![\"Makenzie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/s_v_Germany_U21s026.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSon of former international and ex-Glentoran and Hearts forward Andy Kirk, the 21-year-old has been impressing lately for Championship club Pompey following his move from St Johnstone in the last transfer window and O\u2019Neill and his team of scouts have been watching.<\/p>\n
Kirk has not been named in O\u2019Neill\u2019s 26 man squad for the November World Cup qualifiers in Slovakia and at home to Luxembourg but it appears promotion from Tommy Wright\u2019s Northern Ireland Under-21 set up is not far away.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has kept faith with Jamie Reid, Callum Marshall, Dion Charles and Josh Magennis in attack for the upcoming camp and when announcing his panel for the final two internationals of the year spoke about what they bring to the squad.<\/p>\n
Reid has started all four World Cup qualifiers so far with the other three being used as substitutes at various times but the No.9 position is up for grabs.<\/p>\n
Tellingly O\u2019Neill said: \u201cIt\u2019s an area of the team where we\u2019re still searching for an option. There\u2019s no secret that we would love someone to really step up and be playing at a higher level at this moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if Kirk, who scored against Coventry last month, could be that front man, O\u2019Neill said: \u201cYeah, he could be, but he\u2019s played a few games in the Championship, so we shouldn\u2019t get carried away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Makenzie Kirk has impressed with the Northern Ireland Under-21s<\/p>\n
Michael O’Neill discusses injury situation ahead of crucial World\u00a0Cup\u00a0qualifiers <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a young player who has played well in the 21s. Makenzie is one that we could have thought about for this camp though I personally think he would be better developing further in the 21s for another camp but equally, he\u2019s available if you need to call him in.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to remember a lot of Makenzie\u2019s minutes at St Johnstone were off the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cPortsmouth have paid a fee for him and he\u2019s got the opportunity to start maybe two or three games in the last two or three weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis time will definitely come and his time will come quickly if he can stay in and around Portsmouth\u2019s team. I think it\u2019s only a matter of time before Makenzie\u2019s going to get that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill\u2019s current squad may be a young one but he is already excited by other talented kids and adding them to his plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team is only going to get better,\u201d said the 56-year-old in his second spell in charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always felt with the previous team, it was about keeping it together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at this group of players and I see what we have beneath this with players like Ceadach O\u2019Neill at Arsenal, Michael Forbes, who\u2019s out at Northampton (on loan from West Ham), George Feeney at Tottenham and Chris Atherton at Chelsea.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would anticipate hopefully in the next two, three years that those boys are stepping through to play senior international football as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Shea Charles, Conor Bradley and Isaac Price were playing at 19 years of age.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is that we have a strong pipeline to come through, which I believe we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Makenzie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0a1970ee-214e-4ec3-8a5f-c411c46744e0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Makenzie Kirk has been among the goals for Portsmouth<\/p>\n
Ross County\u2019s Ronan Hale was left out of the squad for a second camp in a row.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill said: \u201cI had a good conversation with his manager (Tony Docherty). The Scottish Championship to World Cup qualifying games is a big jump and Ronan knows that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI explained my rationale for not including him in the previous squad. I don\u2019t think that he\u2019s in as good a form as he was last season. His club manager would testify to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cRonan just has to get himself back. The only way to get up a level is to get promoted or score goals and someone else takes him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was probably disappointed in the summer that didn\u2019t happen for him but he\u2019s a player that we continue to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Son of former international and ex-Glentoran and Hearts forward Andy Kirk, the 21-year-old has been impressing lately for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[58911,31133,1144,8538,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-549493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-keith-bailie","9":"tag-michael-oneill","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115494078845254265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}