English players Dual Nationality thread #2

He's had a quiet start to the season.

 

I’m glad that fixture against Ireland is over now and the whole media circus that comes with dual nationality etc.

I’ve never seen a race of people that infuriate me more on dual nationality issues, they really don’t let it drop over rice and Grealish. They seem to forget they’ve benefited greatly from the granny rule over the years but apparently that’s different when it benefits them.

 

There was an English born Irish international on Irish TV trying to convince the audience he’s Irish while complaining about an English lad trying to convince them he was Irish 7 years ago, you couldn’t really make it up. They can feel aggrieved (but if it’s anything more than pantomime it’s a little strange) but it’s all pretty comical when they are playing guys like Szmodics and McAteer.

 

There's quite a handy analogy for the Rice/Grealish situation. It's the same as if we'd convinced the Irish born and half English Evan Ferguson to play for us at youth level, then he decided to play for the country of his birth and father's family as he got older.

Would we be justified in having a big ol cry about it for the rest of time? I wouldn't have thought so.

 

Gary Breen, you can find the clips on Twitter or YouTube, he’s not quite as extreme as Kilbane on the subject fortunately!

 

That's a perfect analogy for the Grealish case, but their argument with Rice is that he played for their senior team, kissed the badge when playing for the youth team, made a few anti-England insta comments etc etc. The stupidity of their stance on Rice is that he was a literal child when he was doing those things. They're trying to crucify him for what are essentially playful things that he did as a carefree, unthoughtful teenager. It's so, so weird.

 

I know it’s old ground but Rice was recruited into the Irish setup at a very young age shortly after being released by Chelsea, he probably had doubts of making as a pro in his formative years with the Ireland youth team (and he wasn’t good enough or in demand to switch to England). You’d imagine there’s a lot of Anti-English sentiment in the Irish dressing rooms, so it’s no surprise he joined in, too fit in (we’ve probably all seen this happen to youngster it slightly different contexts).

 

I've seen more anti English stuff in Irish tv media in last few years.Away I can't imgine pictures of Musiala with snakes under it next time England play Germany.

 

It took a lot of balls to do what Rice did by switching. He could have just carried on playing for Ireland got himself a 100 caps and become one of their best players in their history.

 

It's just sour grapes dressed up as righteous indignation. Do Ireland fans really imagine that Rice didn't have the Irish camp in his ear for years saying "just spend a bit more time with the squad and see how you feel, no big thing, you don't have to make a decision yet"? Do they think nobody there was aware that he was still undecided when they picked him for the three senior friendlies, or that they didn't all know that it wouldn't tie him down? They knew full well.

Honestly, if you can't handle having the odd player jump ship at the point where they're forced into a decision, maybe you shouldn't lean quite so hard on people with more obvious ties to other countries. Most national sides play that game to an extent, but if you do that then you can't really kick off because it doesn't always work.

 

In more interesting news, Sunderland's Finn Geragusian made his Armenia U19 debut the other day, scored too.

 

Angus Gunn is not popular with the Scottish fans it seems.

What’s crazy is Scotland had to CONVINCE Angus Gunn to pledge his allegiance to our national team.

Who on earth did he think he’d play for, if not Scotland?!

— Adam Kennedy (@adamtkendo) September 8, 2024

 

Didn’t see the game last night but presumably he had a shocker?

 

Think he was poor on one of the goals but hasn't impressed with Scotland overall.

 

Certainly more of a reluctance and pushback in selecting English born players in Scotland, always put this down to them have a decent domestic league (and knowledge of local player base) and people actually supporting those clubs rather than English ones!

On a different note, England should get Cirkin back into the U21 system, because he's miles better than any LB Ireland has, if they come calling.

 

Fascinating stat from Lee Carsley who says that “80%” of England senior and age-group players are dual-nationality.

— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) September 9, 2024

 

It looks more and more cringey these days. Because the English born players who play for Ireland as a backup option have more diluted connections with Ireland than previous generations.

Whenever you hear the likes of Kasey Mcateer and Sammie Szmodics in interviews , you can tell they have virtually no links with Ireland until somebody informed them they were eligible to switch via a international Granny rule. That's about as far as their feelings towards Ireland stretch and it's quite blatant too..

If I ever saw fans from England getting riled up (for example) because somebody born in the USA had an English granny, but didn't choose to play for England. It would be so bloody embarrassing, I would probably stop following the national team (at least until something changed).

 

What’s even more hilarious is they try and over sell their ‘irishness’ by insinuating they’ve always felt Irish and wouldn’t have considered playing for anyone else….of course you always felt Irish, that’s why you waited until you were 28 and relegated to league one before declaring