Mark Hughes targets Ireland

Queens Park Rangers are looking to sign Aston Villa midfielder Stephen Ireland.

Ireland, 25, began his professional career with Manchester City. He started to play regularly for the Citizens from the age of 19 and under Mark Hughes’ leadership Ireland absolutely thrived as he was named not only Manchester City’s player of the season for 2008/09, but the best player in Greater Manchester for that year.

However, once Man City began to flex their spending power, and following the dismissal of Mark Hughes, Ireland found himself way down the pecking order at Eastlands. There were also concerns over his general fitness and his application.

After what seemed a protracted period, Ireland joined Aston Villa as part of the deal which saw James Milner move in the opposite direction. Ireland’s period with Villa has however been one to forget. Houllier publicly lambasted Ireland for his blasé attitude, however, this was not seemingly met with any increased application on the part of Ireland.

Ireland was loaned to Newcastle just 6 months into his Villa career. The move was with a view to a permanent transfer, however, injury setbacks and controversial incidents involving teammates led to Ireland returning to Villa with no interest on Newcastle’s part.

Ireland had hoped to become a focal part of the Villa side under Alex McLeish, however, the only headlines he grabbed in the early parts of the season concerned his attitude as he was snapped smoking shisha. That said, Ireland reminded football fans of his abilities with a man of the match performance when Aston Villa resoundingly beat Chelsea just a few weeks back.

Mark Hughes hopes that he can once again bring out the best in Ireland and re-ignite his passion for the game.

Posted by DanB on January 16, 2012. Filed under Aston Villa, FA Barclays Premiership, QPR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.