Almost a year to the day after Jack Grealish made his last appearance in green a new creative midfielder marked his arrival in style.
Earlier this month, in the same week he made his Premier League debut for West Ham, Josh Cullen marked his competitive bow for the Republic of Ireland Under 21s with a goal against Andorra.
An attacking player of potentially top-flight quality, Cullen ticks lots of the same boxes as Grealish, who has declared for England.
The 19 year old ticks one more significant box – he was born in Essex.
Could we be looking at another protracted and ultimately fruitless tug of love in a few years? We might be getting ahead of ourselves, but then again Grealish had also made a single Premier League appearance when he took the year out that led him today into the arms of Roy Hodgson.
Premier League appearances are a rare and valuable currency in Noel King’s U21 team. The only player other than Cullen to start against Andorra who is currently with a Premier League club is Tommie Hoban, but he has not played for the Hornets since they won promotion.
For the record Hoban was born in Walthamstow, East London.
Outside of this English-born duo King’s team was stocked with players from clubs such as Dagenham and Redbridge, QPR, Oxford United and Aberdeen. Is it any wonder Martin O’Neill made so many overtures to Grealish and his father? The Irish underage system is not exactly overburdened with players appearing regularly in the Premier League.
There has been very little mystery surrounding Grealish’s behaviour. He decided to take a year out from international football to concentrate on advancing at Aston Villa. In that time he established himself in Tim Sherwood’s team, played in an FA Cup final and came to the entirely reasonable decision to back himself to be good enough to play for the country of his birth.
I've been reliably informed that Jack Grealish has elected to play for England because it makes more "commercial sense" to do so. Great
— Luke Edwards (@LukeEdwardsTele) September 28, 2015
If the money-making potential of the Three Lions was a factor, so be it, he is a professional footballer.
How about those still frothing at the mouth over a 20 year old’s career choices turn their attentions to the FAI and ask why Grealish’s allegiance was so valuable.
Why were Grealish’s compatriots Cullen and Hoban the only Premier League footballers starting against Andorra? Why is Robbie Brady the only senior international under the age of 25 regularly appearing in the top flight of English football? Why is Jack Byrne’s career progress being so closely monitored?
Byrne missed the two Andorra fixtures earlier this month through injury but has been included in King’s squad for October’s qualifiers against Lithuania and Italy. On loan to Dutch side Cambuur from Manchester City, the teenager from Ballybough, Dublin, is viewed as the goose capable of laying the golden egg.
A talented, combative midfielder with an eye for goal, Byrne is a very good prospect but he is only one player. It is preposterous that a nation that qualified for three of the last seven World Cups is so invested in the progress of a single teenage player, even if he is on the books of recent Premier League champions.
Ireland’s underage systems are failing. The globalisation of the insanely wealthy Premier League is partly to blame for the ever smaller number of Irish players at the top clubs, but more has to be done on the supply end here.
The creation of an Airtricity Under-17 league to help bridge the gap between the schoolboy leagues and Under-19 level is a start, as is the opening of the FAI’s training centre at Abbotstown, but there is a long road ahead.
In recent years Ireland’s youth policy seemed to centre on poaching players from Northern Ireland, but the resurgence of Michael O’Neill’s team could soon see that avenue close.
Ireland are not producing enough international class footballers, it is a simple fact.
None of the most recently capped Irish players – Rob Elliot, Harry Arter, Cyrus Christie and David McGoldrick – were born in Ireland.
Grealish may be exceptional but he is not an exception to the rule.
Don’t be angry that he said no, be angry that there was such a desperate and valid need to ask.
