Offering the perspective of a professional footballer, Troy Parrott wished Tom Cannon the best as the 20-year-old contemplates a switch in allegiance from Ireland to England.
Parrott and Cannon played together this season as the two Irish strikers were loaned to Preston North End from their respective Premier League clubs, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton. They were joined at Deepdale by another Irish qualified centre forward in Liam Delap, who almost certainly intends to don the Three Lions crest despite his father Rory winning 11 caps for Ireland.
“It’s up to him whatever he wants to do,” said Parrott of Cannon, after the football agent Kenny Moyes informed Ireland manager Stephen Kenny that the Liverpudlian is considering an offer to join Lee Carsley’s England under-21 squad. “We would like to have him here but if it’s in his interests to go elsewhere then I wish him all the best.”
Taking all emotion out of the decision, Parrott epitomises the attitude of a pro athlete navigating a very short career; the individual must take the most lucrative path for themselves because no club, no manager and no team-mate will take care of them when the money dries up.
“He’s really quick, really, really quick and he’s a good finisher. He makes clever movements in behind and he uses the space well to be fair. I think that’s what you can expect from him,” said Parrott
That’s potentially what England are expecting from him. Cannon arrived at Preston in January, netting eight times as Parrott eased back from a hamstring injury sustained while wheeling away in celebration after scoring his first goal for Preston in October. The damage stripped three months off the Dubliner’s 10-month loan away from Spurs, where he immediately returned in May to line out for the under-21s in an effort to regain match fitness before Kenny announced the current Ireland squad.
Still only 21, Parrot has amassed 18 senior caps and scored four times in an international career that lost momentum this season as the goals dried up.
“He’s a very dedicated young player, and honest,” said Kenny this week. “I thought earlier in the season, he was playing as a lone striker, which people wouldn’t always see him as, but I thought he was doing really well in the position. He wasn’t scoring, he was missing chances, and he was frustrated with that, and he acknowledged that. We always would have felt coming and training with us and in the matches, that his finishing was very high-level.”
The rise of Evan Ferguson, however, and Adam Idah’s ability to run the channels and hold up play, squeezed Parrott out of the matchday squad that lost 1-0 to France in March.
“He had to adapt his position really at Preston this year,” Kenny continued. “When I went to see him in the last game for example they played 3-4-1-2 and he played behind the front two, which really brings you into midfield.
“That’s what he has sort of become at Preston, a player to link. He’s outside the box more often and the players he was playing with were scoring goals because he was the first point of the attack really ... I don’t want him to become that, or just that, I think he was out of the box too. I think he has the capability of scoring goals, as well as creating goals.
“If he had another loan spell this year and had a good pre-season, I think he could catch fire. It depends on what happens for him.”
Parrott refuses to give up on a breakthrough at Spurs, where he intends to catch the eye of new manager Ange Postecoglou, the Athens-born Australian who has been recruited from Celtic after securing the treble.
“I’ll go back there in pre-season and try and show him what I can do. Definitely, I want to play there, so, whatever steps I have to take to get there, I’m willing to do it.
“I support Celtic so I’ve watched quite a few of their games, he seems like a good manager, it seems like he wants to play good attacking football. We’ll see what happens.”
