James McClean

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 horsebox wrote:

From an WBA fan on the Stoke website.

So from an Albion fans perspective he is absolutely terrible. I've seen worse players play us over the years but not many worse who played reasonably regularly in the PL for us. 

As a winger he doesn't create goals and doesn't score goals. Personally I don't think he's particularly good defensively either but as he runs around a lot and puts a shift in there can sometimes be a (false) impression he is.

In 3 seasons for us he got 4 goals, 4 assists and 23 yellow cards which suggests again he is pretty poor going forward and although has plenty of effort, isn't actually a good defender.

Someone like Dwight Gayle is an excellent Championship striker who can't quite cut it in the PL as the level is higher. I'd guess Tom Ince would be another example of this type of player. McClean is not someone who is going to dramatically improve at a lower level as the attributes he does posses (running a lot) will not be more or less effective in either league and the ones that would benefit by playing against weaker players (dribbling, scoring goals, getting in goal scoring positions) he doesn't really have.

In the Championship he won't be a complete waste of space as a squad player at best, but if he started every game for you I'd wager my house he wouldn't hit double figures for goals or assists which isn't good enough for a team that (in theory at last) should be challenging at the top and be in control of the majority of games.

With the Berahino deal you guys were unlucky to an extent. There was a player in there somewhere which you took a punt on and it hasn't worked out. With McClean the performances you have seen so far are exactly what you paid the money for.

There's an element of truth, obviously, in what he says, and we're all well aware of McCleans limitations. However, you have to factor in the fact that he was part of a squad who were relegated with little fight after a complete breakdown of team discipline. He then made comments about the players who got the club into that mess wanting to leave, and then he downed tools and agitated for a move away. And that's not to mention the annual poppy issue.

Hardly surprising, then, that this supporter is going to speak negatively of him, and this can hardly be held up as an objective assessment of McClean's playing abilities. He did well when he came back into the team towards the end of last season, coinciding with the team picking up some decent results. He cost, I think, just a few hundred grand and was playing in League One when Pulis signed him, and represented great value for the club considering.