Tom Cannon

Cannon not in the England under 21 squad as expected so that saga rolls on for another few weeks towards its inevitable conclusion. Interesting looking at their squad though, they look very weak at centre forward at this age group. It's basically just Liam Delap and Dane Scarlett, who has done nothing to date to suggest that he's going to go on to play at a high level. There aren't any strikers from that age group fast tracked into the seniors either. You can see why they would want Cannon on that basis.

Within the same age group (2002 or later) Ireland would have Parrott (2002), Armstrong (2003), Emakhu (2003) and obviously Ferguson (2004). There's probably more competition for Cannon in that Irish group than there is in the English group, albeit Ferguson obviously isn't going to be with the 21s.

Also notable that while Cannon isn't there (yet) they do have a couple of other recent poaches in their squads. Hayden Hackney has been poached from the Scotland underage setup and Omari Kellyman has been poached from Northern Ireland into one of their other underage squads. So they're clearly continuing to be very active in recruiting dual eligible players away from other countries.

Fair point.

So he’s Irish after all.

Cannon has a stress fracture in his back and it's being described as a long term injury by Leicester. His international ambitions will have to wait now it seems.