Agreed. It's the real problem here. We're going to benefit, and suffer, from players changing their allegiances under these rules, as will every country. Their current state leaves the system far too open to abuse. I'd drop the "competitive senior international" clause, leave it at "any senior international", but keep the "playing an underage competitive international for a second country ties you to that second country" clause.Originally Posted by Fixer82
Jack Grealish also
"We lost because we didn't win"- Ronaldo
They just beat Spain... in Spain.
In a glorified friendly.
Grealish is a villa fan and would have experienced 3 6th place finishes for Villa in MONs time as Villa manager. We qualified for the euros a couple of months after Grealish opted out.
Its not remotely plausible that Grealish opting out was down to the Irish management at the time
the point was that is you scratch beneath the surface I don't believe there's a whole lot of substance to Southgates Englands recent form
Maybe, maybe not. I'm just saying they impressed against Spain in what was a competitive albeit not crucial match. Spain looked complacent and if they had a rematch wouldn't get done again I'm sure. But on the night, for the first 45+ minutes anyway, England denied Spain any time or space and kept Spain well away from the penalty box. They showed signs of a clever game plan that was really well plotted and executed. Their pace upfront was scary. They were also two poor Rashford finishes away from a draw at Wembley and a win in Croatia. They were a wonder save (from Harry Kane) away from a 2-0 lead in a World Cup semi final, which I'm sure would have been enough.
They have good players coming through who don't even get into the starting XI like the Leicester left back and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. They have excelled at most underage levels in the last couple of seasons. In reality I'd say they are still at the level I thought they were at in June: too good for most second tier teams, not good enough for the best tier 1 teams. That's about where they have been for a while but Southgate certainly has put a personal stamp on this England team. The relevance for the Rice "debate" is simply that there's a lot of positivity and optimism around England right now, plenty of it justified, and that's about the polar opposite around the Irish mood.
If the potential for qualifying and doing well at tournaments in the major deal breaker then England is, and always will be, the better choice. This goes without saying. Even if we were winning matches all around us at the moment, Rice would still have the foresight to realise England is the safer long-term option.
He shouldn't pin too much faith in Southgate though. He's flavour of the month right now but things can unravel fast in that job. Roy Hodgson qualified for the Euros with a 100% record.
I don't believe that Rice views the Irish setup in a negative way, he was absolutely buzzing to be involved. It's just another lazy and desperate stick to beat O'Neill with, as if there wasn't enough justified ammunition elsewhere.
If we reference the Declan Rice situation as a case study ( all be it with hindsight to be fair) He is told straight way if he doesn't turn up for the game in Cardiff its goodbye ( remember he wasn't on fire in the league like he is now) there is 2 results possible here. 1) He says "f**k lets not balls this up and plays against Wales.
2) He says no I'm not coming and we the fans, the management set-up and the FAI know straight way he is gone and without this humiliating circus we are in now.
Is it a humiliating circus? It's clear the last is confused or he would just have made his decision public by now. I don't see what he has to gain from prolonging the "humiliating circus". I think MON has acted quite dignified throughout this.
I have no criticism of Mons handling of Rice. I just think going forward we need a different approach.
Re Rice he has prolonging the "humiliating circus" and its to secure his defection to England via two face to face meetings with the FA
Some you win, some you lose. Not a Declan Rice story, but certainly there are similarities.
http://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/footb...ocid=ientp_edu
Ahhhh. That's Caoimhin Fowler's sister. Looks like Caoimhin was semi-pro with Wollongong Wolves in Australia's second tier before moving back to a side in the Dutch second tier. His career hasn't quite taken off.
Oh please... MON calls up 64 players for every game
It's Southgate way of letting players know that they are all in his thoughts and any player from any club can get a cap. This makes all English players feel they can get a cap and thus makes it harder for us to grab one or two that we may have obtained before.
"We lost because we didn't win"- Ronaldo
Nathan Redmond perhaps another good example.
Off The Ball AM had an interesting debate the other morning about who was the last Ireland player that England would have picked i.e. since the days of Lawro, Aldo and Townsend. I found they were very biased towards their own analysts in Kevin Kilbane's and Gary Breen in saying they may have earned England caps. They used Trevor Sinclair at the 2002 World Cup as an example of someone Kilbane would have got in ahead of. Sinclair had a little more guile than Killer. I think they got a bit carried away on Breen too. Richard Shaw didn't get any England caps while playing beside Breen for Coventry.
It's a funny one when you look at the Wales squad and see Woodburn, Brooks and Ampadu who could very conceivably have earned caps for England.
That’s the FA though, they love helping little England as much as they can whereas they don’t seem to give a flying F if they screw us and Scotland over. Either Declan Rice is a far better prospect than the likes of Ampadu, Brooks, Woodburn etc or the English FA are prioritizing taking our lads.
You could say the same about us and the IFA in fairness
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