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.

Harry Redknapp spoke of how the lure of Celtic will always be strong for Irish players and compared it to when Roy Keane moved to Parkhead but Robbie’s namesake was 34 , had won every major honour in England and was clearly just seeing out his career. Is that what Robbie is doing at the age of 29? Furthermore Celtic were a decent side back then. Granted they were dumped out of the European Cup by Artmedia Bratislava and Keane’s first game was a humiliating Scottish Cup defeat to Clyde but they went on to win the league by 17 points.

It appeared as though Celtic no longer hac the resources to attract big-name players from England but Dermot Desmond has clearly made an exception for the Ireland captain. But should he not be concerned that almost half a team’s worth of players have thought it’s a good career move to join Middlesbrough – a team ninth in the Championship – rather than stay put at Parkhead?

Granted, only Scott McDonald was the only one of that quintet who was a fixture in the Celtic XI – although Barry Robson and Stephen McManus were both well-established players at the club – and, okay, Keane was not getting a game at Spurs but, surely, he can do better than joining Celtic who are on their worst run since John Barnes got sacked almost a decade ago.

The word was that Redknapp had been unimpressed by Keane’s efforts since he rejoined from Spurs a year ago and could it be that his legs are beginning to go before he’s even hit 30? Unlikely perhaps but possible given he has been playing first-team football since the age of 17. Even so, Redknapp intended to hang on to him until the summer at least until Tottenham succeeded in bringing in Eidur Gudjohnssen on loan. There were plenty of Premier League clubs interested in Keane. He should have gone to any of them ahead of Celtic.

The emotional pull of a switch to Celtic is understandable. His status as a fans’ favourite at Spurs won’t have prepared him for the adulation he will receive in Scotland  but what can he achieve during his time there? With the best will in the world and despite a rake of new signings, it’s hard to see them overturning the ten-point deficit between them and Rangers. If Celtic were still in Europe the move would make more sense but they are long since gone from both the Champions League and Europa League so he will go from playing – albeit not as often as he would like - in the top-ranked league in Europe to the 15th. And, with no league medal on the horizon, the most he can hope for silverware-wise is the Scottish Cup.

If Keane, as his detractors claim, only score goals against poor teams  – and surely this was put to bed for once and for all by him netting against Italy and France in the World Cup qualifying games – then he should run riot in Scotland because the SPL is full of them. If Anthony Stokes – a player who can’t get into the Ireland squad most times – can net 13 times in 21 games for Hibernian, how many can Keane get for Celtic in their 16 remaining matches in the SPL?

He will lift the team and raise the spirits of fans who were already becoming disillusioned with Tony Mowbray. Not surprisingly, he has been installed as favourite to score the first goal in Celtic’s game against Kilmarnock at 11/4. I’m putting €20 on that and €30 on Celtic to win with a minus one handicap at 20/21.

The experience could yet result in me taking a vow of abstinence. After booking my flight, my friend informed me of a previous trip when he brought an ‘Oldham virgin’ to a game. Upon their arrival in the town, they were stopped by a woman conducting a survey. The newcomer was asked if he had witnessed violence in Oldham. He explained that he had only just arrived in the town to which the woman replied ‘you will do’ and marked him down as a yes. Could be interesting…

There is some Irish interest with former under-21 international Kevin O’Connor on track to rack up 400 appearances for Brentford before the end of the season even though he is still just 26 years of age; former Cork City defender Alan Bennett also plays for The Bees; Dean Brill – who is qualified to play for Ireland but has never done so at any level – will be keeping goal for the home side; and, at the time of writing, Oldham are in negotiations with Huddersfield to keep Jim Goodwin on loan for a second month.

Ah yes, Jim Goodwin. The mere mention of his name never fails to make me laugh, although not on account of anything he has done. You may remember that Goodwin won a solitary Ireland cap in the 3-0 friendly win over Finland in August 2002. Actually, you probably don’t. I recall him for a different reason.

As the Irish edition of an English paper, we spend a good bit of our trying to generate Irish copy to replace material which might be relevant for England but not for Ireland. You can often get a helping hand from articles submitted from freelance journalists across the water which would never see the light of day in England but would be of interest over here.

On one occasion, a journalist filed a piece which mentioned that Jim Goodwin kept his medal for helping Ireland win the Under-16 European Championhips in 1998 in a drawer, occasionally taking it out to reflect on the glory achieved with the likes of John O’Shea and Andy Reid. It was my task to, how shall we say, liven up the copy. And so the intro was changed to Jim Goodwin has admitted how he likes nothing better than opening his drawers to admire his prized possession. Juvenile, yes, but highly amusing, for me at least. I’m not sure if he ever heard about it and, if he did, what he thought of it.

I was going to back him to score but given it’s unclear if he will play, I will instead back Bennett with €5 to score first at 40/1. I’m going to put another €10 on a draw at half-time and an away win at full-time at 5/1. Elsewhere, I like the look of the enhanced treble of Newcastle, West Brom and Cardiff to win. I’ll put €15 on that at 8/1 and €10 on a Dundee United/Hibernian double which would yield €31.50. Finally, I’m going to back Livingston at half-time and full-time against Queen’s Park with €10 on that at 4/5.

There could be some salvation in the African Cup of Nations where I had backed Ghana with €50 each way at 5/1. Having defeated Angola in the quarter-finals, one more win will ensure I will get at least some return on that punt. In hindsight, my other outright bet was stupid beyond belief. I backed Didier Drogba to be top scorer but, following the withdrawal of Togo, the Ivory Coast were going to play one fewer group game than 13 of the other 15 countries in the tournament so his chances of topping the scoring charts were always going to be reduced. As it turned out, he did even worse than I could have envisaged, netting just once in three games before the Elephants packed their trunks and went home.

But as long as there is a balance in my account I’ll carry on regardless and there is plenty of action on this week upon which to place a bet. It is rare that a Carling Cup tie dominates the headlines, especially in a week in which there are eight Premier League games featuring most of the protagonists, with the obvious exception of Manchester United and Manchester City.

The sides meet in the second leg of their semi-final at Old Trafford on Wednesday night in one of the most eagerly anticipated derby games for years. There was a good deal of excitement about the first leg too but what unfolded at Eastlands suggested that it was the mere entrée before the plat principal. As we all know by now, City lead 2-1 on aggregate thanks to two goals from Carlos Tevez after Ryan Giggs had given United the lead.

Tevez’s celebrations, and subsequent hilarious but probably ill-judged comments about Gary Neville, have served only to ratchet up the mutual antipathy between the Argentine and the club which employed him for two years. It might have been wise to keep his counsel until he saw how the second leg unfolded. As Shay Given has pointed out, City were under the cosh for long spells in the second half and it remains to be seen if they can withstand that sort of pressure at Old Trafford. Remember, they conceded twice to Scunthorpe United at the weekend, albeit with a weakened team.

I’ve decided to go with United (4/6) as well as four other odds-on favourites Everton (4/6 to beat Sunderland), Newcastle United (8/13 to defeat Crystal Palace), Celtic (2/5 to beat Hibernian) and Dundee United (8/13 to defeat St Johnstone). I’m going with ten treble combinations of €5 for a total stake of €50 and potential return of €201.86. Things can only get  better eh?

Of those matches, Doyle started just one and made a further three substitute appearances, scoring once. The last time he featured in the competition was way back in February 2007 when Reading were beaten 3-2 by Manchester United in a fifth-round replay. That wait should end against Crystal Palace at the weekend.

While Mick McCarthy famously made a raft of changes for what he clearly saw was an unwinnable league game at Old Trafford last month, he did field a strong side in their third-round tie against Tranmere Rovers, although Doyle missed out through illness. That is in contrast to Doyle’s manager at Reading, Steve Coppell, who was one of the first bosses to openly come out and make it clear the competition was a priority.

So, there is s a pretty good chance he will start as McCarthy looks for a morale-boosting win after three successive defeats in the league without scoring a goal. But Crystal Palace have been good on the road this season, losing just three of their 14 games on their travels in all competitions. Therefore, Neil Warnock’s side look well-priced at 10/3 to win.

I’m going to put €10 on a draw at half-time and Palace at full-time at 9/1. Also at 9/1 is Victor Moses – who has been linked with just about every big club in England and the continent – to score the first goal. I’m going to back him with €10 each way. After all, if Moses can part the Red Sea then surely he can split a centre-half pairing of Jody Craddock and Michael Mancienne.

Elsewhere, there are two ties involving Premier League sides hosting League One opposition with Aston Villa at home to Brighton and Leeds United travelling to Tottenham. Yes, Leeds defeated Manchester United but their form has been patchy since and I’m backing two comfortable wins with €10 on the handicap double for a return of €33.82.

With my final tenner, I’m going for an ambitious accumulator of wins for Burnley, Everton and Ipswich Town in the FA Cup and Ghana and Ivory Coast in the African Cup of Nations for a return of €453.19.

I should come clean and admit that five of those 322 entries were mine (it was a fund-raiser, I was feeling generous) and that I got nowhere with my five entries on the previous installment of the competition (see note above) but with the competition to be decided in the next series of Premier League games, I am guaranteed at least 10 per cent of a prize fund of €2,900 if I can back a winning team the weekend after next.

As the only one of the ten with one of the top three left to use as a pick (I have Chelsea, who are away to Burnley), I am quietly confident that Iwill be taking a share of that prize and, so, make a decent profit on the €200 I put into the two editions of the competition.

Striker Manager is a pretty similar concept. Here, you back a player to score at the weekend. Clearly, it’s harder to back a winner in terms of a player scoring than a team being victorious. So Ladbrokes have adopted a three strikes and you are out concept so that the competition will run for a half-decent length of time.

To give the launch on Tuesday a bit of profile, that, eh, well-known Italian coach Gino Stromboli (aka Gary Cooke of Apres Match fame) was on hand to provide the humour with Ronnie Whelan there to offer some more deadpan opinions. And Whelan certainly wasn’t shy about expressing his feelings over the current Liverpool situation. He described his former club as having a bad team, a bad manager and being millions in debt, a predicament which he felt would take a lot of time and money to rectify.

Whether Rafael Benitez gets that time remains to be seen. A win against Spurs – who are in that final Champions League qualification spot, four points clear of Liverpool – would help to ease the pressure somewhat but, without the injured trio of Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and Yossi Benayoun, it’s hard to see where the goals will come from. I’m going to back the draw at 9/4 with €20. Robbie Keane and Peter Crouch will be both looking to put one over their former club but the England striker will probably have more time in which to do so so I’m going to back him with €10 each as first scorer at 7/1.

Elsewhere in the Premier League, Arsenal will go top if they defeat Bolton Wanderers at the Emirates by two clear goals. Having done so at the Reebok Stadium, they should be able to achieve a repeat at home. They’re priced at 3/4 to win with three or more goals in the game and I’m backing that as part of a €10 treble with Aston Villa to defeat Blackburn and MK Dons to beat Southampton which would pay out €68.75.

With 90 per cent of players out of contact at the end of last season, it’s a buyers’ market and – unlike in previous years, when many clubs have done their business before Christmast – most have decided to wait until January for two reasons. One, because it means they can avoid paying them wages in the interim (although few will be handing out 52-week contracts anyway) and, two, they are waiting for players to drop what they regard as unrealistic demands in the current climate.

While Croly will no doubt provide excellent preparation for the job-seeking footballers, there is one out-of-contract star getting rather better practice and exposure as he looks for a new employer, Romuald Boco.  The Parisian-born player spent the 2008 and 2009 seasons with Sligo Rovers and, despite some woeful finishing, he made a big impression in a variety of positions.

It is testament to how he looks after himself that he was chosen to start Benin’s African Cup of Nations opener against Mozambique on Tuesday despite the fact that his last competitive game was the FAI Cup final in November, when Sligo were beaten by Sporting Fingal. It’s a pretty good shop window for him, although he cannot be too proud of the fact that he was part of a team which threw away a 2-0 lead and ended up with only a point.  Having watched most of the game, they were the better side. And, so, they seem generously priced to defeat Nigeria - who were poor in the 3-1 defeat to Egypt - on Saturday at 11/2. I’m going to put €10 on that and €10 on the draw at 3/1.

Closer to home, Stoke City have been backed in from 4/1 to 5/2 to defeat Liverpool in the wake of their FA Cup defeat to Reading and injuries to Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and Yossi Benayoun but I don’t see them losing here. I’m backing them in an accumulator in which I’m also hoping for aways wins for Linfield, Portadown and Rangers in the Irish and Scottish Cup competitions. €15 would pay out €99.22. And I’m going to back Wolves to beat Wigan and Birmingham to defeat Portsmouth with €15. It would pay out €86.25

Although Fenlon’s approach for Coyle came to nothing, the pair have been in contact on and off since and it was ironic that both found themselves in similar situations, but with very different outcomes, last week. Coyle was as important to Burnley as ’Nutsy’ is to Bohemians but, while the once-capped Ireland international had a fixed amount of compensation written into his contract, the Dubliner did not. And so it was that Coyle has ended up as Bolton manager while Fenlon remains at Dalymount Park. He is, however, in the process of getting his contract renegotiated to ensure any future approach is a simple matter of whether a club will meet the stipulated asking price.

Fenlon and Coyle have a lot in common, they are similar in age, have already achieved a good deal despite their relative youth and are popular with their players. They are also intensely ambitious. People might have questioned why Coyle would leave Burnley for a club below them in the table but a bigger stadium and bigger resources means his ambitions can be more easily realised at Bolton. Pragmatism wins out over romance nine times out of ten.

Bohs’ diehards wondered why Fenlon would want to leave for Dundee United, a club with no realistic chance of winning a league, having won the title five times in seven years. But that’s the point. He has done all he can in Ireland. Winning has come easily to him that he wants to test yourself elsewhere.

If you play a computer game and you keep winning at novice level, do you stay at that and pat yourself on the back for how good you are or do you move on? If you’re ambitious, you move on. It’s easy to rubbish the Scottish Premier League and it does have its problems but nobody in the League of Ireland can get snooty about that and, like Coyle at Bolton, Fenlon would have been working at a bigger stadium with bigger resources at Tannadice than he is used to.

Everyone has their own opinion on where the line between Bohs being adequately compensated for losing Fenlon and denying him a good opportunity to progress himself lies. But, of course, the saga could have  been avoided if provision had been made for such a scenario in his contract. In a way, the compensation Bohs would have got for Fenlon is almost irrelevant because there was no obvious successor to step into his shoes.

Maybe Bohs’ reluctance to be short-changed stemmed from the sight of Gary Deegan and Brian Murphy having their first involvement with their English clubs at the weekend. Bohs received nothing for Murphy and a little less than €100,000 for Deegan, although it should be pointed out they didn’t pay a fee for either player. Anyway, the end result is that while Coyle waits for the visit of Arsenal on Sunday, Fenlon is waiting for FAI approval of a budget which is less than half of that he had when he was appointed Bohs manager in December 2007. Them’s the breaks.

The galvanising effect of Coyle can, I believe, help Bolton to a share of the spoils against the Gunners. I’m backing the draw with €20 at 5/2. But that seems a long way off now so, in the meantime, I’m putting €30 on a Copa Del Rey double on Wednesday. I’m backing Racing Santander and Getafe to claim home wins against Alcorcon and Malaga respectively. Santander are 3-2 up from the first leg against the Segunda Division B team which shocked Real Madrid in the last round and are 1/2 to win the second leg. Getafe trail 2-1 but Malaga haven’t won away this season and a home win is 4/7. The return on a double is €70.71.

With very little football taking place in this corner of the world because of the weather, I suspect the tournament which kicks off on Sunday evening when the hosts face Mali was going to get more attention than normal. After the gun attack on Togo’s team bus, unfortunately that attention will be for all of the wrong reasons.

With two players shot – as well as their bus driver killed – it is no surprise that the Togolese squad are currently weighing up whether to participate in the tournament which will proceed with or without their presence. Togo were due to play Ghana on Monday. At present, there are no odds on offer for this game and, in any case, I’m not sure I could comfortably bet on the game. I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t tried to profit from someone else’s misfortune when it comes to gambling in the past but there is a line and I’m not going to cross it.

However, I had already decided to back Ghana – known as the Black Stars- each way to win the tournament. My reasoning was thus: I saw them at the 2006 World Cup and, attacking-wise, they were one of the best teams in Germany. Their match against the Czech Republic was the most entertaining one I attended (although Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt was admittely diverting). Petr Cech confessed afterwards that he hadn’t played in a match like it since the schoolyard.

The trouble for Ghana was that they played Brazil in the next round and that was the end of that as the defending champions came out on top in another open encounter. Now I realise a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then but many of the same players are still there. And I successfully backed Italy to win that tournament at 9/1 on the basis of their performance against Ireland a year previously. Ireland were carved open in a way that had not happened for some time.

Furthermore, the draw has been kind to them despite appearances to the contrary. The tournament favourites Ivory Coast – who are available at 9/4 – are in their group. The advantage of that is that Ghana cannot face them in the knockout stages until the final. Even before Togo’s unfortunate problems, Ivory Coast and Ghana would have been overwhelming favourites to qualify from their group which also includes Burkina Faso.

So, I’ve backed Ghana with €50 each way at 5/1. I’m also going to back Didier Drogba with €50 to be top scorer at 3/1. I’m going to back Partick Thistle with €15 to beat Dundee United at 10/3. I’m also doing a €35 double on Benin – who feature Romuld Boco, who has spent the last couple of years at Sligo Rovers – to beat Mozambique on Tuesday and the Asian Line Handicap on Arsenal to beat Everton. It would pay out €143.32. And yes I have gambled more than normal but with the way the weather is there is no guarantee there will be any matches in Britain and Ireland to bet on over the next while.

The  odds on Barcelona beating Sevilla in the Copa Del Rey on Tuesday night are slightly more generous. When I looked at them about an hour ago, I saw that they were 1/2. Sevilla are a talented side but when I read that they will be without 10 players for the trip to Camp Nou, those odds of a home win looked even more appealing. Alas, by the time I went to place the bet they were into 2/5. Clearly, someone in Ladbrokes was reading the team news too.

If a game between Barcelona and Sevilla is the sublime, I trust my northern friends won’t mind too much if I describe the  County Antrim Shield as the ridiculous. It is being contested in the not-quite-so-glamorous surroundings of The Oval between Linfield and Crusaders. Crusaders enjoy a four-point lead at the top of the Irish League but second-placed Glentoran have a game in hand. Linfield are a point further adrift but have played three fewer games than the Crues.

That is largely down to a number of postponements over the festive period which means the Blues have been idle since December 19, when they lost 2-0 to Ballymena. In the intervening period, Crusaders have lost to Cliftonville and beaten Portadown. Whether that means David Jeffrey’s side are fresher are more ring-rusty than their opponents remains to be seen. But evens at a neutral venue looks good odds for a club which has collected silverware at a rate of knots over the years.

Another game north of the border has also caught my attention – a league fixture between Cliftonville and Lisburn Distillery. Cliftonville are still in the title mix, they are fourth, six points behind Crusaders with three games in hand. Distillery have taken six points from their last three games but are still bottom and facing a winding-up order so 1/2 for a home win at Solitude looks good value. In a bid to start the new year with a bang, I’ve decided to go on a treble on the above three outcomes. A €50 stake would pay out €210.