{"id":261006,"date":"2026-01-01T03:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/261006\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T03:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:56:15","slug":"sean-oconnor-josh-cullens-injury-is-heartbreaking-but-it-opens-a-door-for-one-of-these-ireland-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/261006\/","title":{"rendered":"Se\u00e1n O\u2019Connor: Josh Cullen\u2019s injury is heartbreaking but it opens a door for one of these Ireland players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Heimir Hallgrimsson must find midfield solution after losing one of his must trusted lieutenants\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Midfielders Jason Knight, Conor Coventry and Jack Taylor have all contributed to Ireland's qualification campaign so far. Photos: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/newmontagex.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Midfielders Jason Knight, Conor Coventry and Jack Taylor have all contributed to Ireland&#8217;s qualification campaign so far. Photos: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Forty-four days on from the greatest night of his football career, Josh Cullen\u2019s worst arrived. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, his ACL injury was confirmed last night and brought with it total devastation in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Having started five of Ireland\u2019s six World Cup qualifiers (only suspension ruled him out for the home clash with Armenia), the midfielder played a key role in helping Heimir Hallgrimsson\u2019s men do the impossible last month and reach the play-offs next March, but now he faces nine months on the sidelines in a cruel reminder of how unforgiving the game can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgrimsson must find midfield solution after losing one of his must trusted lieutenants Midfielders Jason Knight, Conor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,17065,19,17,2723,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-261006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sean-oconnor","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115817833159886134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}