Martin O'Neill says he couldn't have done anything more to try to convince Declan Rice and Jack Grealish to commit fully to the Republic of Ireland when he was manager.
Both players infamously switched international allegiances to England, where the two of them were born, after representing Ireland at youth level, with Rice also playing in three friendlies for the senior team under O'Neill.
The former Northern Ireland international had numerous meetings with the two players and their families while Ireland boss, but ultimately they both opted to switch to England and are now preparing for a World Cup quarter-final clash with France on Saturday.
READ MORE: Declan Rice misses England training as Gareth Southgate given World Cup 2022 worry
When asked if he accepts any criticism for not being able to get Rice and Grealish to fully commit to the Boys in Green, O'Neill told Jim White and Simon Jordan on Talksport: "You can't coerce players into becoming international players. I played Declan Rice three times in three friendly games. He was only a young kid, he played in three friendly games at senior level. He was terrific in the games.
"It's as simple as this - Declan Rice wanted to play for England. Do you think that Declan Rice now at this minute going to play in the quarter-finals of the World Cup, do you think that he's regretting making the decision that he wanted to play [for England]?
"He's born in England. It's really as simple as this, you cannot coerce people, you cannot just bring them into an international game, I'm talking about a competitive game where the minute that he plays in a competitive match for the country that's them announcing that they're going to play for them.
"That was never going to be the case. You can't deceive people into playing in these games. You cannot force people into doing that.
"Jack Grealish was exactly the same. Jack Grealish was in my early stages of international management. I go to see Jack Grealish, I go to see his dad. Jack Grealish was born in England and Jack Grealish did play some underage football for the Republic of Ireland, which he loved doing, but eventually when you have to make a decision, that decision was made by Jack Grealish and his father. His father is also English.
"You might go back to heritage as well, but that's what they wanted to do and I'm not going to disavow them of that."
O'Neill also stated that he would never have tried to force either Grealish or Rice to play in a competitive international game that would have meant they could not switch from Ireland to England, claiming it would have been "wrong" to do so.
He added: "I would never have done it. I couldn't possibly do that because number one that would be wrong for a start and secondly it's not as if they don't know the rules. The players know the rules and the players' dads know the rules. It couldn't be more simple so this idea of taking criticism for not coercing two players who are now playing for England... Jack Grealish has become a £100million player at the end of the day."
But Jordan asked if O'Neill could have convinced the players to commit to Ireland rather than coerced them, to which the former Celtic boss replied: "I don't think it would be a very difficult answer to convince someone who is going to play [for England], first of all he is going to commercially do much, much better. Take that into consideration.
"If you're going to be playing for England, the chances are your commercial value will be greater than it would be playing for the Republic of Ireland.
"Number two, the most important thing, I was in Jack Grealish and his dad's company a number of times trying to convince at a stage where England might have been a distance away and I was in the house with Declan Rice and his dad and Declan Rice's father and his mother are simply lovely people, genuinely lovely people, but they made their minds up."
Recalling conversations he had with Rice, O'Neill said: "Declan was just trying to break into the West Ham team under Manuel Pellegrini. He played in the opening game of a particular season and then he left him out. I remember saying to Declan 'Pellegrini does not know your strengths and weaknesses at this minute, you will break through in that team, you will be a player'.
"But for all the nice talk you have, Declan Rice still wanted to play for England.
"We'll use the word convincing rather than coercing. I had the inability to convince Declan Rice to play for the Republic of Ireland. Has Declan Rice regretted that decision?
"The fact is that he did play three international games for us so I can't do much more."
He added: "Let's put it this way. When I'm in the process of trying to convince him to stay with the Republic of Ireland, at the same time Gareth Southgate is speaking to him so there's a fairly decent chance when you're manager of England and saying 'I'm not promising you anything Declan but you have a chance of playing for us and a really decent chance if you keep making the progress you're making'.
"If Gareth Southgate had of turned around and said 'you haven't got a prayer of being in this side for the next five or six years' then there might have been a different chat, a different conversation, but that was not the case."
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