NATHAN COLLINS has been savouring the sunshine while in Ibiza with his girlfriend Ella Jayne Howarth.
Ireland’s most expensive ever player endured an up and down debut campaign with Brentford across the 2023/24 season.
6
6
6
6
6
But he and Irish supporters en masse will be hoping he truly delivers on his hefty price tag during the forthcoming season.
The centre-back was hauled off at half-time by Stephen Kenny during Ireland’s decisive loss to Greece in Dublin.
Kenny doubled down on that eye-catching move by dropping him for the match against Gibraltar four days later.
However, he did restore the 23-year-old to the starting line-up for his last competitive fixture in charge versus Netherlands on November 18.
Read More On Irish Football
The Leixlip native remains one of Ireland’s most important players for the present as well as the future.
So with that in mind, John O’Shea made sure to start him in both games during the March window.
And he almost certainly would have continued in that same vein were it not for a knee problem sustained at the tail end of The Bees’ final Premier League outings.
On a partially related note, the 6’3″ defender clearly thinks highly of O’Shea too as he went above and beyond in publicly calling for the ‘interim’ tag to be scrubbed from his job title.
Following the 1-0 loss to Switzerland he argued: “I have really enjoyed it. We have gelled a lot on and off the pitch.
“We have learned a lot. It has been a stress free camp.
“John and the staff have been ten out of ten. I really rate them.
“There is a real mix of youth and experience with Brian Kerr in there. He has given a lot of experience.
“You can see there is a lot of hunger from the manager and the coaches who want to learn and want to get better and want to succeed.
“So having that mix, having that confidence, you can see on the pitch that we are a good team, we can play football.
“I speak highly of John.
“They have given us great tactics over the week and even when were getting it wrong (tonight) he helped us out, he tweaked it, and that is what we need.
“It is showing in a match that we want to learn. We are working hard.
“It has shown that we trust him. We can go and dominate a game. We need to find that cutting edge.”