Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny has claimed Everton starlet Tom Cannon is reflecting on his international future after an "approach" from England.
The Three Lions have seemingly made a play for the Blues youngster, who thrived on loan at Preston North End this season, as they look to bolster their U21 ranks. Lee Carsley's side recently lost talisman Florian Balogun who pledged his allegiance to the US Men's National Team.
Cannon scored on his debut for Ireland's youngsters in March but subsequently missed a call-up to the senior squad after absence from their training camp in Bristol last month through illness. He wasn't selected for their upcoming qualifier with Greece but was expected to return to the youth ranks with Jim Crawford's squad - until the Football Association apparently looked to prise him away after a phonecall from David Moyes' brother.
"It’s better to be honest about these things," the Ireland boss said addressing the speculation surrounding Cannon.
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"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.
"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.
"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 U21 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."
Cannon is eligible for the Republic of Ireland through the grandparent rule but Kenny insists it is still early days. He added: "His U19 campaign didn’t happen. So he’s only recently been in the U21s and had a good spell.
"He’s probably done better (at Preston) than could have been expected. It’s early days. It’s sort of new information in the last while. I wasn’t aware of it before to be honest, when Kenny Moyes rang me and said that he just needed time to breathe and see what the situation was."
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