{"id":299186,"date":"2025-07-28T18:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T18:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/299186\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T18:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T18:53:09","slug":"northern-ireland-players-in-pre-season-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/299186\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland players in pre-season action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>       <strong>Northern Ireland forward Jamie Donley made his first pre-season start for Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend as the Premier League side were held to a scoreless draw by Luton Town.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old from Antrim was deployed as a left-back by Spurs\u2019 new boss Thomas Frank, but Donley admitted he was just happy to get more game time under his belt with the new Premier League campaign less than three weeks away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a good work out for me and it was good to get 90 minutes into my legs,\u201d said Donley, who had a very impressive loan spell with Leyton Orient in League One last term, \u201cI thought we did well, the gaffer talks a lot about keeping clean sheets so that was a real positive for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, <strong>Conor Bradley<\/strong> played the second half of Liverpool\u2019s 4-2 defeat to Italian giants Milan, while <strong>Justin Devenny<\/strong> also got a run out as a substitute in Crystal Palace\u2019s 3-0 victory at Crawley Town.<\/p>\n<p>Sunderland duo <strong>Dan Ballard<\/strong> and <strong>Trai Hume<\/strong> both started the Wearsiders 3-0 reverse to Scottish Premiership outfit Hearts before being substituted twenty minutes from time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After the game, former Linfield defender Hume admitted it was a below par performance for the Premier League side who face Hull City in their next friendly encounter on Tuesday evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t good enough really,\u201d declared Hume. \u201cResults aren\u2019t the most important thing in pre-season as we need to get minutes in the legs and obviously get our fitness levels up, but we also need to keep our standards up as well and that wasn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made mistakes today and got punished, we should be organised and disciplined the way we usually are, so we will go away and analyse the game and hopefully won\u2019t perform like that again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <strong>Pierce Charles<\/strong> kept a clean sheet as Sheffield Wednesday won their final warm-up game 2-0 against Mansfield Town and <strong>Bailey Peacock-Farrell<\/strong> played in Blackpool\u2019s 1-1 draw away to Doncaster Rovers.<\/p>\n<p>Other members of Michael O\u2019Neill\u2019s senior squad to get significant game time over the final weekend of pre-season for Football League clubs were <strong>Isaac Price<\/strong> (WBA), <strong>Ethan Galbraith<\/strong> (Swansea City), <strong>Eoin Toal<\/strong> (Bolton Wanderers), <strong>Ruairi McConville<\/strong> (Norwich City), <strong>Brodie Spencer<\/strong> (Oxford United), <strong>Ali McCann<\/strong> (Preston North End) and <strong>Shea Charles<\/strong> (Southampton).<\/p>\n<p>Finally, in the Scottish League Cup, <strong>Ronan Hale<\/strong>, who scored a hat-trick in midweek, failed to add to his four goals this season as Ross County lost 3-1 at home to Partick Thistle, however, <strong>MaKenzie Kirk<\/strong> hit a brace as St Johnstone ran out 8-0 winners against 10-man Elgin City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland forward Jamie Donley made his first pre-season start for Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend as 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