James McClean

Because he won POTY for Stoke, so for the next few weeks we have to not only be happy for his achievement, but also pretend that he has the flawless footballing ability of Ronaldo. Any suggestion that he may have weaknesses in his game is akin to drop-kicking Mother Theresa herself.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuu

Therein lies the problem, a wingers job is primarily to be an attacking threat, create and perhaps even dazzle not be best known for putting a tackle in.

Some absolutely majestic tackles there - but some of them are borderline criminal! No one will ever doubt his passion but one of the problems with McClean has always been that he plays so close to the edge that he's a red card waiting to happen. 

If he was of the west Brit type he probably wouldn't be playing for Ireland and would get little or no support from those on here.

I remember watching a fan-made video of James McClean "losing possession" an inordinate amount of times in a match towards the end of the last campaign. Can't find it now, but it was complete and utter clickbait. The stuff they were counting as "lost possession" was literally making me laugh in how vindictive it was. Little of it was the simple pass gone wayward and poor touch that you would expect from such an assertively titled video; much of it was stuff like a ball being thundered out of play with a poor pass and McClean desperately trying, and failing, to keep it in. Similar hit pieces could be made on several players but he's just an easy target for some people's ire.

He should be dropped IMO but some people go overboard with the criticism. There are problems all over the pitch and in the management of the players. It's not all on McClean's shoulders. I simply think he has the kind of attitude where getting dropped will have the desired impact whereas it would affect others in a different, more negative, way.

Is Stephen Hunt an anglophile? There was me thinking he couldn't become more dislikeable.