CHRISTIAN’S COMMENTS WERE JUST APPALLING..
DECLAN RICE has been warned not to make the same ‘mistake’ as Jack Grealish – as he will only live to regret it.
Tony Galvin is adamant that Rice is a Republic of Ireland captain in the making if he sticks with the Boys in Green.
The London-born teenager remains torn between declaring for
Ireland – having won three caps – or side with
Gareth Southgate’s World
Cup semi-finalists.
And new Irish boss Mick Mccarthy will ramp up efforts to persuade him to stay put when he meets him for talks later this month.
Euro 88 star Galvin is also English-born but feels he made the best decision of his career by going green through his Limerick links.
He won 29 caps in the 1980s and said yesterday: “I’ve a couple of friends who are season ticket CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN has been cut down to size by a Tottenham legend.
Denmark star Eriksen delivered a withering assessment of the Republic of Ireland in last week’s 0-0 Nations League draw in Aarhus.
In what proved to be Martin
O’neill’s last game in charge,
Eriksen claimed
Ireland ‘were holders at West Ham. I’ve said to them that Rice could be making the biggest mistake of his life.
“He could be thinking there’s an England cap around the corner.
“I’m saying no, do it (play for Ireland) because it will make you a better player, it will increase your value playing international football.
“And you could be looking at the making of a future captain of the team. If he plays for the Republic, he’s going to be playing for 10 years.
“The one playing for Aston Villa (Grealish, inset) has made a massive mistake.”
Galvin loved every minute of his own international career with Ireland – even if he had to ship abuse from time to time.
Not least at the Euro 88 finals in Germany, when Ireland beat England 1-0 in Stuttgart and winger Galvin could hear the abuse raining down.
But that hostility wasn’t only scared to go forward’ and suggested that was always the case.
But Tony Galvin, the ex-irish international and two-time FA Cup winner with Tottenham, confined to the terraces.
Galvin explained: “Being English I got a lot of abuse like ‘you’re a traitor’. You hear things when you’re on the wing, you do.
“Chris Waddle (once his Tottenham team-mate) was on that England side and when we lined up, Chrissie just looked at me and laughed.
“He was saying ‘what the f*** are you doing there?’ and ‘we’re going to beat you’. There was that superiority off them towards us.
“Jack Charlton played on the fact that we were very much underdogs. He said ‘lads, we’ve got nothing to lose here… but woe betide if you f*** it up’.
“We were international footballers, the same as other teams but sometimes they’d take the p*** out of us.
“The English had a superiority about them. They used to look down on us. But they were shocked because we played some good football and were a good team.” responded: “What
Eriksen (above) said about the Irish team was appalling, disgraceful.
“I was shocked that somebody like him – who I’ve massive respect for, a great player – should come out and criticise the Irish.
“I think he actually said, ‘they always play like that’. No they don’t. When Ireland went to Denmark (in the World Cup playoff) they played well.
“They could have nicked that game and I think when they played at home they weren’t particularly negative… they just got f ****** hammered.”
To celebrate Dublin’s hosting of the Euro 2020 qualifying draw tomorrow, former Ireland stars Kevin Sheedy and Tony Galvin (left) helped the FAI launch the National Football Exhibition yesterday