David Healy has long since established himself as Northern Ireland’s greatest goalscorer; in fact he is just four goals away from trebling the haul of his predecessor Colin Clarke. But, when it comes to his club career, it is a case of promise unfulfilled. He is hoping to kickstart it under his former Manchester United teammate and Sunderland manager Roy Keane with a loan spell at Ipswich Town who host Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Healy’s haul of 35 goals in 78 caps is phenomenal, especially when you consider that his international career coincided with Nothern Ireland’s awful run of 12 games without a goal under Sammy McIlroy between February 2002 and February 2004. And it’s not as though he has simply filled his boots against the whipping boys of world football, a charge levelled at his southern equivalent Robbie Keane. He has scored against Spain (a hat-trick), Germany, England, Denmark (twice), Sweden (twice), Bulgaria, Austria and Norway – all decent international sides.

But he has netted just once in his last 15 appearances over the last two years which has coincided with one of the most frustrating periods of his club career. Prior to his former Northern Ireland international manager Lawrie Sanchez bringing him to Fulham in the summer of 2007, Healy had played just 31 minutes of Premier League football. That was for United in December 200, ironically against Ipswich.

In the interim, he had plied his trade in the Championship – or whatever it was called at the time – with Port Vale, Preston North End, Norwich City and Leeds United. He scored an impressive 78 goals in 211 starts and 57 appearances so he is someone who is clearly comfortably at that level. But it appears top-flight football is a step too far, although he could argue he was not given the chance to prove otherwise. At Fulham he netted four times in 15 league starts and 15 substitute appearances. He never started a Premier League game at Sunderland under Roy Keane, Ricky Sbragia or Steve Bruce, scoring once in his 13 substitute run-outs.

Scoring goals has undoubtedly been a problem for Ipswich, although it has not been their only one. They have managed just 31 in 27 games and Healy, and to a lesser extent fellow Sunderland loanee Daryl Murphy, should address that. Murphy netted 10 times in 27 starts and 11 substitute appearances in his one full season in the Championship. Healy at 6/1 to score the first goal is better value than Murphy at 7/1 so I’m going to back him with €10 and put another €10 on him to get the last goal at the same odds.

I’m putting €10 on three home wins for Stoke City, Bolton Wanderers and Burnley which would pay out €123.75;  €10 on a Chelsea, Newcastle United and Livingston treble which would pay exactly €66; and finally €10 on Ladbrokes’ enhanced sexy six accumulator of Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Celtic and Rangers which is 10/1.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.