RICE READY FOR A DUAL
We took Dec from Irish, now he’ll beat them GARETH SOUTHGATE
GARETH SOUTHGATE believes that Declan Rice is showing the qualities to be a future England captain – after snubbing the Republic of Ireland.
West Ham star Rice is only 21 but already skippers the Hammers in the absence of regular leader Mark Noble.
That’s impressed Southgate who fought hard to persuade Rice he could have a big future with England even though he had already played youth and friendly games for the Republic.
Now Rice, who switched his allegiance to England in February 2019, is ready to face the Irish at Wembley on Thursday.
Southgate said: “I was looking at Declan in the tunnel at Anfield the other day when West Ham played Liverpool and you forget he is captaining his club at an incredibly young age.
“I did that at 23, 24 and even that felt young. He’s 21. It’s an incredible responsibility really.
“He’s a really mature boy with fantastic leadership qualities. I think that’s clear to every coach that works with him.
“It’s one of the reasons we felt when there was an opportunity to bring him with us for England we were so keen to do it. Not only is there the quality of player but it’s his personality and character. We are very pleased with that decision. It was worth the extra yards we put in to allow it to happen.
“The alternative would be that we’d be arrogant and think people will just want to come and play for England and that’s just not the case any more.
“I think all players want to know how they are going to be treated and what our set-up is like. Declan’s performances have been very good for us and he has already picked up some very good experiences.”
Rice’s decision went down badly with the
Republic of Ireland and their fans.
England could taunt them further by lining up two more defectors in Villa’s Jack Grealish (right) and the Everton defender Michael Keane, who also played their youth football with the Irish.
But Southgate insists that he’s not interested in the idea of ‘stockpiling’ players with dual nationality
– and will only fight for individuals who can improve England. He said: “Everybody is facing challenges with dualnationality players and we’ve always got to get the balance right of not capping them too early, just to stop them going elsewhere.
“We want to be fair so they can have a career. But I think those three boys look like they can go on and have good international careers with us.
“It’s always tough making big footbal l decisions.
“I know none of them took those calls lightly. The dif ficulty is that the current format means you can play very young in one system, then change across.
“It’s difficult to know what you want to do at such a young age and where you want to head.
“Declan, Jack and Michael reflected on that and decided to play for England. All were born in England, of course, so it’s not that we’ve asked people to come across in that nature.
“I’ve experienced the other side of that too. I played for years with Andy Townsend and Tony Cascarino at Aston Villa who had brilliant careers with the Republic of Ireland.
“I think they were pretty much London born-and-bred!
“We played Wales last month and faced
Tyler Roberts and
Ethan Ampadu who were with us as youngsters. We didn’t want to lose them.
“Now we have
Yunus Musah at
Valencia, who was with the
England youth team las t month at St
George’s Park.
“Yunus has just been called up by the USA senior side.
“So it’s happened both ways to the benefit of everybody at times down the years – and I’m sure it’ll continue.”