Jack Grealish set to “turn his back on the Republic of Ireland” according to reports in the UK

We should never have gotten our hopes up... Nothing good ever happens when we get our hopes up.

The international future of a certain Jack Grealish has been one of the hottest topics of conversation in both the Ireland and England camps as the Aston Villa winger strung both countries along for well over a year now. Intimations of bad news for Irish fans emerged yesterday when the player's agent compared Grealish's situation to the one once faced by Gareth Bale and, in the latter case, the player's country of birth won out. And Grealish's decision has already been made according to reports in the Independent. The English newspaper report that the 20 year old is "set to turn his back on Republic of Ireland and choose England."

"The Aston Villa midfielder Jack Grealish is set to choose England as his senior international side before the final round of Euro 2016 qualifiers against Estonia and Lithuania next month."

Grealish has represented Ireland at underage level on a number of occasions but that seems to be very much that in terms of any hope of seeing him in the green jersey on the senior stage. It's unlikely that the youngster, born in Solihull, will be able to break into Roy Hodgson's Euro 2016 squad but after that tournament, it looks like it will be in Wembley, not the Aviva, that Grealish will learn his trade at international level.