English players Dual Nationality thread #2

Ok didn’t know that, thought he said he was a Scotland fan growing up. It was tricky he was a late bloomer and Scotland could offer him a guaranteed place in the team, Southgate couldn’t.

 

To be a chauvinist English league pig for a moment, the fact that McTominay and Lookman are two of the best players in Serie A is really far more of an indictment of the quality of present day Serie A than it is a loss to the England team. McTominay's stats back up he really hasn't changed much as a player, it just happens that what he's good at is particularly effective in Serie A.

 

How would the present best English left-back not be needed though because a couple of youngsters may potentially be better in the future? Robinson would still be our best bet to start at the World cup in that position, unless Shaw recovers his form and fitness to his old levels.

 

The Scotch like to paint it to be a black and white Mctominay chose Scotland over England scenario because he always felt Scottish, wanted to play for Scotland etc but the actual fact is he kept his options open for quite a while and declined a Scotland call up before eventually committing so its not a case that he was never ours to get. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41890205
As for Olise France were the first to call him up and England hadn't shown an interest despite him breaking through at Reading already , I think he was lost to us at that point.

 

I don't think he'll even necessarily be a left-back in the future. It was never his position until recently. It just a trend that that clubs often first test out youngsters at full-back .
You could also have said the same about Mainoo in England's midfield last summer but you can't easily make that case now!

 

Robinson would certainly be in England contention now, how would you have gone about ensuring he played for England? He made his US debut when playing for Wigan in the Championship, and while a good youth player not a stand out at all.

 

The second best team in Italy did just make the Champions League final though

 

I don't know how relevant that is though, I mean in any given year one team can get far in a tournament without it necessarily meaning the league or even team is particularly strong. Particularly playing how Inter played.

Seems to me Napoli probably benefited a lot from not having any European competition to play in this year, willing to admit i'm wrong if they and Mctominay tear up the Champions League next year.

 

Mctominay would have often been a controversial call up if he was still eligible. Lots of periods where he either wasn’t playing or was playing badly for Man United,

 

Brian McClair said that Southgate didn’t work as hard as McLeish to secure McTominay. He was supposed to meet him but just sent a text! We couldn’t guarantee him a call-up when he decided though, he most likely would’ve been in the 21s. Similar to Musiala we possibly could’ve been cynical and cap-tied them both.

McTominay did train with Scotland as a youth. It kind of shows how unexpected his rise has been because Scotland had a look at him in those camps and decided he wasn’t good enough for their youth teams.

 

Not arguing that we will always win every dual battle, but each is individually winnable in most cases. The point I am making is how drastically the loss of players with foreign ancestry affects our player pool.
And if you look at our big rivals who also have significant numbers of dual nationals they don't suffer this kind of hemorrhage of talent to other countries. In fact they generally make a net gain from the ancestry rules.
Italy have won Retegui and Jorginho, Spain lost Hakimi and Garnacho but gained Laporte, Le Normand and Huijsen. Germany can't think of any significant losses but got Musiala and the Nmechas to defect from us. France haven't lost anyone that would make their current squad but won Olise over us. It just seems other federations are better ans smarter at dealing with dual nationality threats...and perhaps less complacent and arrogant
That puts us at a major disadvantage over the other top countries in Europe as even if we produce the same quality and quantity of players, or better , they will still end up ahead of us due to dual nationality losses.
Of the 8 players I referred to I believe 7 would have made our latest international senior squad. That's the difference between us being winners and also-rans so it is vitally important.
I do think the FA is at last belatedly beginning to recognise this fact and address it but we've already lost a generation of players and still making missteps.

 

Each one of those countries you listed has also lost multiple players that would either make their squads now, or may well do in the future.

 

Fundamentally Southgate only wanted players who were 100% committed. He didn’t want players who were only there because it the best option on paper but without any real commitment.

There is also a possibility that if the FA did openly fastrack players they would face press and political complaints about how that was unfair on players who were not duals.

 

Muisala and Olise probably our two biggest losses, with the first one being born in Germany. Think we generally do well in keeping duals.

 

This is the classic England media mentality that even infects England managers - that the team you play for is more important than your performance levels. So if you don't play for a big name club then you don't count. Robinson was a late developer but he has really come on over the last couple of years and has consistently proven himself throughout the season and against all opposition as the best left-back in the Premier league. That in itself demonstrates he is international quality as the opponents he is up against are on much the same level as those he would encounter in international tournaments.
It does frustrate me and has for a long time that multiple caps get dished out to the likes of Cleverley and Livermore due to being with a fashionable club. James Tarkowski is another consistently high performer in the Premier league and if he was delivering those performances for Chelsea instead of Everton he would have been one of the first names on the England teamsheet for several years now.
Not that we could pick Robinson now obviously (unless legally challenging his supposed U.S eligibility) but this club thing is just a bugbear of mine. This season's chief beneficiary seems to be Curtis Jones, whose performances for Liverpool have been pretty lacklustre of late. Bowen and MGW have to really battle for their place in the squad though and fight twice as hard to prove themselves

 

to say The FA is/has been clueless about dual nationals is disingenuous and ill informed. well over a decade of effort has gone on behind the scenes to address this growing trend. even the national media has called out that >50% of those in our youth teams are eligible for other nations (going on a number of years ago as well). i'm sure that % is much higher now.

 

Jake Livermore got 90% of his caps playing for West Brom btw.

 

Chelsea wouldn't sign Tarkowski either because he's a pure defensive centre back who is quite poor on the ball. That's why he plays for teams in the bottom half of the table. Although I'm sure @Crvena Zvezda will give the FA credit for Tarkowski saying that he'll never play for Poland.