score. O’Brien did, although his side went down 2-1.
The enormous profit Lyon made on the former Cork City player — who had cost them around €1.2m from Palace — appears to have been one of their few good business calls in recent years.
On Friday, the club was handed a provisional relegation with its debts reported to have spiralled to €508m.
For their balance sheet alone selling O’Brien made perfect sense, but there was another context in which that transfer took place.
John Textor is the majority owner and chairman of Eagle Football Holdings Limited, the leading shareholder for Botafogo, Palace, Lyon and Molenbeek. O’Brien has only to decamp to Rio de Janeiro to have lined out for all of the clubs in his portfolio, having earned the move to Lyon on the back of his displays for the Belgian side when on loan from Palace.
Last year, Textor was attempting to offload his interest in Palace and buy Everton.
There had never previously been any transfer activity between the Toffees and Lyon.
And yet, all of a sudden, they became enthusiastic trading partners.
As well as O’Brien, Everton bought Orel Mangala from the French club.
He had only joined Lyon on a permanent basis in June after a successful spell on loan from Nottingham Forest.
The Toffees also tried to sign Ernest Nuamah — who had also only joined Lyon in June — on transfer deadline day but the move collapsed.
But the Merseyside outfit did loan out Nigerian teenager Francis Gomez to Lyon on the same day as they signed him from Sporting Supreme.
JUST A COINCIDENCE…?
This sudden flurry of activity was, apparently, a coincidence — or rather three coincidences and nearly a fourth.
Textor told Sky Sports at the time: “There’s no fingerprints of mine on this club at this point and there won’t be until I’m the owner.”
That never materialised. Textor’s takeover bid failed, with the Friedkin Group assuming control of Everton in December.
In the meantime, after a promising pre-season, O’Brien had effectively been frozen out by Dyche.
His competitive debut came in their fourth Premier League game.
Everton had led 2-0 but had been pegged back to 2-2 when O’Brien was introduced, with Aston Villa going on to win 3-2.
He did not feature again until being brought on against Manchester United in December when his side were already 4-0 down, with fans bemused by Dyche’s preference for Michael Keane and, at right-back where O’Brien has played the last two games under David Moyes, for 39-year-old Ashley Young.
Would he have played more often had Textor been successful? One could only speculate.
Dyche would, no doubt, insist he picked his team on merit but, after a shaky start against Tottenham, O’Brien has impressed as Everton recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this season.
And players can undoubtedly suffer when seen as not having been the choice of a particular manager. That dynamic has long existed when it is a chairman or sporting director calling the shots on transfers.
However, identifying who is deciding what is more difficult in a multi-club model.
CLOSE TIES
In August 2022, the Fleetwood Town owner Andy Pilley assumed control of Waterford.
In the five subsequent transfer windows, 14 different players have moved between the clubs, with Matt Lawlor also seconded from the League Two club to be Keith Long’s assistant after Alan Reynolds left for Bohemians.
Some moves have been more successful than others but pick 14 deals any club has done and that would likely be the case.
In the past two seasons, the Blues — now owned by Pilley’s son Jamie — have won promotion to the Premier Division and consolidated themselves in it. So it has been a beneficial link-up for them, although Fleetwood were relegated from League One.
The complaints are generally from the outside. When St Pat’s rebuffed a couple of bids from Waterford for Tommy Lonergan last year, they predicted he would end up at The RSC anyway via Fleetwood.
He did — it just took a little longer than people thought.
Lonergan moved on loan in this window after Fleetwood met his buyout clause 12 months ago.
It was said that, at the time of his purchase, the then-Fleetwood boss Charlie Adam was not overly familiar with the striker, although he did then feature in 15 league games under the Scot.
Since being taken over by the Trivela Group, Walsall have signed Evan Weir and Elicha Ahui from Drogheda United and loaned them back, with Douglas James-Taylor (below) sent to Louth for 12 months.
With Drogheda maintaining their top-flight status and winning the FAI Cup, and turning full-time on the back of it, they too have benefited from being a junior partner.
But that does not mean anyone should let their guard down about the multi-club model, particularly with how Cobh Ramblers’ new owners FC32 have set out their stall.
‘REAL ASSETS’
Having previously acquired SKN St Polten in Austria and Switzerland’s Bellinzona, they bought Ramblers in October, identifying all three modest clubs as being ‘promotion-ready’.
In an interview with Off The Pitch, its co-founder Federico Mari said: “When you invest in football, the players are the real assets, and we’re here to help them shine. It’s this player-first approach that helps us stand out.
“We work closely with each athlete, setting personalised goals and meeting regularly to track progress. Every player gets tailored attention and support, and together we work on the skills that will make them stand out to top clubs.”
Although he says clubs will retain full ownership of the players, he is open about whose interests are ultimately being served.
And it remains to be seen how a development plan drawn up by investors will co-exist with the work of club coaches.
Mari predicts eventual annual transfer income of between €100m and €150m for the group, although most of Ramblers’ close-season recruitment looks to have been done with an eye on immediate promotion rather than potential resale value.
If Ramblers do go up, presumably their fans will be happy whoever is running the show.
But, as O’Brien has learned, football is not just a sport out on the pitch.
There is a game being played off of it too, where you can have little or no say in whether you end up as a winner or a loser.
9 речей, які робить чоловік, коли хоче від Вас більшого — більшого, ніж просто дружба чи просто інтрижка
Він починає цікавитися тим, чим раніше не цікавився Якщо він несподівано хоче піти з вами до торгівельного центру або на зустріч з вашими друзями, або подивитися серіал з вами, мабуть, він хоче більшого. Він питає про вас у ваших друзів Він може цікавитися, чи зустрічаєтеся ви з кимось, а якщо ви вже разом, то […]