We reported earlier on the FA's interest in Tom Cannon, and now Ireland manager Stephen Kenny has given more details on the situation.
After a fantastic loan spell with Preston North End, there were plenty of calls for Everton player and Aintree native to be selected in past senior Ireland squads, but he had to make do with U21s appearances.
He was recently left out of Jim Crawford's latest Ireland U21s squad, which the FAI said was due to a virus the player had picked up. However, given the interest from the FA, there could be more to is absence.
Kenny has now confirmed that the England U21s are hoping to convince Cannon to represent the country of is birth, and stated that he is due to have talks with Cannon and his agent after Ireland's upcoming European Championship qualifiers.
It’s better to be honest about these things. I saw the story breaking in one of the English papers.
Tom hasn’t said anything to me about that. Now obviously he had tonsillitis and pulled out of the camp – and he had tonsillitis to be honest with you – and it sort of made it difficult selecting him (for the seniors) because he hadn’t been doing training, he hadn’t been doing the programmes that we had set.
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26 March 2023; Tom Cannon of Republic of Ireland during the Under-21 international friendly match between Republic of Ireland and Iceland at Turners Cross in Cork. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
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"He has a good attitude and is a good lad but I have spoken to his agent subsequently, before the U-21 squad was selected," added Kenny.
"His agent is Kenny Moyes, and he just said, ‘Let’s get this camp out of the way and we’ll come and meet you and have a chat’.
"He said, ‘Obviously England U-21 have made an approach’ and he just needed a bit of time to reflect and see what the situation was and wanted to speak to me after the camp, sit down and have a conversation.”
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