Former Crystal Palace chief blames Pearce for ex-Chelsea star Moses switching allegiance to Nigeria

Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has insisted that the English Football Association should have dome more to keep Victor Moses and has blamed former England U21 boss Stuart Pearce for the winger switching his allegiance to the Super Eagles.

Born in Nigeria, Moses won the top scorer award at the 2007 U17 EURO with three goals and scored the same number of goals at the 2007 FIFA U17 World Cup won by Nigeria.

He also earned caps for the Young Lions at U16, U19 and U21 levels before committing his international future to Nigeria in 2011.

England's loss is Nigeria's gain with Moses playing a key role for the Super Eagles in their 2013 Africa Cup of Nations triumph and he represented the country in the 2014 and 2018 World Cups.

The Crystal Palace academy product has a glittering CV, playing for high profile teams such as Chelsea, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Fenerbahce and Spartak Moscow after opting for Nigeria, and is a Premier League and Europa League winner.

"Victor Moses chose to leave the England setup after being quite pivotal in some of the achievements of the lower level age groups," Jordan said on talkSPORT.

"And when it came to the full setup, I was very cross with Stuart Pearce at the time because I felt he didn't do enough to keep somebody in the fold and rather then develop these players to have them playing for their countries they got ostracized to a point they felt the necessity to play for another country.

"Now of course you can say that might have been the end product of a series of scenarios that was gong to end up that way but there's no doubt I'm not sure Danny's right about the abundance of talent we had at wide left in England.

"Sterling wasn't there in 2013, there wasn't an embarrassment of riches on that side. Victor Moses was playing there, he was overlooked by England."

Moses has conditionally reversed his decision to retire from international football and has made himself available for selection ahead of the start of the 2023 AFCON qualifiers and 2022 World Cup in Qatar if Nigeria qualify.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel