Martin O'Neill...

ProudIrish wrote: ProudIrish wrote: tetsujin1979 wrote: ProudIrish wrote: MON pedalling his own agenda. Rice was on bench for a competitive game. Of course he would have come on  Rice was never on the bench for a competitive game. He was as far as I remember for Moldova.  Apologies he was in the squad but not on bench. Hardly accepted a call Up for 2 matches intending not to play

Given's zimmerframe wrote: Neither player decided to play for the eire and they both backed away as soon as they got close to getting stuck with us. Its obvious they were never commited.

I mean he's not wrong, is he? Grealish never intended on playing for the seniors. Any time he was asked about the step up, he was noncommittal and deliberate in his wording. He said himself the reason he went with us at underage level is because he'd be playing against older age groups, against better players, and getting more game time; if that isn't a red flag, then what is? I read an interview with one of his youth coaches at Villa who said playing for England was always his dream. He never accepted a senior call-up, so I don't understand how people act like we missed our shot. We never had one. Declan Rice would never have accepted a thirty second sub appearance in a competitive game that would tie him down forever when the man on the moon knew he was potentially good enough for England. He gladly played in senior friendly games for us because they wouldn't cap tie him, and starting against big International sides would boost his profile. He's not Josh Cullen or Conor Coventry. He's a Top 6 Premier League standard player. He never would've went with us, at least not until his career started circling the drain and he remained uncapped competitively by England.

Edited by Hotlips_Hoolahan - 08 Dec 2022 at 11:09am

HH, to say Rice ‘never would have went with us’, ignores how he came to the decision to play for England. It’s easy to forget how poor England were after 2006, and the spirit was at an all time low before Russia 2018. Also, without Southgate, players from the likes of West Ham didn’t really get a look in. 

Cabra Hoop wrote: O Neill using Rice and Grealish to pimp his book. Man has no shame.

Rice said here that he made the decision to play for England before 2018. 

MON thought we should be down on our knees thanking him for condescending to manage Ireland (or the Republic as he insisted on calling us). I don't really want English born players playing for us and then regretting the decision afterwards. 

Of all the things that can be levelled at O'Neill during his tenure, those 2 defecting back to England is bottom of the list IMO. We'd obviously love to have them in the team for their ability, but Grealish was never going to player for us. 

All happened around the time of the 5-1 Denmark game wasn't it.