Keane says Parrott has been under-utilised by Ireland

Robbie Keane says that striker Troy Parrott has been under utilised by successive Republic of Ireland managers and has backed the in-form centre forward to get better and better.

Ireland's record goalscorer saw Parrott's ability close up on Thursday evening as the striker netted against Keane's Ferencvaros in the UEFA Europa League. The Hungarians ran out 4-3 winners, with both sides securing their places in the knockout stage play-off next month.

Keane previously worked with Parrott when the then teenager made his Republic of Ireland debut in 2019, when Mick McCarthy was manager and Keane was his assistant.

In Keane's first game in front of Ferencvaros' vocal home support - there were 18,657 fans in the Groupama Arena last night - Parrott began the game as a substitute.

However, the Dubliner was introduced with AZ Alkmaar 3-0 down and he scored as the Dutch side produced a late rally to leave Keane sweating to hold on to his first victory with his new team.

The Ferencvaros boss took time after the match to heap praise on Parrott, who has notched 13 goals in his season with AZ.

With a Nations League double header to come against Bulgaria in March, and the World Cup 2026 qualifying campaign beginning later in the year, Keane said that the striker should be seeing more action for the Boys in Green.

"Me personally, I think he should be having more game time with the national team over the last year or two years, if I'm being honest," Keane told reporters.

"I think he has something different. He's clever, he's difficult to play against because he can go in behind and he can come short. In ways, he's very similar to me. The two of us weren't the quickest but we're sharp over 10, 15 yards. And then you see how his brain works on the football pitch."

Parrott, who turns 23 on Tuesday, has won 26 caps for the Republic of Ireland senior team since making his debut in November 2019, over five years ago.

Nine of those have come in the last two years, with the striker appearing in less than half of Ireland's 20 games in that time.

Of those games - four under former boss Stephen Kenny, two with interim John O'Shea at the helm and three with Heimir Hallgrimsson in the role - Parrott has only started two matches and played a total of 263 minutes.

He produced a superb first-time finish to beat goalkeeper Adam Varga at his near post in the 90th minute on Thursday and then his clever stepover allowed Sven Mijnans to pull another goal back after the Hungarians looked home and hosed.

Keane compared Parrott's creation of that injury-time strike for Mijnans to the type of link-up he and Dimitar Berbatov enjoyed to devastating effect for Tottenham Hotspur.

"I'm obviously delighted so see what he's doing."

"You can see that he's thriving in that team, even with the third goal," Keane continued. "The cleverness of the little stepover... it reminded me of myself and Berbatov, actually, the little stepover, leaving it, so he's getting better and better.

"I told him that after the game and before the game. Listen, I'm obviously delighted so see what he's doing.

"I spoke to him before the game, on the pitch. I always go out to the pitch to have a look around and he was there and he came up and we had a good chat for 10 minutes.

"I seen him briefly after the game. I told him great finish, which it was. I thought he was good when he came on. His goal was an incredible finish. He looked sharp. He did say he was having some problems with playing twice a week because of the niggle that he has, which I was happy about."

Keane added: "I can't say I was delighted he scored because I don't want him to score against my team but I'm glad we won and he did score. If he scored and we lost, I'd be absolutely raging. He's doing very well."

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