The Newcastle 4

[Gordopolis]

6 minutes ago, JS_FFC said:

He might get in the England team at left back though. Luke Shaw and Ben Chilwell are both permanent sick notes.

Good luck to the lad, and his massive sliders.

Much rather he followed his heart than had a head f**k international career like James McCarthy.

 

 

[JS_FFC]

9 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

Good luck to the lad, and his massive sliders.

Much rather he followed his heart than had a head f**k international career like James McCarthy.

 

 

 

We've become a victim that these Newcastle guys are mostly too good to choose Scotland. Let's face it, if anyone "feels" equally Scottish and English and is good enough to play for either, they'll choose to try and win international tournaments for England rather than play for us who are just trying to qualify and *maybe* try and make the first knockout stage.

 

McTominay was a bit of a different case because he chose to play for us solely based on his national identity reasons, but with Adams and Gunn we basically got them because they weren't quite good enough to play for England. Unfortunately, it seems like three of the Newcastle four (Gordon, Livramento and Anderson) ARE good enough to play for England and so are Quansah and Archie Gray. Don't know much about the lad Hackney. He's in the England setup at the moment but has played for our 21's as recently as 2 years ago.

 

Harvey Barnes is the one I think probably faces a choice between playing for Scotland or not playing internationals at all. Hackney might end up there too given he's 22 and still playing in the championship but Barnes is the guy we should be inviting along to every international break right now.

[Skyline Drifter]

8 hours ago, Chripper said:

The same goes with Livramento. He isn't jumping in front of Trent and Rico Lewis.

I'd have him in front of Alexander-Arnold NOW. Trent's a bang average defender who gets in the team for his abilities ON the ball, not his defending. We had the previous manager playing him in midfield in the summer because he doesn't rate him at all as a full back. I haven't seen enough of Rico Lewis playing full back to know where he stands relative to him. He's probably behind a fit Reece James though. If such a thing properly exists anyway.

8 hours ago, JS_FFC said:

We've become a victim that these Newcastle guys are mostly too good to choose Scotland. Let's face it, if anyone "feels" equally Scottish and English and is good enough to play for either, they'll choose to try and win international tournaments for England rather than play for us who are just trying to qualify and *maybe* try and make the first knockout stage.

McTominay was a bit of a different case because he chose to play for us solely based on his national identity reasons, but with Adams and Gunn we basically got them because they weren't quite good enough to play for England. Unfortunately, it seems like three of the Newcastle four (Gordon, Livramento and Anderson) ARE good enough to play for England and so are Quansah and Archie Gray. Don't know much about the lad Hackney. He's in the England setup at the moment but has played for our 21's as recently as 2 years ago.

Harvey Barnes is the one I think probably faces a choice between playing for Scotland or not playing internationals at all. Hackney might end up there too given he's 22 and still playing in the championship but Barnes is the guy we should be inviting along to every international break right now.

Still think Anderson's got about the same chance of playing for England's full side as Harvey Barnes does. He's a bit younger but he's in a position where it's going to be difficult to get in the England set up anytime soon.

Otherwise don't disagree with you. Gunn and Gray have stronger links to Scotland than all the others mentioned due to their fathers playing for Scotland but at the end of the day, if they 'feel' English and want to play for them then they will. Gunn came back to us because he clearly wasn't getting in for England. If Gray's career stalls he may well eventually do the same.

[Michael W]

The harsh reality is that many of players mentioned here have fairly weak links to Scotland. They were born in England, have lived all their lives. When you're down to the grandparents, the links to the country are often into the tenuous range. 

 

To reverse this a bit, take Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, who were both in the Ireland set up before deciding to play for England. They were in the Ireland team primarily because they weren't deemed good enough for England at the time. That's the harsh reality we face here - we are second choice, unless the player really wants to play for us. If there is the possibility if an England call up, the player will wait it out.