Don’t expect James McClean to be leading out the Republic of Ireland while Martin O’Neill is still in charge of the national side.
That’s not to say that O’Neill doesn’t rate the West Brom winger, he’s clearly a huge fan.
But the Ireland manager had a succinct and brilliant response when presented with a question on McClean’s potential to captain the team.
“Oh, I think you’re going far too far up the road now for James as the captain of the side…he’s a lunatic!” O’Neill told Newstalk.
O’Neill went on to say that “when James is captain, I’ll be long dead.”
While McClean may not be captain material, the 27-year-old’s recent impact on the pitch has been praised by his manager, who sounds delighted with McClean’s decision to reduce his social media output which had got him in a few spots of trouble over the years.
O’Neill wasn’t even put out by McClean’s recent criticism of Derry City boss Kenny Shiels as he just so happened to also disagree with Shiels on the subject of international football.
What was Kenny Shiels thinking? https://t.co/vBuCWNNZQX
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 25, 2016
“James’ attitude has always been terrific. I think he’s taken himself off Twitter and Facebook and anything else James was on,” O’Neill said. “I’d pick up the 9 o’clock news and James was in it.
“He’s settled down a wee bit, even though he’s had the occasional argument with the Derry City manager over things. That’s fine. I happen to agree with him on that particular point.
“I think if there’s such a thing as James maturing, James has matured. I would say that very cautiously but it’s been great. His attitude has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic. But it’s always been like that. And do you know what I think it is? He’s got himself into goalscoring positions now.
“I think that James now has come to term with a few things both on and off the field and I think that his performances have brought him to a very terrific level.”
