On October 19th Evan Ferguson’s teenage years are over. Listening to him after Republic of Ireland training in Abbotstown on Monday he already sounds like a veteran, pushing 40 not 20.
Physically, it was evident why Bohemians played Ferguson against Chelsea at age 14. The hat-trick against Newcastle United in September 2023 put him in the same company as Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and Chris Bart-Williams.
No one else in the Premier League has done it so young.
It was impossible not to get carried away. Comparisons to Robbie Keane and Troy Parrott, the last great Irish hope, were inevitable. But his upward trajectory slowed since March when an ankle issue forced a lay off and months of rehabilitation.
Defeats to England and Greece last month in Dublin, when an unfit Ferguson was used sparingly, had Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson hoping he would get much-needed minutes into his legs at Brighton and Hove Albion.
But English football is relentless, refusing to wait for the teenager to catch up. In the summer, Fabian Hurzeler became his third Brighton manager in three years, quickly adding Georgino Rutter to the centre forward stocks alongside Joao Pedro and the evergreen Danny Welbeck.
Ferguson is healthy, just not match fit.
“You are playing in the Premier League, so you are not going to have bad players around you,” he says. “For me, I just need to get back in, get minutes, play consistently and try to get myself back into the team when I can. Obviously, when there is a new manager coming in, it’s like the international team, they try to change pretty much everything. It’s a new way of playing football.”
Clocking a meagre 85 minutes for Brighton across four games this season, he returns to Ireland camp for trips to Finland and Greece with a nation hoping his progress can be accelerated, hoping Hallgrímsson shapes the Ireland team around his big frame.
“We will have to wait and see,” says Ferguson. “I feel good. I’ve been back now for a month or two.”
Pull back on the past few years and his career, so far, is impressive. At 20, Keane had 15 starts for Ireland and six goals but he was already at his third club, Inter Milan.
Still only 22, Parrott has 10 starts for Ireland and five goals but difficulties breaking into the Tottenham Hotspur squad forced unforgiving loan moves to Millwall, Ipswich Town, MK Dons and Preston North End before a switch to Dutch football, first with Excelsior and now AZ Alkmaar, allowed him to start scoring goals again in the professional game.
In nine starts for Ireland, Ferguson has three goals. From 50 Premier League appearances, he has scored 12 times.
“I think we all know what Evan has done already at international and at club level,” says John O’Shea, the Ireland assistant coach. “So, we just want him back up to speed as quickly as we can in terms of being fully fit, games under his belt and knowing what he can produce, and just getting that consistency going. Then we will see the levels he can reach.”
The immediate challenge for Ferguson is to impress his third Ireland manager in quick succession as Hallgrímsson already identified Sammie Szmodics’ ability to sprint in behind defences as the new approach. The Icelander also put Parrott in the same bracket as Szmodics, which could mean Ferguson is denied the time he craves.
“We all know what he wants and how he wants us to do it,” says Ferguson of the manager’s new approach. “I think everyone can chip in and everyone can play the way that he wants us to play. We just need to wait for it all to click together. Then it will be good.”
Hallgrímsson last month interpreted Ireland’s deflating run of competitive results, 11 defeats in 13, with two wins coming against Gibraltar, as a young squad lacking confidence. He said the jersey weighs too heavily on some shoulders.
Ferguson was asked if he felt this burden.
“I think everyone feels confident. No one wants to come in and lose two games. I think we just need to come together and realise where we are, and go from there.”
Parrott felt the weight, do you? “When you’re growing up and going over to academies you see it and you get exposed to it. I wouldn’t say [it is] difficult but I’d say it’s new and you just have to learn to adapt to it. Once you do it once, it’s always the same thing.”
A grim narrative changes if Ferguson scores his fourth international goal in Helsinki to secure a much-needed Ireland victory on Thursday.
“It’s good to score goals as a striker. Maybe [it would] get me back into a flow of getting that rhythm and back scoring goals again and what I want to do, but I wouldn’t say I’m going out of my way to score a goal.
“I’m just playing how I’m playing, I’m not trying to force anything. If you start doing that then you start overthinking stuff and you end up going backwards.”
