If Richard Keogh loses his Ireland place, all it will prove is that reputation trumps the bare facts

What separates a top bracket footballer from a second tier one? Luck?

Don't tell me it's talent. It's not. What has Jonny Evans done to deserve a better career than Richard Keogh? He got picked up by a bigger team at a younger age and he's lived off it since. It's rife in professional football. It's why men like Tom Cleverley are inexplicably trusted more to hang around top clubs for way longer than they should be and represent their national teams with a complete lack of distinction. Just because they're there. They fill this role ahead of better players who were never given the chance and, because they were never given the chance, they will never be given the chance. It's a sick, catch-22 paradigm but it's real. Someone gave these other lads a break that they went on to prove they didn't actually deserve but the status quo had long since asserted itself and the football world just went along with that. These are the top tier players and these are your second tier players. That's what we're told and that's what we accept. Even when you eventually get your chance in the top bracket, you're still not trusted. Not to break the status quo anyway. For Christ sake, look at this. BBC's chief football writer Phil McNulty is still poisoned by it. Chris Smalling, the best defender in the Premier League at present, is 'slowly but surely stepping up his claims'... claims to get into an average England team ahead of Gary Cahill and Phil bloody Jagielka. Manchester United's current player of the season is still playing catch-up in the eyes of respected sports journalists for apparently no other reason but the fact that the two international defenders were established before him, by default at the time. And, now, that's just the way it is. Keogh's not at Smalling's standards but what more does he have to do to earn his Ireland jersey? Why does he still come with an approach-with-caution warning when there are Irish defenders playing in higher divisions much more hazardous than him? What more does he have to do to stop being bound by the chains of being a second tier player? Why does Jonny Evans play for United over 100 times and Richard Keogh can only accrue 10 Ireland caps? Why do Aston Villa resurrect the career of has-beens (at the risk of being massively complimentary) like Phillippe Senderos when Richard Keogh wouldn't even be sniffed at? These are your top tier players and these are your second tier players. It happens in management, too. These are the ones you can choose from to recycle around top bracket clubs, no matter how many times they fail. Those other managers? They're exactly that: the others. Except, the Derby County defender has taken his chance when he's been reluctantly given it. He might've won player of the year trophies or team of the season spots in five of the last six years but it's only when 34-year-old John O'Shea is ruled out does Richard Keogh get a look in. He impresses against Scotland in Glasgow. He's unfazed against the world champions. He stands alongside the impressive Seamus Coleman is an otherwise disappointing night in Warsaw. Still, he's seemingly overlooked. Because that's the way it is. So O'Shea is out suspended, Keogh rules the roost in Zenica and leads a relatively leaderless country through a tricky play-off first leg and his place is not yet assured. Keogh comes in and he's pacier than Bosnia's greatest attacking threat. He's commanding the backline. He's lording the skies and he's actually nimble enough to deal with the threat of Pjanic. He does what's asked of him and he does it better than any other Irishman could even think about doing it but he's still a stop-gap. Because John O'Shea plays there, you see. Remember when he used to be good? Because some people, in their own wisdom, have deemed Ciaran Clark and Marc Wilson worthy of playing in a higher division. Because that reputation is really what decides it. What's worse is that, if Keogh was to keep his place in the national side, it will be at the expense of one of those left-sided defenders and O'Shea will be pushed to the other side of the central pair. That would still be a landmark of sorts for the Derby man who'd finally have made the cut ahead of a Premier League player - two players who we don't know why they are a grade above, they just are - but he shouldn't be accommodated. It shouldn't be like that. He should be there ahead of Clark, ahead of Wilson and there ahead of John O'Shea. He should be there as our best defender. He should be there because he's proved he's good enough to be there. He should be there on merit. And not defined by a tier that someone else has laid out. If he loses his Ireland place now, there really is no point in him playing like he is. All that will be proven is that we judge our footballers by brackets they've been thrown into. Brackets that have Glenn Whelan playing at a higher standard than Wes Hoolahan for most of our lives. We judge our footballers because of someone else's fear of taking a risk on a lower-division player. Even if they should be nowhere near those divisions. Not if some of the talent in the higher tier is anything to go by.