English players Dual Nationality thread

I personally think cap tying them too early is poor form, and not in the interests of the players at all

 

Just an idle thought, but I wonder whether Jamaica will be back in touch with Ravel Morrison now that he's based in the region where most of their fixtures are played.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was in part the reason he moved out there.

 

And on this subject:

England rue missing out on Ben Woodburn - Wales' new goalscoring wonderkid https://t.co/cyDLXuKPKe

— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) September 3, 2017

 

Ola Aina on the bench for Nigeria.

 

I don't really buy that whole 'he always considered himself welsh' line. It seems pretty far fetched that someone would perceive their national identity primarily on the basis of where one of their grandparents was born, it just doesn't work that way (and I say that as a person with a scottish grandfather) Nobody is that devoted to their granny.
Also Woodburn did accept a call-up initially to the England under-16 squad before withdrawing (the same match Cole Da Silva played for us) so he can't have been that flabbergasted by it all. He had joined england squad meet ups, as had Tyler Roberts, Dasilva and others before then and the FA wait for a written acceptance of a call up before naming their squads (as happened with Jack Grealish once before he changed his mind) so I think there's a lot of guesswork in that article.
The FA got away with not having an under-16's before without losing out too much but I guess they couldn't have foreseen a sudden glut of young players coming through in one age group that happened to have a welsh grandparent as happened in the '99/'00 squad and now we're paying for it.

 

Well, more than anything maybe it's a wake up call to the FA that they maybe need to do more at a younger age to convince Dual players to be more committed to England. To be fair though I'm not sure how much effort goes into this but they are obviously aware that the Welsh start there recruitment of English Born players at 12 years old so they have to try somehow to counter this, maybe start there own training camps at this age even though it seems very early and don't necessarily like it.

 

Regional camps should be the next step.

 

No Ampadu cap this month then. Looks like a foregone conclusion but we haven't officially lost him yet.

 

Nothing really new but just saw it and thought I'd better post it anyway:

Nigeria are trying poach Tammy Abraham, interesting BBC piece, that would be terrible news for England: https://t.co/z3pSg43tZl

— Nizaar Kinsella (@NizaarKinsella) September 7, 2017

 

I'm starting to think we should just call him up next month and put this one to bed. He's highly likely to be an important part of our future, and it's not as if he isn't starting to make a case for selection anyway.

 

They'll have been offering him call ups for the last year or so. I don't want us to start pissing around with call ups just to cap tie people. We should be aggressive at getting players into the system, and even more importantly letting them know they're wanted, but not like this. As long as he's an U21, he'll be fine i'm sure.

It's situations like Zaha, Iwobi + Aina that i'm more concerned about.

 

I kind of feel the same to be honest, especially maybe for the Lithuania game even though like @JRSG says, I wouldn't be totally comfortable with it but that Pinnick bloke seems very cocky about it

"So when they talk about him, I just laugh because I know what to do."

Would like to get him tied down just to shut him up.

 

To be clear, I'm not talking about pulling an Ampadu, but when we have someone who's on the verge of getting in on merit, it may not be so unreasonable to let the possibility of losing him tip the scales.

Needless to say I don't know whether there's a real threat of Abraham defecting or whether Pinnick's just talking out of his arse.

 

Nigeria just want to boost their playing pool..
cynically calling players up to cap tie them...
If Southgate has any brains ( which is debatable ) he will cap tie Abraham .

 

I would actually doubt Southgate or the FA would call him up anyway just to cap tie him down as I really don't think that's something they believe in otherwise surely they would have done it to Zaha when they had the chance as they must have known The Ivory Coast were constantly sniffing around him. Will be interesting though as if he is scoring on a regular basis, he would deserve it, plus it's not like he's really weakening the U21's as there is plenty of good strikers to fill in.

 

But surely if he wants to play for Nigeria, then he'd reject the call up anyway? The problem with Zaha was completely different. Southgate didn't handle him that well when he was U21 manager, he wasn't called up to the England side when he had a very good claim to be. Then he eventually chose IC.

Nigeria will have been trying to call Tammy up for 12 months now at least. They're not shy and they've had squads full of players with so much less experience than him. Tammy obviously is choosing to stay with England, so we don't have to force it with him. Calling him up just to cap tie him might even back fire.

Imagine if he's just stuck on one cap for a few years, the next dual nationals coming up might not want to be part of processes that are so cynical. Just like we complain with Wales, we don't want to start playing them games.

What we need to do is ensure people aren't allowed to fall out of the picture and feel like England aren't aware or don't care what happens to them. Zaha pretty clearly wanted to play for England, and could've committed to Ivory Coast way before, but we just completely cut him out. I do think that once a player is in the system, even if they're not being picked in squads we need to ensure they're well aware that they're still in the broad FA plans.

I've said it before, they might not start or get in every squad. But think about the depth we miss out on when Afobe, Iwobi, Aina, Akpom, Zaha, Bolasie (very different to the rest, granted) + Moses have all declared elsewhere. We can't keep everyone, some probably are really passionate about playing elsewhere, but others do just get shunned by England without any sensitivity to what might happen down the road.

Nigeria (or anyone tbh) 'stealing' our players isn't as big of a danger as some people suggest. It's us pushing them away that is.

 

He might be 50/50 now but lean towards them if we wait. What if they offer him a World Cup place and we're not ready to? That could be quite persuasive.

The point you make about leaving him on one cap is one reason why I say that we shouldn't be calling up players who aren't already on the fringes of merited consideration, but I think Abraham is a matter of months away from a call-up anyway if he keeps scoring - he isn't going to stay on a single cap unless his career collapses entirely. Next month is our last chance to tie him down before the World Cup.

Since you mention Wales, I think it's worth pointing out that they've left Harry Wilson on a single cap for four years now, and nobody seems to have been put off at all.

 

Ive always thought the FA have not done enough to look after all our players and still make them feel a part of the set up even though they might not be in the chosen squad at the time. I think there has been many examples over the years and it's almost as if the FA have this arrogance that every player should feel like it's an absolute honour to represent England like it's Godly or something where as other Nations like Wales for instance who do seem to look after the players, say the right things etc to keep them in the set up. In my opinion, the FA really need a dedicated team to be actively corresponding with our players to make them feel like belonging to 'Team England'. Maybe this already happens, I don't know but a big part of me doubts it due to past examples of negligence towards players.

 

Engalnd wanted to cap tie Zaha but Zaha himself didn't want it, he only played in those friendlies when the FA assured him he wouldn't be cap tied by them. That whole story was published in the papers around the time he made his Ivory Coast debut.

The crux of it is if a player doesn't want to commit you can't pull the wool over their eyes and cap tie them, if they are committed you don't need to rush them though - just keep showing them the pathway is there and make the ends worth the wait.

 

This is exactly it. Take someone like Tosin Adarabioyo. He hasn't been in an England squad since 2015. If for whatever reason, he ends up getting a break and playing some games for City this year, have England built up any goodwill?

 

Don't believe that at all, Zaha wanted to play for England and was committed to us fully, it was his perceived mistreatment of not getting into future squads after his debut against Sweden that swayed him to Ivory Coast. Hodgson and the fa showed incompetence at not cap tying Zaha when he's was good enough to get in the squad. If Southgate had any thought for the future he would call up Abraham and Loftus-cheek and cap them against Lithuania. They're not kids like Woodburn and Ampadu so they should know who they want represent and realistically are not that far off a call up anyway.

 

I was just looking at Mail online on the article with regard to Nigeria trying to persuade Abraham to join and had a look at the comments section. Some absolutely amazing comments there, truly mind blowing. Here is one I picked out but basically all Nigerians think the same and the amount of green arrows amazes me.


Obiayo Anthony Jr., Enugu, Nigeria, 2 hours ago

England stealing Nigerian players since Adam and Eve. Ugbo,Solanke,Agbolanhor,Delle Alli etc. I know what their names mean in our language...does any English man know? Stick to players with English descent only. England stole him from us...we're here to take him back

Us stealing players that are born and raised in England is just amazing! Lol.

 

The Welsh story on Woodburn.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/compelling-inside-story-how-wales-13591497

To be honest I've never been one to get angry with them. The Nigerians/Ghanaians are certainly far more agressive in approach outside of selection.

 

That's not what happened with Zaha. It was the way the U21s handled him in the 2015 qualification that pushed him away.