English players Dual Nationality thread #2

Why was the original dual thread locked?

 

No shit.

 

To be fair, I think you get a hard time on here. You make some really valid points and you're a passionate Englishman.....that's what I thought this forum was for in all fairness.

 

I'm not sure. We're all passionate Englishman whereas I believe @roverman is more irrational about the topic as the same point is made over and over again. We are in England we're our sports teams have benefitted massively due to immigration, but a consequence is that 90% of players that come through are going to qualify for another one country one way or another. There aren't many people in this country who have four grandparents with pure Anglo Saxon blood. There is a chance there may be some Welsh or one of them any other countries in their somewhere.

So we shouldn't need to have discussion every time an academy kid starts playing in the PL when they're represented England through all the age groups, just because East Timor are interested in him. Of course the 'other' country they are eligible for going to make enquiries that's just common sense but it's not worth of of discussion imo.

I'm not the gatekeeper but surely this thread should be about your Rices, Grealishs, Musialas, Chos, Nmechas; talented players that have actually moved between countries or are actually in the papers themselves as deciding between who they want to represent.

Worrying about every single dual national is pointless imo. As soon as Tanganga has about 3 more starts, no doubt Zambia will enquire about him, then suddenly we're having to discuss whether he might be swayed by Zambia when it's clearly a non-issue.

You might as well just have a sticky post in this thread that says 'It annoys me that smaller nation are taking our players when they've been trained here, get your own players'

This thread is just people being anxious about players deciding to represent another nation when in reality they would only do that if they deem their chances of playing for England as near 0, and in that case would we even care.

If as our talent pool grows, we start losing actually talented players in their prime to other countries as they don't want to stick around waiting for England surely a more interesting topic would be, why France manages to keep 4 first 11s of talented players whereas ours aren't happen to wait around. IF that ever happens.

 

France have a crazy amount of talent and have lost some top players to other nations. Koulibaly, Aubameyang and Mahrez are the highest profile playing at the moment.

 

I think their League helps, it’s kind of at that sweet spot in quality for developing young players..

 

I didn't even know that. We haven't lost anyone near that level of talent and if that happened I would be pissed.

So just reading up on the Aubameyang case he transferred because his father captained Gabon. And these are the ones I think are definitely worthy of discussion for various reasons.

EDIT - Also I'm aware the long post I made has some horrible spelling, grammar and general mistakes but I can't go back to edit it, so apologies

 

Zaha is probably the best player we’ve lost. We will lose some really talented players in the next decade or so I think. With so many dual nationals and the higher volume of talent coming through its inevitable. I still think Ampadu could become a top player.

 

I don't miss Zaha at all. He seemed to have a bad attitude, and does not perform at an elite level in my opinion.

 

Agree but he is probably the only one where I think IF he were still eligible we might have him in our squad?

But hopefully there will be a point where more of these situaitons crop up as it inevitably means the best academy players come through.

@roverman as much as you may let your passion run, looking back when you posted about Lamptey I think that's an interesting situation. Not him specifically going to Ghana now, but at RB we have sooo many options, if we are to see any player decide to switch nation and grow tired of hanging around it will be there surely. So that might be worth keeping an eye on.

Lamptey, KWP, Aarons, Bogle are all players where in 2/3 years time, will maybe give us an idea of how much they want to play international football and what risk we're actually under. Ghana and Nigeria are definitely more of a threat than the Caribbean in that respect. Especially when you consider Aina moved over but then was he a loss? Doubt it, I believe he had the potential to be if he came through at Chelsea but as he didn't, he's not really

 

So you keep saying.

 

I was just thinking about this, since the Lamptey story is getting some attention and several of those RB options are Jamaica-eligible too.

I like my team, but Jamaica hasn't been to a World Cup in a generation, and went just once. After 2026 expansion there's a shot to qualify more regularly, but that's the future, not the present. The best tournament we can be considered regulars at is the Gold Cup, which is probably the second least well regarded confederation championship on Earth (it's more appealing than what Oceania has and that's all). We have a 40-50 solid professional players, but only 3 or 4 of those could credibly compete at the level Lamptey, Aarons, James, etc do.

All of this is to say we're not a credible threat to steal the young JA eligible star fullbacks England has. With WC expansion in 2026 this possibly changes if we're suddenly offering a likely seat on the plane to the USA for WC 2026 or in 2030 to [insert whoever hosts that WC], but not likely before then.

Ghana is a very different story.

This is a good national side. They've had a down cycle and are obviously not England, but the history is credible. Ghana has been to 3 of the last 4 World Cups, escaping the group on 2 of those trips. WC expansion will just make these trips more common with Africa getting 9 spots (as opposed to the current 5). They've risen as high as 14th in the World and, averaging things out over the last 20 years, can reasonably expect to be a consistent top 30 (or so) level team.

The African Cup of Nations is a much bigger deal than the Gold Cup and a legitimately big stage to play on - Ghana has missed that tournament just once since 1992. And Ghana has a few quality players, at least a couple dozen guys who could play at Lamptey's level.

Also:

Is he giving that up? He's maybe giving up the chance, but that's far from certainty.

As already noted, England has an embarrassment of riches at FB. Lots of quality young players and a couple of solid veterans who still compete at a very high level. At RB, you could credibly argue that Lamptey is maybe 8th or 9th in line (I'm just going by transfermarket value there, obviously not a perfect proxy but the point is there's a lot of competition). He's only 19, he can wait and see if that changes and he's Alexander-Arnold-tier in 2-3 years, but it is what it is right now. He's definitely not guaranteed anything.

He's a starter tomorrow at RB for Ghana though. And, as I said above, that's not a horrible place to be. A 10-15 year international career with Ghana is probably 2-3 World Cup appearances and 6-7 Cup of Nations berths - that's real exposure to high level international football in legitimate competitions, nothing at all to sneeze at. It's a great plan B.

Of course, going to 2 or 3 Euros and the same number of WCs with England would be better. But it's far less certain. Knowing this, how long will he wait? Probably another 2 years, at least. The new eligibility rule means he can accept 2 or 3 caps before age 21, so there's little incentive for him not to keep that option open until he reaches that age. If Southgate calls between now and 2022 he should accept and try it out, it doesn't close any doors. But is he going to want to close that Ghana door firmly later on? I think he'll need more certainty of his England future before he does. And maybe he'll develop so well over the next couple of years that he'll be threatening Trent and secure that certainty, maybe he wont.

All I know is that when your Plan B offers that level of certainty AND quality at once, sacrificing it for a much less certain (but higher quality if realized) Plan A is understandably tougher.

We also don't know anything about his personal connection to Ghana. If that's very strong (and for some children of immigrants, it is), that's another concern for England. The weaker this personal connection is, the easier it will be for Southgate to fend Ghana off with fewer guarantees.

This will be interesting to watch.

 

I agree with what people are saying about our riches at RB but if I was Southgate, he would be my wildcard pick for the next squad announcement.
You have to think who he's up against. If we take taa out of the situation, all of our RBS are currently not performing to their usual level. AWB isn't exactly setting the world alight at the moment as United are playing average. James is playing well but in a team that cant buy a clean sheet at the moment. Then you have lamptey, currently a shining light in a Brighton team that's punching well above their weight at the moment with some pretty average players.
He's received lots of plaudits and rightly so. He's been like a whippit at RB and can play wing back which is something Southgate likes. I'd say chuck him in. Southgate always likes a punt with young players.

 

If we're going to lose a quality player in the near future then right back is very likely to be the position where it happens.