Way back in mid-January, it looked liked this season was going to mark a slight upturn in the overall fortunes of the Premier League's Irish contingent.

The previous campaign had been a nadir in terms of minutes and involvement but spearheaded by Brighton sensation Evan Ferguson and plentiful game-time for Gavin Bazunu and Nathan Collins at Southampton and Wolves respectively, those metrics were trending more positively at the halfway point of the 2022-23 season.

Irish qualified players had accumulated just over 5,800 minutes of Premier League action by 18 January which, if replicated in the second half of the season, would have been on course to improve on the total of less than 10,000 amassed by 14 players during the entirety of 2021-22.

While Ferguson's star continues to shine even more brightly than it did back then, other players' Premier League fortunes have dimmed with some - Matt Doherty most notably - departing the English top flight and others, like Bazunu and Collins, largely dropped during the run-in.

Which means the grand total of minutes played by this season's contingent of 13 Irish players is just 9,323 according to the Premier League's own stats for the past season. That's less than the low water mark of 9,922 from the previous campaign.

Minutes played only tell part of the story of Ireland's Premier League contributors however.

For example, Tom Cannon (Everton) and Conor Coventry (West Ham) barely featured before going out on loan to the Championship, Connor Ronan (Wolves) was in the same boat before leaving for the MLS' Colorado Rapids and Andrew Moran (Brighton) is very much one for the future after being granted short cameos.

So for the nine remaining players under consideration, we are going to examine how each of them fared individually across the entire Premier League campaign and see which players graded better than they did when we last checked in on them in 2021-22. Let's find out how they've got on...

Bazunu fending off the threat of Premier League top scorer Erling Haaland

Gavin Bazunu C+

There was a certain amount of excitement surrounding the Republic of Ireland number one at the start of the season.

Having enjoyed loan spells at Portsmouth and Rochdale, the former Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper decided to make the bold decision to part ways with Manchester City and sign for Southampton in a deal worth over €14m that would hopefully turbo-charge what is still a highly promising career.

But it proved to be a difficult introduction to Premier League level for the 21-year-old. The last line of defence behind a Saints back four that offered little to no protection, he kept just four clean sheets and had one of the lowest save percentages in Europe's top five leagues.

He was eventually dropped for the last six games of the season with the far more experienced Alex McCarthy taking his place, albeit the Englishman fared much the same as Southampton were relegated.

On the positive side, along with saving an Aleksandar Mitrovic penalty against Fulham on New Year's Eve, Bazunu earned 2,880 minutes of game-time, the most of any Irish player during the campaign and over 1,000 above the next player on the list.

That experience will stand him in good stead as he looks to bounce back in the less glaring light of the Championship next season.

Everton captain Coleman's goal against Leeds proved crucial for both clubs' ultimate fates

Seamus Coleman B-

It was another fraught season for Everton but again, the Toffees just about avoided the drop.

As ever, Ireland captain Seamus Coleman was the vocal leader of the pack even though his season was ended abruptly by a knee injury sustained against Leicester at the start of May.

But even while he was being stretchered off with what fortunately turned out to be not as bad an injury as first feared, the Donegal man was urging his team-mates on.

Injury niggles kept him out of the early games of the season but after overcoming those fitness gremlins, Coleman went on to make 20 starts across the campaign and scored the winning goal against Leeds from a tight angle in February which proved crucial in their subsequent survival bid.

And in the lead-up to the final match of the season against Bournemouth on Sunday, his Everton team-mate Alex Iwobi highlighted his influence at a time when he couldn't contribute on the pitch.

"He has been hobbling around on his crutches, coming into the changing room and trying to keep us motivated - he is basically Everton. Seamus is always reminding us how so many people are affected by our results and what it means to Evertonians, to him, the people upstairs, the staff and what it should mean to us. He always reminds us that the least we can do is put 100% in."

Out of contract this summer, Coleman's long-term future at Everton remains unclear but he made a telling contribution on and off the pitch.

Collins was shown a straight red for this challenge on Grealish

Nathan Collins C+

Similarly to Bazunu, the centre-back went into 2022-23 on a high. The summer had seen him score a solo goal for Ireland against Ukraine and at club level he had just become the most expensive Irish player to date when Wolves swooped for him in an outlay of about £20.5m (€23.7m) that prised him away from Burnley.

While Wolves were misfiring as a collective, game-time was abundant until January with the main bump in the road being a three-match suspension after his sending off for a high challenge on Manchester City's Jack Grealish in September.

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But Julen Lopetegui's appointment as Wolves manager and his subsequent purchase of the experienced Craig Dawson spelled a stark downturn in game-time for the Kildare native during the second half of the season.

After playing the full 90 against Man City on 22 January, he did not make another start in the league until the final two games of the season this month when safety was already assured, having to make do with sporadic substitute appearances in the interim.

All in all, he had the most minutes of any Irish outfielder but he will hope to earn the trust of Lopetegui - if the Spanish manager stays at Molineux - and as a young player, like Bazunu, time is very much on his side.

Doherty made 12 Premier League appearances in 2022-23

Matt Doherty C

"It's not like anything I've done before. This is hard, it's the hardest pre-season I've had."

In hindsight, the paces Antonio Conte put Tottenham through last summer, as painstakingly recounted by Matt Doherty, might be proving beneficial for the Ireland international across a season that has seen game-time diminish week on week.

The first half of the season saw the ex-Wolves and Bohemians man playing second fiddle to fellow right-back Emerson Royal, although he did manage seven starts in the Premier League and one in the Champions League between September and mid-January.

But that's when his Spurs story ended as Tottenham terminated his contract by mutual consent, paving the way for him to join Atletico Madrid where he has been granted just 16 minutes of action in five months by the ultra-demanding Diego Simeone.

The sole highlight of his club season was back on 4 January when he scored Tottenham's third in a 4-0 win over Crystal Palace and proved to be a goodbye of sorts from him in Spurs' year to forget.

Duffy has been a bit-part player on the pitch at Craven Cottage

Shane Duffy D

The towering centre-back's most recent appearance for Ireland was last June's 3-0 win over Scotland and that drop down the pecking order at international level is mirrored by his fortunes at club level.

The 31-year-old signed for newly promoted Fulham last summer - initially on loan from Brighton before making it permanent in January. But while the move has kept him in the Premier League, it's been detrimental to his game-time.

The Derry native has played less than a half of football across the entirety of 2022-23, in fact just 17 minutes in total, the bulk of which came during a 13-minute cameo against Leicester earlier this month when the Cottagers were already 5-1 up and coasting - they subsequently conceded two late goals whilst Duffy was on the pitch.

His Fulham contract expires at the end of June and the expectation will be that he will move on in search of game-time with Norwich among the clubs linked.

Manchester-born Hodge came through City's academy

Joe Hodge B-

The Republic of Ireland Under-21 midfielder made his Premier League breakthrough this season, with a debut against Chelsea in October when Wolves were without a permanent manager.

Former Ireland youth international Paul Corry was at Stamford Bridge that day and was impressed by how Hodge acquitted himself in his baptism of fire.

"He held his own really well against a strong Chelsea midfield and he brought a bit of intensity and forward thinking to their play," Corry told the RTÉ Soccer Podcast at the time.

"It bodes well for him and for a young player to step into a game like that at Stamford Bridge when you're 1-0 down, it's not easy to get yourself on the ball.

"But he didn't shy away from it. He played alongside Joao Moutinho and did really well.

"(He) kept the ball, kept the ball moving and got himself into some good positions in the final third and offered a bit of a threat to the Chelsea team."

He made four more league appearances between then and early January but thereafter, Wolves manager Lopetegui who had been appointed just before the World Cup break, left him out of most of the matchday squads for the remainder of the campaign.

But for a five-minute cameo in the 5-0 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday, Hodge's game-time from January onwards was with the Wolves reserves and Under-23s.

However, he is valued by his club who granted him a contract that will run until 2027 and is very much one for the future.

Ferguson is undoubtedly the standout Irish player this season

Evan Ferguson A+

What can be said about this young man that hasn't already been expressed.

If Micah Richards "burst onto the scene" in the 2005-06 season, then the thesaurus is light when it comes to defining what the last 10 months have been like for Ferguson.

And to be honest, it's more like the last six months if truth be told. His first Premier League goal for Brighton was scored against Arsenal on New Year's Eve and he hasn't looked back since.

The 18-year-old Ireland forward has scored six in total - not counting the four he has plundered in other competitions - and it's the most goals by an Irish player in the Premier League since David McGoldrick's eight for Sheffield United two seasons ago. Indeed, Ferguson and McGoldrick are the only two players to net more than five in a season since Shane Long got 10 back in 2015-16.

That half-a-dozen haul also represented three quarters of the total number of goals scored by Irish players this season with the two other goals being the aforementioned strikes by Doherty and Coleman.

And all that has come amid short injury absences and Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi managing his game-time and rotating him with Danny Welbeck and Deniz Undav.

His value to the Seagulls is reflected in the five-year contract he has been rewarded with and like many others, De Zerbi sees huge potential in the physically imposing former Bohemians and St Kevin's Boys striker who is more than just about goals.

"He trains and plays like a senior player with many years of experience and has become an important member of the squad," the Italian said back in April.

"The aim is to help him become one of the strongest strikers in Europe."

If he hits the ground running next season, clubs around Europe will be circling even more intensely than they already have been.

Kelleher has not been front and centre this season

Caoimhin Kelleher D

Jurgen Klopp has indicated that he would love to keep Caoimhin Kelleher at Liverpool but with Alisson Becker long and firmly established as the Anfield number one, it's hard to see the Ireland goalkeeper amassing enough first-team football at this crucial juncture of his career.

If you take international games out of the equation, Kelleher made just four appearances for Liverpool this season, two in the Carabao Cup and one in the FA Cup, which leaves a single Premier League outing on his report card for the year.

That was the draw against Southampton on the final day when he conceded four goals.

The 'D' rating is not really reflective of his performances given the small sample size but it's more a representation of the lack of game-time he has been afforded.

At 24 and with regular links to moves elsewhere, the Cork native has decisions to make over the summer if he wants to significantly bolster the five career appearances he has made in the Premier League to date.

Travers had sporadic runs of game-time for Bournemouth

Mark Travers C

One-third of the players graded in this article are goalkeepers which highlights the depth Ireland has at that position.

It was a mixed campaign for the Boys in Green's number three with Travers accruing 12 league starts for Bournemouth.

But for most of the season, he was back-up to the more experienced shot-stopper Neto who was promoted to number one status after the four opening games when the Kildare native was part of a rearguard which conceded 16 goals.

The 24-year-old did earn another run of games from late October to early January whilst Neto was absent but upon the Brazilian's return from injury, Travers did not appear in the league again until the final day defeat to Everton when he was granted another start with Premier League safety already secured.

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